Is this you?
Are you a grouchy blogger?
If you ever find yourself getting down in the dumps about your blogging, here are 10 simple tips on how to feel happier with your blog.
10 Ways to “Forget Your Troubles, C’mon, Get Happy” as a Blogger
- Count your blogging blessings. Think for a minute – what has your blog brought to your life that you wouldn’t have had otherwise? What rewarding conversations and relationships have you enjoyed? Write a list of these puppies down and look at it when you’re getting Oscar the Grouchy.
- Get Akismet. Or another spam comment destroyer like it. You’ll miss out on so much grouchiness it’s not funny. On second thought, maybe it is …
- Vent. Far away from your blog. Get away from all keyboards. Get yourself alone. Look at the wall, a Winnie the Pooh doll, the mirror, whatever. Take a few minutes to gripe, gripe, gripe. Come on now, the real, “Boy, did I drink my pickle juice today or what?” stuff. Complain all you want … to yourself. Then be done with it.
- Write your blogging worries and fears down. With your hand. On a piece of paper. Do whatever you want with it – stick it on your wall by your griping mirror, toss it into Oscar’s, er, your trash can – but at least dump those negative things out of your mind and body. And always remember: You matter.
- Stop trying to be a perfect blogger. Give up now, while you still can. I promise you, you will never ever become an absolutely perfect blogger as long as you breathe the air of this green earth. Give up the quest for total perfection so you can embark on the quest for sheer excellence, mingled with some “gee, I’m human after all” mistakes.
- Focus on people, not numbers. One of Oscar the Grouchy Blogger’s favorite pastimes is to hunker down in his dark garbage can and gaze frowningly upon his statistics. They’re just numbers to him, so even if they are growing, they don’t make him feel any happier. Look at the numbers that matter, of course – just keep in mind that a page view is a person’s page view, a comment is a person’s comment, and a backlink is a person’s backlink. (Okay, okay, so robots do some of that too. But that should only make you more happy about the people who do come to your blog and enjoy it.)
- Take out someone else’s trash. Do something nice for another blogger in your field. Take a moment to quietly scratch their back. You’d be surprised how effective this is at making you forget about the grouchy gremlins dancing around the bonfire of your brain.
- Think happy thoughts. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, etc. What makes you tick? Dwell on it for a little while. It’s the best way to battle writer’s block (blogger’s block), and it makes all that you do in your blogging become easier.
- Waste some time. Crimanittly, I could get in trouble for this tip. But doesn’t worrying constantly about squeezing every last ounce of productivity and effeciency out of every last blogging minute make you feel, well … grouchy? Crotchety is another word for it, and that’s a yucky word for a couple of reasons. But getting back to the point – the point is, maybe what you need in order to cheer up is to just lollygag for a bit. If you’re not sure what to do, find a little kid and ask them. They’re full of ideas on this particular subject. Because wastefulness, in this sense, can sometimes be the most unwasteful thing of all.
- Work harder than ever. One of the best ways to be a happier blogger is to fling yourself full speed ahead into the waves crashing upon your shores. Forget about your aches and pains. Just work, work, work. Get in the zone. You know that feeling when you snap out of it, and you look at the clock and you just spent several hours working your tail off and it felt like three seconds? That’s what happy blogging is like.
The Pursuit and Promise of Greater Blogging Happyness
Of course some of these suggestions seem to contradict each other. That’s part of the daily challenge of blogging, and of life as a whole. But as you try to follow these tips and latch onto whatever seems to work well for you, you’ll find yourself feeling happier and more satisfied in your blogging efforts.
And as that happens, you’ll find that you’re making others happier along the way, too.
Happy Blogging Resources
- Quiet the Thunder – How to Be a Happy Blogger in 7 Steps by Milena Thomas – My favorite tip from here: “Blogging is a refinement process. You dump your thoughts, get feedback, and I think it is incredibly freeing.”
- How to Be a Happy Blogger by Geoff – Great tips from way back when (okay, 2006). My favorite? #14: “Do not leave the first comment on your own post, unless you have a split personality.”
- The Happy Seeker by Christopher Foster – I had the privilege of helping Chris create and launch this blog and I’ve found it to be quite inspiring.
- PBS Kids Games: Oscar’s Trash Collection – Try it out. You know you want to.
What makes you a happier blogger?
Please leave a comment below! Let’s talk about this list and see if we can improve it.
image: dan taylor