I just counted.
I’ve written 838 blog posts in my life which would make it seem like there is nothing I hate about blogging.
That number is giving me an existential crisis at the moment, but that’s not the point.
(addendum added after the editing: That is exactly the point. The existential crisis was in fact the point in the end).
But First, Let Me Explain…
We have a saying around here. When someone says, “I hate…”, we say, “You don’t hate that, you hate how it makes you feel”.
Here’s an example.
I used to say,
“I hate video, I won’t do it”.
But what I really meant was, I hate that video makes me feel awkward, self-conscious, and frustrated because I’m not any good at it yet”.
Video is just video. You can’t really hate it. And saying that you hate video doesn’t give you the opportunity to grow or change.
Video is never going to bend to be something more pleasing to me, so if I want to ever not hate it, I’m going to have to be the one that does the bending.
I can find ways to feel less awkward and self conscious and I will most definitely feel less frustrated as I get better at it. (psst, having some of these blogging tips really helped me feel more confident, too).
So, that’s the angle I’m coming from when I talk about the one thing I hate about blogging.
Here’s What I Hate About Blogging
When I started blogging, 838 blog posts ago, I knew two things.
- People could make enough money blogging to quit their jobs.
- Ok, I knew one thing.
Seriously, that’s all I knew.
But I didn’t care that much, I jumped in and started a blog because there was something within me that thought, while I only knew that one thing, I could be a person who wrote a blog that made enough money for me to quit my job.
I’m weird like that. The things I feel like I’m good at, I think I am amazing enough to just wing it and the things that I don’t think I’m good at, I will pretend I hate them so that I don’t have to try to get better at them.
But, back to the story. I started a blog. I wrote and found myself very amused in my writing and started to pick up bits and pieces about how to make a living blogging as I continued to learn about blogging.
What I came to realize was that the dream that was being sold was, “Write content, promote it, and put ads on your site to earn money“. At least that was the message that was reaching me.
I knew that there was such a thing as “make a product”, but I had no interest in it and did not really give it any thought because I didn’t feel qualified to make a product.
So all of my focus was on getting pageviews and getting into a premium ad network.
Which I did.
And the ads are great.
You get a check every month in the mail and you really have almost no contact with the customer in this case. You deal with the ad network and they deal with the people buying the ad space.
It’s a dream come true if you’re an introvert who also doesn’t like to be told what to do.
But, here comes the part that I hate.
That’s a really nice comfort zone to be in. You write and maintain basic anonymity and a check comes to you every month.
You might even get enough from ad revenue that you can quit your job. It’s a lot harder to do that now and to be honest, I don’t know anyone who’s done it recently (in the last year or two) with a new blog, solely with ad revenue.
It’s the comfort zone it puts you in that is the problem.
When I learned about creating products or offers as a source of online income, I thought, I hate the idea of creating a product.
What I really meant was, that I hate the way the idea of creating an offer makes me feel.
And blogging for ad revenue allowed me to ignore creating offers and bang my head against the wall trying to create more income solely through ads.
As long as I ignored the idea of creating an offer, the longer I could stay in that comfort zone.
Because while ads meant there was virtually NO contact with a customer, creating an offer would be the opposite of that.
If you’re going to create an offer for your audience to purchase, then you need to not only get to know them, but you also need to let them get to know you, too.
And while blogging for ad revenue is pretty much free of the risk of failing, creating an offer for your audience feels like it is very risky.
You’re going to make a course or challenge or book that someone is going to give you money for. They are giving you money because you have promised to improve their life in some way.
*gulp*
Blogging for that ad money has zero expectations on you.
No one is going to say, I didn’t like that post, I’d like my money back.
Blogging for ad revenue is paying you to stay safe in your comfort zone. It’s encouraging you to not try the things you think you hate and see if maybe you can get better at them.
I’ve written 838 (839, including this one) blog posts and I never once felt anything but confident writing any of them.
That’s not a good thing.
That’s not how you grow as a human being or as a business owner.
I promise you that doing the same thing that is comfortable for you 838 times is not going to get you where you want to be.
So that’s the one thing I hate about blogging.
It can allow you to stay in your comfort zone.
So Maybe We Need a New Saying Around Here
Maybe now we need to start thinking about what we really mean when we say, “I love…”
I love writing blog posts, but what I really love is how they make me feel.
I feel completely secure writing a blog post and I never feel an ounce of risk when writing one.
Blog posts are completely my comfort zone.
So maybe it’s time I started working toward 838 of something else.
Maybe I can turn my focus to creating books because that is like blogging but a step up. People will pay for books and I can make a lot more money.
I think that’s what I’ll do with Obsidian Tavern.
