I’ve been blogging here consistently for just a little more than three years now, and it’s been an up and down journey to say the least. On one hand, I am so beyond proud of myself for the small wins and the pretty extensive blog post catalog I’ve developed (more than 300 posts!), but on the other hand, I can find myself feeling pretty discouraged that it’s been three years, and I’ve not really “made it” in the blogging world.
See, I think this is the common thought process that goes through the minds of a lot of us trying to venture out and create a personal presence online. It’s the constant hope and yearn for the big break moment, battled by the “it’s just never going to happen for me.” By it, I’m referring to this blog being a full time job for me, which is still extremely far away from being reality for me.
This leaves the question, how on earth do you stay motivated for an endeavor like this after three years of relatively little “success,” as it’s most commonly described in blogging terms.
While I can’t establish myself as a subject matter expert on “How to grow your blog overnight!” because I obviously haven’t, I can speak to and offer advice on staying motivated and consistently showing up for yourself and your blog when you’re trying to launch a blog or personal project, even when your numbers aren’t through the roof and you feel like you’re the only one not raking in the big money and ability to make this a full time gig.
Simply put, this post is about staying motivated when launching a blog or personal project.
I think we so often loose faith in ourselves when something we start isn’t an overnight success. It’s so easy to find every excuse under the sun for why you don’t have time, don’t have anything to write about, etc., especially when there’s an entire aura of “what’s the point? No one is reading what I have to say anyways” behind a new endeavor. During these times of crisis, it’s so important to lean back on things you know to be true, not what your fear and anxiety is telling you in the moment.
Please use this post as a point of encouragement and a reminder of why you should keep going and not lose faith or interest in your newly created blog or personal project. Here are the best ways I stay motivated to keep consistently showing up for myself and my blog.
How to Stay Motivated When Starting a Blog
Set goals for yourself
Knowing what you want to get out of your blogging experience is one of the most important steps. If you know what you’re working toward, it’s so much easier to wake up and find motivation each day. I think a lot of people just “start a blog.” It’s really a game changer when you brainstorm that blog, talk it through with your closest friend or family member, write down some monthly, quarterly or yearly goals for yourself.
Make sure they are measurable (instead of “have high engagement on Instagram,” make your goal to average 5% engagement on each post for example for the month of November)
I am still constantly setting goals for myself. Some of mine recently are to resign up for Amazon Associates (I started it too early and didn’t convert enough sales to keep it in the first three months), reach out to two brands to collaborate with and finish a blogging course I purchased.
Try something new
If you’ve been slowly but surely marching along with your blog and you start to feel motivation draining, I think it always helps to shake things up. What about starting a new series, researching the possibility of starting a newsletter, shake up your graphic design templates, etc.? It’s amazing how even the smallest new task can reinvigorate your motivation.
Don’t compare yourself to the big bloggers (and don’t try to copy them either)
One of the very earliest (and most impactful) mistakes I made was trying to create my presence online in the same way that many of my favorite bloggers, who already had hundreds of thousands of followers, had. My favorite bloggers did posts about every single thing on their mind that was of interest to them, so that’s what I did. They shared a lot of personal details and stories from their own lives, so that’s what I did.
I once heard a great piece of advice- you have to build an audience that cares about you, before you can start sharing things that don’t necessarily exist just help your audience. Before they care about you personally, it’s hard to care about anything but what they came to your site to learn about. The best example of this is the difference between these two posts “Why I Had Pizza at my Wedding” vs. “Tips for Having Pizza at Your Wedding.” The first one is all about me, my wedding and my decision to have pizza, but the second is focused on the reader and helping them decide to have pizza at their wedding. See the difference?
All this to say, I think it’s very easy to look at your slow growth and years of work and compare it to someone you love following who has 250K Instagram followers. You’re just not in the same point of the game, so it’s not fair to yourself to make that comparison. This is easier said than done, but getting to that realization really helped me overcome a lot of negative energy I had toward it taking so long for my blogging to take off.
Find joy in the community
When you’re first starting out, you’re not going to have dozens of comments on your blog and hundreds on your Instagram posts. That sounds like a bad thing (and overall you do want to get to that point eventually), but I always try to find the blessing in being able to easily keep up with all my DMs, all my comments, requests for links, etc.
It’s so nice to have such a small, tight knit community, so I always try to appreciate this moment to its fullest.
Come to those around you with your needs
There is almost no replacement for being able to confide in your close friend or family member about blog struggles you have. Often times, just talking through some of your pain points or excuses for dragging your feet on your blog project can be just the wake up call you need. So often I’ll be venting to my husband about something blog related, and talking through it with him helps me completely change my perspective and determine how to make the struggle into an opportunity.
Don’t give up
I promise you that great things are just around the corner. I quit blogging in 2013 because of embarrassment and a few mean things girls at my high school said to me when we were all much less mature. I think back now and wish I had kept with it then and not taken the big gap- who knows where my Instagram would be right now if I had kept slowly building the community. I might have started my website earlier, posted to Pinterest earlier, who knows.
All that to say, you never know what is waiting just around the corner. Who knows if your next month blogging will be your most successful yet? Or the next or the next? It just takes a few small, big breaks to really make a difference in your life, so please, please do not give up on yourself!
I hope those pieces of advice help you and help put you a little bit ahead. It took me years and a lot of energy to come to some of those realizations (simple as they might seem), but now that I have a grasp on them, I feel more set up for blogging success than ever.
Please always feel free to reach out to me through email, classicallygrace@gmail.com, or through my Instagram if you ever want to chat about blogging, the industry, motivation, anything.
Love this post! I need the positivity in my daily life.