Last year I ran a free blogging Summer School (which taught people how to set up their blogs to make their first $5K a month… and then much more).
And one of the exercises that I got my Summer Schoolers to do, right up front, was to figure out WHY they actually want to be a blogger in the first place.
And it got so many Ah-has and “face-palm” moments that I wanted to share it with the rest of you lovely SBBers, because I think identifying the real reason WHY you blog is very, very powerful.
And not just in an airy-fairy let’s all go and create a vision board kind of way (I shouldn’t knock the vision boards, I do love them myself). But in a real, and tangible way. In particular, when it comes to making some pretty crucial decisions around what you will and won’t do with your blog. And bigger still how much fulfilment you will get from this whole blogging caper.
But before we get onto how to figure out your WHY… I guess I should tell you how I define a blogging WHY, and why I think knowing your WHY is so important.
THE HOW, WHAT AND WHY OF YOUR WHY
So for those of you who haven’t noticed the “know your why” movement that seems to be invading the Interwebs right now, or haven’t yet managed to quite nut out your own, here is what it all comes down to in a… well… nutshell.
Your blogging why is (you guessed it) the fundamental and core reason behind why you are blogging.
Now a lot of you might claim to have multiple “whys”, but there should be one of them that really stands out. One that is tied with some sort of NASA-grade carbon fibre to your heart and soul.
This is your deepest wish and desire. The thing you need and want the most to be the outcome from your blog. The thing you need to happen to actually have blogging add value to your life, and make all the hard work worthwhile.
And for some of us that wish is simple day to day thing, for others it’s tied to a much bigger and bolder dream. But none are more or less important.
What’s truly important is knowing what your why is.
Now for me, my main why has always been to create the freedom for myself to do what I want, when I want, and preferably with who I want. And this freedom also includes earning a large enough income to be able to do some of these things in slightly better shoes than I used to, and every few months to do whatever it is I feel like doing in a more exciting location than just my office in Melbourne.
I want a big, exciting, creative life. And I am not ashamed of that desire.
Now I know some people seem to think your why has to be some big spiritual quest, to make a difference, or somehow make the world a better place.
And it’s not that I don’t want to do all those lovely things, but let’s cut the bullshit here. That’s just not my main motivator (well not right now).
Call me an a-hole if you want, but personally, I think there is nothing wrong with any why… where the real problems lie is when people are too scared to own their why’s, or they think their why “should” be whatever the blogger next to them is doing.
So why is it a bad thing to not know your why then?
Well for bloggers, if you are not 100% crystal clear on it, then how can you know what direction you need to build your blog towards? How can you know which of the 1001 to-do items should be a priority, and which (if any) methods of monetisation are going to work best for you?
You see, there are lots of different types of blogs, and blogging business models. And for each, some things will work better than others (and as you should all know by now, I am all about figuring out what works for you, and what doesn’t and then doing more of the first and less of the second… no point wasting time on things that will never give you results… right?)
So if your why is actually all about starting a conversation, or sharing your thoughts and opinions, or even just about being able to be fully creative and authentic. But right now you are super focused on Google Analytics and trying to get brands to pay you a few hundred dollars to say you like their toilet paper, then you might be feeling a little off centre right now.
Or if your why is similar to mine, and you really want to create a full time living (on your own terms) from blogging, but right now blogging is giving you less freedom, not more, then similarly you are probably not going to be loving blogging right now. And you might actually be making growing your blog harder than it needs to be.
All make sense?
Great, then I have a little exercise for you, if you’re game. I want you to grab the worksheet below and figure out what your why is and then let me know what you came up with in the comments below.
Or better yet write it out on a piece of paper and stick it somewhere you’ll see it whenever you blog.
And now you know your why, I want you to have a look at how your blog is currently set up. Look at how often you blog, what you blog about, how you drive traffic, how you monetise, and even how much time you spend blogging. Does it match up to your why??
