Struggling Lately
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The main reason I started my blog was to make a little extra money on the side doing something other than the daily grind. I was really excited at first, especially after reading how well people like John Chow, Jeremy Schoemaker, and Darren Rouse make lots of money by promoting other people’s products on their websites. I thought “wouldn’t it be nice to be able to go wherever I want, and do whatever I want while getting paid to do it?” Sure, it does sound great, but it takes a lot of time, dedication, and especially discipline. I seem to lack all three necessities.
Since changing careers back to where I was two years ago, I have a lot more time to do the things I enjoy doing. At my last job, I worked retail hours and didn’t get home until 8 PM. It really put a strain on my relationship with my girlfriend as we got up at separate times and usually ate dinner at separate times. I also wanted to come home and watch a movie or play a video game, when she would want to go to bed. We now get up, have dinner, and go to bed at the same time, but I still find myself struggling to find time to keep my goal of having a profitable blog.
That would lead me to my issue with dedication.
I get great ideas to implement on my blog all the time, but I always start out strong with a few good posts right off the bat on a subject to eventually being pushed aside, because I feel like doing something else when I should be writing. I have noticed that there have been a lot more comments made by my readers, which is very uplifting. Thank you, all! Why I don’t let that bolster my confidence and write more, I do not know.
To that, I would attribute my lack of discipline.
Discipline has always been one of my weakest traits when it comes so something I should be doing to better myself. Baseball has always been one of my greatest loves in life, especially playing. I was the starting catcher for my middle school and summer baseball teams, but was shuffled out during high school. I would attribute that to politics in the school and not being known by the coaches who also coached football, which I didn’t play. Now, I realize that it wasn’t anybody’s fault but mine. Had I spent more time in the cages and taking extra drills, I might have played more.
Where my dedication and discipline really come into effect are in video games and card games. Anything that elicits an addictive behavior with a reward system hooks my attention immediately. Whether it’s purchasing a pack of cards to see if I pull one of the game-breaking cards or winning a roll for some uber phat lewt in an online game, you can say I’m pretty much going to be hooked.
I try to alleviate all of this by creating a calendar with a list of things to do everyday as well as creating posts that are structured and not too difficult to write about. Lately though, I have felt like I haven’t been getting very far with the site. I have noticed more visitors and comments, so I guess I should let that cheer me up.
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2 Comments on this post
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nutinfancy said:
I feel your pain with being “in the rut”. I can not help but be a manager. I would like to be called a “lead” technician though. I want to help and to fix. It is my passion. You can take or leave my suggestions. I don’t know enough about this type of blog to make ‘reasonable’ suggestions so I will start with the most grasp-able ones.
You need to be able to track the traffic to your site, and tie it to a trigger. if this is being done that is great spend some time with your data.
Your real goal here is to make your site into one that somebody would want to make it their ‘home page’. reward them for doing so. make your content as such so they would want to log on to see what you are doing. That requires daily attention. yeah, its work.
intermediately I would reward the Nth poster of a coherent comment the chance to post (or Pick) the next topic. That is easy and does not require any changes. Im relying on your algebra to know what the Nth poster means.
Im throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks here.
I had this revelation. The internet is nothing. Its a bunch of computers connected together. What makes it interesting is what a person can perform (record on video), create (in code) teach (how to), comment about (ideas), or make easier to access (get to).
You have to want to though. And you need a site provider that will allow you to do the thing that you dream up. You need to be the source to inspire others, and tap them for content as they are inspired.
On that. Gather a following of people (you have that already)and have them deliver to you the most interesting content they can find on the web. Just a link then you post it out for them to view.
See the biggest talking heads are not smart, they have smart people working for them. Employ your followers to give you info (hot links, new stuff, cool sites) and include them in the credits.
When have i ever got an email about changes on the Ibrianearly.com website? No, not ever. Smart phone tsunami man, ride the wave. Email blasts. Someone emailing me a link to your site about a cat puking it guts out…. now that is funny. That would make my day.
August 19th, 2010 at 8:58 pm -
Maggie Mae said:
The list is a good start, now what you need to do it is treat it not as something you “should” do but as something you “have to” do, at least until you get into the groove. If you stick with it long enough I bet you’ll start to see some of that return, which WILL motivate you to keep it up.
September 5th, 2010 at 10:23 am