Usually I find that in blogging, more work is being done on our part than we will actually be rewarded for doing. Any time we do work, we expect something in return of greater value. And when we don’t get that reward, we aren’t happy about it all.
One of the many things blogging has taught me in the whole two years I have been doing it is that I will not get rewarded the way I want to be rewarded. I have brought that lesson into my own life outside of blogging, and I feel like it has made me a much better, and more productive worker. That lesson kind of separates the bloggers who won’t make it from the ones who will.
Hard Work Now Pays Off Eventually
It is not true when someone says that “hard work will pay off now” when it comes to blogging. Any success your blog finds is due to hard work. Creating your blog, constantly updating your blog, promoting it, it’s all hard work.
While it may not seem like posting your links on a few blogs every day is hard work, you have to look at how many times you have done it, and when you do – that’s a lot of work.
Expect to Give More Than You Receive
Just as I had opened this post, in blogging you can’t think for a second that you will get more in return for something you put a great deal of work into – especially if you’re new to blogging. I even have a great example to back that up.
This happened to all of us at one time or another…
It can take any blogger who wants to write a great article anywhere from 30 minutes, to maybe 2 hours (or more if it’s a really long post). On average, how long do you think it takes you to write a good post? For me, I’d say 30-60 minutes.
Our reward for writing a post on our blog are usually comments, right? Think about it, if you write a post and it takes you 60 minutes to do, and each comment you get on the post takes less than a minute to write – how great of a reward have you actually received?
You can be like most bloggers and take the fact that getting commented on is reward enough for writing this post, but if you’re an optimist like me then you will see the real value of comments. You write a post for an hour, and get a response that could have been written in a minute or less.
Does that open your eyes a little bit? Don’t you see that by looking at the little things like this in blogging, you want to be rewarded so much greater because of the time you spent making your blog great for your readers?
And At Any Instant – Your Hard Work Can Mean Nothing
With all of the things I have covered in this post, it seems like it is really a hit to your motivation and will to keep blogging.
Hopefully, you came into this article knowing that it takes a while for you to actually start gaining before you start receiving. If you’re a new blogger who may be unaware of this, then just take what I say here really seriously. Because it turns out that the people who don’t know this are the ones who quit on their blogs so early.
How To Erase All of Your Hard Work
Blogs require a constant stream of hard work to survive. That’s writing, promoting, maintaining, interacting, and building – which is a lot to handle.
If you did all of the above on your blog, then one would think that you are on your way to having a great, long living blog. But it’s not uncommon to just say “screw it” one day and not do what you’re supposed to do. So, with that being said: what makes all of the visitors and readers you’ve just spent time getting to go away? The exact opposite of hard work: doing nothing.
Going back to the idea of the rewards system of “giving more than you receive”, does it seem fair to you that you put hard work into your blog and then later decide to throw it all away? It’s a personal conflict honestly, and it’s something I’ve had to ask myself once or twice since running this blog.
Photo by Daniel Horacio Agostini
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?Hi Alex, Awesome blog…. The strength you possess is passion. That is what differentiates most people who start blogs. You’re site is great. And I am truly blown away that you are only ( humour me) 15! …. This is one old chick who sees great things ahead for you!
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Thanks Kathy, I really appreciate that. I hope you stick around to see what I have to come up with next! :p
*laughs* I run into this daily on my personal blog as of late. A good excuse is that I’m actually working on my other blogs and my personal one has always mentally been there just to keep my writing up while things are slow. Just it feels the neglect, it really does. (Also the lack of commenting / writing causes a decrease in traffic.)
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I think personal blogs don’t really need as much attention as your regular niche blogs do. But if you have an audience on a personal blog (which I find to be impressive), then you’d better do your best to keep building it up!
its basic nature of human being that he always expect something in return for any act he do . and the same philosophy applies to online world too . But we need to understand most of the time we won’t receive any rewards quickly and we need to continue our work and wait for the right time
If we can understand that not only in blogging, but in the “real word” then I think we can get really far in accomplishing what we need to accomplish.
The problem is in the expectations of people. To many come to internet and the blogging world after having heard of some incredible overnight fortune made by some lucky few.
They expect nothing less than that. Register a domain name, start a blog, and collect money.
The reality itself is quite a different world, and although blogging doesn’t require you to have a boss of going to an office everyday, like Alex said, there are many tasks required to be done everyday.
And that’s for the blogging part only! When it comes to monetizing a site, that’s an all different story! Like I said and so did Alex, when you start or really want to build momentum on your site, you should remove any monetizing system such as Adsense or Ads squares!
That’s means you are blogging and working for absolutely no reward at all… for a period of time which could be more or less long depending on how serious you are with your blogging.
How can someone who came for a quick easy buck stand for that? Easy, they can’t and they quit.
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I couldn’t agree more my friend. My blog is over a year old and is NOW starting to be monetized…..wasn’t even on the to do list until now.
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To be honest, when I first made the blog that was here before it was merged with another to create Blogussion, I expected a lot. At first, I would update the blog once every second day because I honestly didn’t see the point in posting every day when I was new because I wouldn’t get a lot of comments like I wanted. But I was wrong, and it wasn’t until after merging that blog with Janith’s that I understood that. I was just lucky I lasted so long without ditching, or I don’t think Blogussion would be here today.
I really don’t play on making any money from this blog until we are about a year or two old. I mean, that’s a long time from now. But I have other methods of making money at the moment away from this blog so I know the fact that I won’t make money here won’t drive me crazy financially.
It’s not just about how long you wait as an actual time factor I would say, but rather the size of your readership.
Obviously the more you have readers, the more you can monetize; on the other hand, monetizing too early will shrink your readership…
It takes time and hard work to build trust with your readers, and it’s very easy to lose that trust…
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What some don’t see is there is also the possibility of monetizing too late. If readers get too locked into to al the cool free stuff, some may rebel….whether they’re right too or not.
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That kind of sounds like Twitter, whenever the company tried to put up even the littlest ad, the community FREAKS out!
I guess it’s all about the way you “introduce” your monetizing system to your readers.
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So so true. However, you have to really think about what you want out of blogging. If you want a lot of money for a little work, blogging is definitely not for you.
Blogging really does give though; it makes you a better writer, gives you life lessons, and much more. When you really sit back and look at what you have accomplished, you will find that you have received a lot.
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Wow, that’s a very good point you bring up there Jack. Not that i think about, blogging has improved me in many different aspects. My writing skills have improved, I have become more organized, and a lot of other things.
I’ve written a similar post to this couple days ago. Some of the people commented that, “what goes around comes around”, but I simply told them that’s not how it works. Never expect anyone to give back, and just help people just for the sake of helping them.
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Well, in some cases it could be true. You write great content consistently, you may get linked to. Of course, it doesn’t always work like that, and that saying proves to be true.
Very Professional written post by Alex, thanks for sharing such a vital information. I totally agree with your thought Hard Work Now Pays Off Eventually, every blogger needs to put in starting efforts and it will surely not go fail and eventually his or her blog starts becoming famous as time progresses.
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