When we embark on some grand plans, we want to wait for everything’s perfect in the drawing board before we began our first step towards it. It can range from starting a business, planning our migration, changing job or even losing weight.
We plan and devise strategies for a step by step process to reach our goals. We conceptualize the pro and cons of taking certain action and what is our back up plan, etc. We want to wait for everything to be foolproof- so that the chances of failure are almost next to zero.
But that’s all- the planning stage. Sadly most of us never gotten around to take the first step.
The best thing to just start it. We do not need to wait till everything’s theoretically perfect before we begin. Heck, sometimes, just get some basics right and take the first step- whatever it is. If not, we risk falling under the category of those who never finish what they’ve started- yep, they’ve started alright, but never got to the finish line.
Whatever we do may not be done to our complete satisfaction. But when we finally start and continue doing what we are supposed to do, we will learn the ropes as we go along.
For instance, say that we’ve always wanted to try making money from your blog because we realize that even our neighbor’s teenage kid is successfully monetizing her fashion blog. Then as we google about ‘make money blogging’, we get totally overwhelmed by the enormosity of jargons and technical terms that we have go learn in order to get a fully functional self hosted blog on a premium theme. Terms like Adsense, plugins, Akismet, css stylesheet, WordPress hosted blogs, blogroll, favicons, tweaking themes, inserting html scripts may be the norm for seasonal bloggers but to a newcomer, it is totally and absolutely scary. Most of the time, we are freaked out before we even begin.
But if it is what you want to do, the best is just start. Choose a free blogging platform like Blogger or WordPress and spend sometime reading the instructions. These platforms provide simple starting steps. Click here and there to see the different functions and before you know it, you’ve published a post.
As you begin to write, you may not be getting any traffic- but once you are comfortable with writing and posting, you would naturally venture into finding ways to get more traffic to your blog. And you would be trying out different suggestions or perhaps you may purchase an ebook written by a reputable blogger to cut down the trial-and-error. Once you get the traffic, next you would be wondering how to monetize your site or perhaps consider paid hosting (you can try the hosting company that I am using).
The entire process could take a matter of weeks or sometimes months depending on how much of free time that you have. But the moment you start the ball rolling, you would tend to continue if it captures your interest.
One thing’s for sure- if you never start, you’ll never know.
For me personally, I have a full time job that pays the bills. I use whatever free time that I can find- public holidays, early in the morning, later at night to write new posts and tweak my blogs. Just by setting aside some time few days a week, I was able to keep a few blogs running and active. And most of the time, you would not even feel the strain or effort- because little drops of water would eventually fill up a jar- it’s true, really. Some form of discipline is of course required- I stay away from surfing or going to social networking sites when I am coming up with posts. I have to prioritize and make sure blogging is not my only personal life.
I find the advice by popular blogger, Daniel Scocco of dailyblogtips.com to be effective- just turn off the internet and type on a word processor. I type most of the posts like this on Word to prevent making silly spelling mistakes.
Learn as you go along. Mistakes are not failures- it is by making mistakes that people become experts- because they are able to have empathy to what is happening to others. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
