When I first started blogging, I wasn’t really sure what I expected. I had an idea in my head, but that was as far as it went. I didn’t really have plans for the future, or even expectations of where blogging would lead me, let alone the learning curve that stood before me at the time. Fast forward to 2021 and my blog has become an addiction for me – one that I wouldn’t be able to stop even if I wanted to, but I never would. Blogging for me is my outlet of thoughts, my therapy, my outlet into the world, and my venting board… among other things.
Of course, there are things I didn’t know when I first started blogging, some of which came as a surprise to me as I never knew blogging was like this. Here are some of the things I learnt about blogging:
21 Attributes blogging can give you
Blogging draws you out of your shell
Blogging can help you grow your confidence, from being the shy and reserved person that does their best to hide to turning into the social butterfly. Blogging forces you to meet and greet on a daily basis, so you’ll have two options – stay shy and reserved and fail, or go out there and be social and prosper.
Blogging makes you travel around the world
If it was a decade ago, you wouldn’t have even thought that it’s possible to earn a full-time income while travelling around the world by running a blog that’s prosperous.
Blogging introduces you to fascinating people
You can meet powerhouse bloggers online and eventually meet them in person, or you can even connect with one of your readers and realise that you two click. Blogging can help connect you with people from all walks of life around the globe, that aren’t only fascinating, but successful as well.
Blogging teaches you to live big
Most people live their lives playing small, blogging takes you out of your comfort zone by making you think and play big in order for your blog to succeed. When you’ve purchased your hosting and domain, you have two choices- play and think big, or flounder and fail.
Blogging helps you unearth your hidden talents
Blogging makes you find skills that are deep within yourself, some of which you may not even know you have, or ones that you’ve forgotten that you have.
Blogging gets you out of the employee mentality
Your mentality begins to change when you become a blogger, you begin thinking like an entrepreneur. This is because blogging makes you proactive, nimble, and forward thinking in everything you do.
Blogging gets you to live in the moment
Being a blogger means to live in the moment and seize each opportunity that the moment affords you.
Blogging enhances your imagination
When you blog, you tell stories – and this enhances your imagination.
Blogging teaches you what looks good and what doesn’t, and how to make what doesn’t turn into what does
When you’re a blogger you learn to have a blog that’s visually appealing, so it’s well-designed, and content that’s of high quality, all of which makes your blog stand out from all the rest.
Blogging can help you appear on major media
Think Fox News and Ellen DeGeneres, as a blogger, you can end up featuring on major media as a successful blogger. A decade ago nobody would have thought that this is actually possible!
Blogging teaches you to have good posture and keeps you active
As a blogger, you’ll rarely be sitting at a work desk if you’re blogging all over the world- you will not only learn to have good posture, but you will keep active too, all thanks to blogging.
Blogging teaches you how to do community management
Bloggers thrive by being loyal to their communities. So all the times that you reply to emails, respond to comments, or monitor your social media groups- you’re doing community management.
Blogging makes you think logically
Whether you’re observing your blog layout, analyzing campaigns, tweaking code, blogging makes you think logically. If you previously were all over the place in your mind, you will now be thinking in a more orderly and step-by-step fashion.
Blogging turns you into a writer
Blogging regularly can turn you into self-publishing and writing machine. Short reads on Amazon take between 30-45 minutes and are basically blog posts in a longer format. If you have the ability to write a 5000-word blog post, you would definitely have the ability to write and self-publish a 5000 word eBook.
Blogging makes you ruthless when it comes to time
As a new blogger, you might find yourself in a situation where you often dilly dally for hours during the day with fruitless activities. But, when you only have 4 blog visitors for the entire month, the situation forces you to be ruthless with how you spend your time.
Blogging teaches you accounting
When you invest in your blog and open up multiple streams of income from blogging, you learn to become aware of tax write off’s and calculating the amount of money you earn from your various blog channels. Your financial literacy would improve so much that you could even become an accountant yourself!
Blogging turns you into a photographer
Most bloggers snap their own photos for their blogs, by doing this you gain knowledge of timing, lighting, and other photography-related skills.
Blogging teaches you gratitude
You learn to be grateful. At one point, you’ve probably worked a 9, 10, or 12 hour full-time job – would you rather be working at that physical and draining job, or from a sleepy village in a foreign country writing words on your blog? Bloggers appreciate their gig.
Blogging makes you an entrepreneur
As a blogger, you become an entrepreneur by default. You may start at the bottom, trying to get some traffic and earning a few cents at first through blogging- but that’s the start. As you begin to grow and blogging turns into a full-time career rather than a side-hustle, your blog turns into your entrepreneurial business venture.
Blogging enlightens you
Blogging helps you expand your awareness, you become enlightened by the cultivated mindfulness thanks to blogging. You learn to connect with the positive, and leave the negative behind- this includes people.
Blogging helps you learn to stand up for yourself
Blogging inspires you to stand up for yourself by turning down potential partnerships that aren’t the right fit for you and your blog. You connect with only the potential partnerships that you believe are good and turn down the others.
