Tag: Blogging

Why I Blog

Ever since I started this blog I’ve struggled with Blog Insecurity. Although I know that it’s not true, I tend to think that my blog is inferior, because my posts aren’t perfect, and I don’t blog professionally. Today, I decided to counteract the lies that I’ve been fighting with the truth.

My blog is not inferior. I blog as a hobby because I enjoy it, and there is nothing wrong with blogging as a hobby. I don’t need to have a perfect blog, or to find my “niche,” or get a lot of views to be a real blogger. I’m a blogger because I blog. That’s the only qualification.

And I’m not blogging to get lots of visitors, or to become more popular. Here are the reasons I blog:

 

To enjoy myself.

I love writing, and blogging helps me have something that I enjoy doing outside of work and school.

To become a better writer

Writing is an amazing skill, and writing consistently helps me to become better at it.

To remember lessons

When I learn a new lesson, writing it down helps me retain it and put it into practice. When I write posts like “Relearning” or “On Worrying Well,” I’m writing them so I remember them. I want them to help me grow closer to God, and kinder to other people.

To grow self-discipline

 

Starting to write blog posts every week (and this year twice a week) helped me to grow in consistency, and I’m still growing. I’m learning how to work ahead on blog posts, and how to always be open to new topics. I certainly have room for improvement, but I’ve grown so much in this kind of consistency since I started doing it every week last summer.

 

To encourage others

This is a tricky one, because I don’t want to blog for a view count. But I do want to encourage any person who decides to stop by and see what I’m thinking about that week, whether they read one post and never come back or read my posts every week.

 

So I don’t need to worry if no one reads a post that I worked on, or if my posts aren’t perfect. I’m not writing to be “a real blogger.” It’s time for me to stop thinking that way. I’m writing because I love it, and that’s enough for me.

 

 

A Note to My Readers

Dear blog buddies,

It’s been a year since my first post, an open letter. This blog started as an outlet for my desire to write more. I had just finished ENG101 and 102 for college, and I wanted to try something new. The experiment has helped me with consistently, willingness to try new things, and my writing ability. But I have a few confessions to make to you:
I’m not totally honest with you. I try to be transparent, but I can’t write about everything. If I decide to write about my musical anxiety, I’m not writing about a terrible day that I had the day after writing it. If I write about the MBTI, I’m not writing about my fight with my sibling, or about my lunch, or about my sleeping goal for January. I have to choose what I think will be interesting, or encouraging, or helpful (or all three).
 Even after I choose a topic, I don’t know how to stop editing and push the “publish” button. I get frustrated because my posts “have room for improvement.” Michael Hyatt helped me think about this better:
“Anyone who knows me knows that excellence is a high value for me. But it’s not the same thing as perfection.
Perfection doesn’t take into consideration of the cost, time, or significance of something. It’s just an illusive, unreal, unattainable goal. It’s better to do good work really well.
That way you’re contributing to people’s lives, instead of locked in your own head about whether your work measures up an impossible standard.”
I want to write well, but sometimes I get paralyzed by my perfectionism. I care more about what you think about my writing than whether I can encourage you or help you learn something new.
Sometimes I don’t even treat you like people. After I post, I get stressed by how many people look at my posts, and I forget how amazing it is that people even look at my posts at all. I’m afraid to do this, because people are scarier than numbers. I’m afraid that you will hate my post or laugh at me, so I try to pretend that “visitors” don’t really mean people. I need to be reminded often that people are more important than numbers, and I shouldn’t let my fear hold me back from connecting with some amazing people.

Thank you so much for bearing with and encouraging me, even though I’m quirky and flawed. I’m a work in progress, and blogging this last year has helped me through a lot of hard things. It’s amazing that you guys take time out of your lives to look at my thoughts about life. I hope that I’ll continue to improve, and that you’ll stick around for the ride, because you’ve made blogging a wonderful experience for me.  

 

With exceeding joy,
Anne Mary