I faced, embraced and released these 4 fears - largely - and you can too if you’re struggling with any aspect of your blogging campaign.
I have faced down a deadly spitting cobra and equally lethal krait in Bali. I once sat in a cage with three, 400 pound tigers in Thailand. I stared down bullet ants, poison dart frogs and a 5,000 member strong colony of army ants in the remote jungles of Costa Rica. I almost died in India after losing 20 pounds in a week due to a vicious case of giardia. I have felt more afraid checking my email than during any of these potentially terrifying encounters.
Fear is not rational. It’s a wild beast, untamed, and it can completely destroy your blogging campaign if you surrender to these lower, crippling energies.
I ran into year’s worth of struggle because I feared running out of money, readers, comments, list subscribers and social shares. Nothing was ever enough. Because I clung to a deeply held belief in scarcity, lack, limitation and a terrifying fear of losing it all I did stupid things online. I dulled my creativity. I held back, denying my prolific nature because I believed I was wasting my time. I avoided making friends. I rarely promoted other bloggers.
These silly actions yielded horrible results at worst. At best, I made some nice coin but secretly felt terrified I would lose everything. Now I blog predominantly for the fun of it. I blog for the love of blogging. I create freely. I make friends regularly. Traffic and money and all that sweetness flows in because I faced, embraced and released these 4 fears - largely - and you can too if you’re struggling with any aspect of your blogging campaign.
1: Fear That You Won’t Be Able to Monetize Your Blog
I peeped this fear on a Facebook Group minutes ago. I regularly see newbie or veteran bloggers share this fear on Quora.
“Will I be able to make money with this blog?”
“Will people buy what I have to offer?”
Like all fears, sit with this one. Embrace the idea of scarcity. Feel like you’re running out of money. Feel like no matter how much money you have, it’s not enough. Feel the crunch of paying bills each month. Feel the terror of having large sums of money but believing you can/will lose it all in any moment. After feeling out these fears you will understand that YOU monetize your niche through your fun, passionate, loving energy.
Your blog, readers and money are a looking glass, reflecting back to you your predominant love or fear. If you’re blogging mainly to have fun you will detach largely from blogging outcomes like money, traffic and profits. The work or play is the reward. In this energetic space you become magnetic to profitable ideas, money and successful bloggers who can show you how to monetize effectively.
Don’t ask: “Can I monetize this niche?” Ask: “What can I talk about all day long? What topic feels most fun to me? What topic do I love talking about more than anything?” That’s your most profitable blog topic folks. Because you literally co-create your profits with your fun energy and if you are so busy having fun and smiling and helping and creating and making friends and loving the ride, you will set the foundation for a profitable and rocking venture.
2: Fear of an Idea Called “Competition”
The “competition” is an idea you create in mind. If you un-create the idea, the competition vanishes. Fearing an idea called competition is like fearing space. Or, nothing. Or, thin air. It is not there. I work with and for everybody. I go against no one. We are all one. Even people who blog from the blogging tips niche like me.
Fearing folks who blog about a similar niche is like fearing yourself. Strange fear, right? Kill this fear. Slowly embrace the idea that separation is an illusion. Be for, not against. Co-create, don’t compete.
3: Fear of Wasting Your Time
This fear pulls you away from loving, fun, prospering actions towards fear-filled, scarcity-based, unprofitable, tension-filled actions. Being the wise old owl - The Biddulph Blogging Buddha - I am, it only took me 6 to 7 years to become aware of this fear and another year to feel it so I could release it. Largely.
Everything single thing you’re doing now comes from a space of fear or love. If you’re blogging from a place of love you are hurtling toward success, fun and greater freedom, right now. If you are blogging from a place of fear you are finding contrast, understanding what you don’t want to do (blog fearfully) so you can do what you want to do (Blog for fun, blog for the love of blogging).
How could you ever waste a second of your life if you’re either loving the ride or developing a strong sense of contrast (aka, FEARing) about what you don’t want in life?
Every moment is meaningful on infinite levels. So you can never waste a moment of blogging time. Devote your actions to creating a winning content, promoting other bloggers, commenting on their blogs and making blogging buddies. Creators and connectors enjoy the moment, rarely if ever feeling the fear of wasting time.
4: Fear of Blogging Failure
This fear assails all bloggers at one time or another.
I suffered from a highly developed version of this fear. For years. Naturally, this fear manifested itself in a jambalaya of self-sabotaging behaviors, including me quitting on many different successful strategies because I figured I was wasting my time, anyway, since I was destined to fail. I only righted my ship by feeling this paralyzing fear, up close and personal. I had to feel the terror of failure. I also had to feel like a failure to clear these energies - largely - from my mind.
I began to cultivate the feeling that I was whole and complete. As is. Independent of any online activities. I felt like a winner for being alive. Raising my vibe helped me tune into all the little - and bigger - blogging victories I experienced over the years. By feeling like a winner I spotted my wins.
If you feel like a failure, embrace that feeling. Eat it up. Even if the feeling stinks. Then you can let it go. And when you let that feeling go you can tune into your blogging wins, from writing and publishing posts, to commenting on other blogs, to whatever blogging actions you take regularly. Spot the seemingly tiny blogging wins for one day, those supposedly tiny acts can make your wildest dreams come true.
Your Turn.
How are you working through these fears?