In my free teleclass last week with Stanford Smith of Pushing Social, someone asked me how many hours a week I spend on writing my blog.
I said, “No way I’m telling you that!”
I spend a lot of hours on this blog. It’d be embarrassing to tell you how many.
Isn’t that weird, for a profit-focused freelance writer like me, who spends all her time teaching other writers to earn more, and not take crappy jobs?
What makes me do this crazy blog, anyway?
I thought about it over the weekend, and I realized there’s one thing all great bloggers have going for them. I believe you’re never going to build a successful blog without it.
The secret ingredient that makes blogs succeed
What is this elusive quality? I’m giving you a picture clue up above.
It’s the burning desire to make your blog great. In a word, it’s drive.
Are you driven to work on your blog? Here are a few telltale clues that you are a driven blogger:
- You find yourself blowing off TV and slacking off the Farmville, because you just want to make one more little thing on your blog look better.
- You find it hard to sleep at night as you think about all the amazing plans you have for growing your blog. You’re too excited to close your eyes!
- You discover you’ve let a lot of trivial stuff go in your life — say, housecleaning — so you can focus on your blog.
If you’re passionate about building your blog, then you’re on the right track. You’re probably blogging about a topic you love — one where you won’t run out of post ideas. That’s essential to making your blog grow.
Nobody could make you put in all the time you need to build a successful blog. That desire has to come from within.
And me? I’ll say I never worked this hard writing for pay for somebody else.
But I’ve also never had so much fun.
I’ve met amazing people I never would have enountered otherwise. And when a reader tells me they followed a tip from this blog and got a better-paying client than they ever had before, I am over the moon.
There’s also nothing like the excitement of running downstairs, finding my husband, and telling him, “Honey — I paid myself!”
