When it’s Time to Kill Your Blog?

Yep, you read it correctly. We are going to talk about the biggest fear of every new blogger. And that is the fear of FAILURE. Failure is definitely not sexy and it seems like there is no space for it in today’s world where everyone want to be successful. Failure shows that you are only a weak person with lack of required skills right?

- OK, maybe I am exaggerating here a bit, but you got my point, do you? -Sure, we all want to be successful bloggers. That’s why we all started this challenging online journey. We are doing this “job” hours and hours without making anything and many times without any notice from the online world. The only thing we got is a fate, the fate that we can get beyond the general averageness and to make a difference to get noticed by others, to make our opinion be heard and respected over the Internet.

Of course, the success means something different for each of us. Someone wants to bring 1,000 visitors to the blog every day other wants to truly engage with audience and receive dozens of comments to every blog post and create online relationships.
Among others dreams of new bloggers often also belong:

• To reach thousands of subscribers to your feeds
• To create an image of the expert in the industry
• To become a real “Blogstar”
• To make at least thousands of dollars from the blog

Yes, success might have many different faces. But they all have one thing in common. They are our motivators, something what push us forward and keep us going day by day, month by month.

How to get there?

There are many people who make their livings from coaching others showing them the secret of becoming successful (blogger). – Although I believe that this cannot be learned. - They explain how to become a better writer, how to engage with the audience, how to make all those cool social network things and to become viral, what steps you should take and what steps you should avoid, what set of mind you should have and which thoughts you should bury alive - what products you should buy maybe:) - and so on.

- Please do not take me wrong here I admire and look up to all these people. It is because many of them were able to distinguish from hundreds of thousands of others in this competitive online world and have achieved something -

I was reading a lot of “How to become a better blogger” articles, eBooks, whitepapers whatever and they usually have couple of mirroring ingredients. Here are those I noticed most of the time.

You have to

• Be passionate about the topic
• Be a hard-worker
• Treat your blog as a serious business
• Have the right intention, whatever it could be – of course money is not the right intention and you know it, right? –
• Break down your goal into small steps and then reach them one by one
• Understand that successful blogging is a long-term process. In other words you will not become famous overnight.

And the most important ingredient of the Blogosphere’s success? YOU HAVE TO BE PERSISTANT IN ORDER TO REACH YOUR GOAL. If you are persistent enough you can reach almost anything you imagine.

I truly believe it this and it is not just because almost everyone who means something in the Blogosphere saying that but it is because I have verified this in my personal offline life many times.

One short story for all…

I am partially dyslectic. It is not that bad but sometimes in the past especially during my high school years it was really challenging for me to learn the curriculum. I had to spend twice as much time studying as my peers to be able to reach at least mediocre grades. I felt shame many times because of that and I thought that I will not be able to go study to a university. Despite my shortage I really wanted to continue studying so I could have a better chance to get a “dream job” in the future.

To achieve my goal I decided to take extra private lectures apart from that I started to read during my spare time much more that I used to. I was working really hard. And guess what? Two year ago I finished the most respected university in my country. I think that is not bad for someone who had problems to understand a written word correctly.

This experience convinced me that people are capable of anything if they stay focused on the goal and are persistent enough to reach it.

OK, so why I titled this article When it’s time to kill your blog?

Well, persistence is definitely a great personal attribute that might help you to reach many things but sometimes it is not enough.

Everyone has to give up sometimes and it does not matter whether you are a 16 years old boy who is just trying to find own place in this world or a successful entrepreneur who jumped into another business opportunity that turned out to a business nightmare. That is the life…

The thing is that we all should know where the tinny line between a hard trying and stubbornness is. And once we reach the lain to be clever enough to say “STOP! I don’t want to go any further”. Such decision should not be taken as a personal lost but rather as a shift toward other challenges.
How many times you did not reach the goal you imagined and after some time you realized that this “lost“ led you to other even more exciting path?
Giving up is a natural part of our lives and if you are able to take something out of it, it is not a lost but a valuable lesson. Something that forms your personality and gives you, maybe, more realistic view on the world we live in. It is nothing we should be ashamed of or what should put us down for a long time, discourage us from future trying. Sometimes things just don’t work out as we planned - or hoped -…

So, when is the right time to back off?

Wasting more resources, time, energy and even money on useless gadgets that promise to make your blog BIG is really not clever. On the other hand to be able to appraise a current situation realistically might be the smartest move.

So, when is the right time to move on in your blogging career?

• When writing about the topic does not make you happy anymore
• When there is another very promising project that needs your full attention and you feel that your old blog is going nowhere
• When you have no vision where you want to see your blog in the future
• When you want to start to fully enjoy all the beauties of the real offline world which you neglect because of your blog
• When you are in a “dying” industry – for example you might be really a best expert in the landline phones however apart from you there would be probably no one interested in this anymore –
• When you believe that blogging will not lead you to the goal which was your main intention to start with it.

Now, maybe this sounded too pessimistic but in fact it is not. Most of us have to go through couple of tries before spotting on the right project in the right time.

How to take the best out of the lost and convert it into your future victory?

Maybe this going to sound tedious but if you want to learn a lesson from your blog failure you have to admit that your blog has no future. Although you might have couple of good times with it now it is the time to say bye-bye. Be a Man– or a woman:) - and “kill” your blog once forever.

“Clearing up your mind” Stage

When this is done and you suddenly have no chains that would bind you to your old blog it is the time for “Clear up your mind” stage. Take some rest from the online world. Go for a short vacation, go out and meet new people, maybe try a new offline hobby. So, you will have enough energy to rediscover your passion to start from the scratch again.

“What went wrong?” Stage

Once you feel you are ready to take up another challenge, it is the time to analyze the reason of your failure. “What went wrong” stage means you will be searching for the main causes of your last fail. You don’t know why your last project was not successful? C’mon I bet you know the answer you just need to think harder!

“Looking for the inspiration” Stage

Analyzing stage should be followed by “Looking for the inspiration” stage. Read forums, keep up with the latest technology news, read your favorite blogs, talk to your blog peers.

“Start your new project with a long-term plan” Stage

You spot on something you believe could work? Congrats you can move to another stage which could be called “Start your new project with a long-term plan” stage. Come up with a plan of development. Divide it into some measurable short goals. For example you could set a goal to write at least four guest posts in a month and/or to write at least 50 comments in one week. From a long perspective this will drives you toward your goal – to reach audience, subscribers and what is the most important to build your online brand and reach your success.

That’s what – I dare to say – is why we are all in blogging, right?

About the Author: Adam Mello is a developer and blogger at Moremoo.com. He likes to write about social networks, blogging itself and oline marketing.