Posts tagged "fun"

Advice

10 Lessons from a Year of Blogging

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“There are no mistakes or failures, only lessons.” Denis Waitley

I made a resolution on the 31st of Dec 2007 to blog every day for an entire year. Not quite knowing what I was getting myself into I started writing and have not looked back since. Through the course of the year I realized that the goal I had set for myself was very challenging and required a lot more time and effort than I had expected. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed writing on a daily basis and aim to continue blogging through 2009. Next year I do not plan to blog everyday but have added some new twists along the way to help differentiate my blog from others in my niche. Listed below are 10 lessons that I have learnt after a year of blogging. If I had read these lessons prior to starting my blogging journey I would have been more prepared for what was in store for me. I hope these lessons will help new blog writers on their journey.

Lesson #1 – Selecting a Niche: Before one starts to blog, clearly identify the target market that you want to serve. This will provide definition and boundaries for your blog and help you to be more focused and become an authority figure in that particular niche. To learn more and access some helpful links on selecting a niche please click here.

Lesson #2 – Passion: The niche that is selected must be something one is truly passionate about. If you just begin writing about something that seems to be the buzz these days, it is most likely that motivation levels will fall drastically over a short period of time. To learn more about passion and selection of your blog niche please click here.

Lesson #3 – Have a Goal: This helps put things in perspective as well giving you achievable targets. Some metrics to track progress by are, number of posts, number of blog hits, number of comments etc. Set specific goals that can be measured and tracked. By doing this simple goal setting exercise , you have a far greater chance of success. To learn more about goal setting for your blog please click here.

Lesson #4 – Commitment: If you are planning on starting your blog next year, I suggest you give serious time and thought  to evaluate how much time you can actually spare in your day to blog. How long does it take you on average to write a blog post ? What other factors will help your commitment when you do start? Lastly, make an open commitment to the blogsphere about your aspirations and goals for the year of 2009. To learn more about commitments and blogs please click here.

Lesson #5 – Providing Value: I use the NABC formula to develop most of my value propositions. It simply helps you identify the Need, Approach, Benefit and Competition. Based on these core principles you can come up with a proposition that will help generate considerable value for your target segment. To learn about this formula in greater detail and how to apply it to your blog please click here.

Lesson #6 – Importance of Reading: If you plan to write a new blog in 2009 then reading is something I highly recommend integrating into your daily schedule. This will not only increase your knowledge base it will also help you get a better command over how to write as well. One needs to be constantly aware about the changes taking place in one’s niche and what authority figures are talking about. To learn more about my daily reading schedule please click here.

Lesson #7 – Dealing with Writers Block: Writing on a regular basis is a challenging feat. One which is bound to frustrate and irritate you at times,  it is also one of the most satisfying and rewarding things to be able to integrate into one’s life. Dealing with writers block is a part of being a writer. Some of the things I use to deal with it are taking short walks, doing a brain dump exercise or even using mind maps. To learn more about the strategies I use along with some helpful links please click here.

Lesson #8 – Patience: Developing a readership and increasing your daily traffic takes a lot of hard work. Expecting to make 6 figures a year from part time blogging is wishful thinking. One needs to focus on developing great content and using it to drive traffic to your blog. The beauty of the internet is its ability for the rapid exponential growth of your blog. A blog that is growing at a monthly pace of 10% will see traffic increase steadily through the course of the year and eventually those numbers will begin to multiply. To learn more about patience and blogging please click here.

Lesson #9 – Networking: A lesson I learnt late in my blogging journey was networking effectively through the blogsphere. If I were to start a new blog in 2009 I would spend more time building a comprehensive blogroll, concentrating on cross linking from high traffic blogs, commenting regularly and using social media to develop strong relationships with authority figures in my niche. To learn more about these techniques please click here.

Lesson #10 – Having Fun: This is an essential factor if one is wanting to blog on a regular basis. If one does not enjoy writing or reading, blogging on a regular basis is going to be more of a chore rather than something to look forward to. Pick a niche that excites you and half the battle is won. For the other half I recommend you should just write,  slowly and over time the content of your blog will become better and eventually blogging will become a lot of fun. To learn more about having fun while blogging please click here.

I hope these lessons will be of some help to first time bloggers. If you have been blogging for some time and have learnt or experienced some other lessons please share them so that we can build a repository to help first time bloggers. I wish you all the very best of success in future blogging ventures.

Advice

Lesson #10: Having Fun

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“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” Dale Carnegie

Blogging on a regular basis is hard work. I am pretty sure most of us who blog on a regular basis have days when we just do not want to even look at a blank piece of paper that we need to convert into a worthwhile post. However, after a while,  inspiration does come and one begins writing. Sometimes it really feels like magic to me when you have just get started on a single point and suddenly….. you have a post, one that you can be proud of. I don’t always think its magic! More often than not it is a mixture of passion, hard work and persistence. However the most important ingredient in all this is that we need to enjoy the process. When you have fun doing something it becomes easy to do it and you no longer need to push yourself too hard. To top it all off, a single good comment on the post makes my day and it  all worthwhile. The fact that someone out there was able to connect with what I have written is an awesome feeling.

When one starts to blog just for the sake of blogging, it saps out all the fun from the process. That is why I had mentioned passion being supremely important when selecting what one wants to blog about. In the end however it all comes to down to doing something you have fun with and enjoy doing. It’s almost a year since I first started blogging,  I don’t think I would have made it all the way here if I had not had so much fun along the way. Seeing my readership numbers steadily increase, increased number of comments and the links that I have made this year have all been an added bonus.

This lesson has a wide application through our life. We sometimes make choices and decisions that appear to be the ‘right’ one at that point of time  because society deems it to be so. It takes a lot of courage and faith in one’s own ability to go off the beaten path, specially if that is one that does not bring us the sort of excitment and joy we want. Going off the beaten track is almost always a much more challenging route to take, with a whole bunch of obstacles along the way that remind you it is not too late to turn back and get back on the accepted track. However, if you follow a path that brings you a level of excitment, joy and most importantly the satisfaction you desire, very few things should persuade you to stop doing it. I hope everyone has the strength and courage to follow their heart  and may they find great success in doing so.

Advice

Lesson #9: Networking

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“The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity.” Keith Ferrazzi

A lesson I learnt late in my blogging journey was networking effectively through the blogsphere . When I started this blog I had a tiny blog roll and did a poor job of linking it to other articles and posts. It is only recently that I have discovered how effective linking can be, not only to promote  visibility of your blog but to network with other bloggers who may be writing in the same niche as you. The fact of the matter is that the multiplier effect gets amplified definitively through the internet. A blog post can suddenly become viral, and  your blog can experience an enormous amount of traffic. Even though I have put much heavier emphasis on creating quality content for my blog since the beginning of this year, I should not have neglected the power of developing deeper relationships with authority figures in my niche to help in the expansion of this blog in year 2.

If I were to start my blogging journey again from the very beginning, I would place much greater emphasis on networking and linking . Listed below are a couple of steps I would have followed to build up my blog’s visibility through networking and linking:

1. Join twitter as soon as possible. Thanks to twitter I have built up close relationships with many bloggers since I started actively using the service a month ago. If I had put in the same amount of effort from the very beginning of this year I am pretty sure my blog’s traffic would be much higher, I would have had better relationships with  many prominent bloggers and I would hence have developed a channel through which my blog posts could become viral almost instantly.

2. The blogroll on my blog is very weak. It barely includes any of the blogs that I read on a regular basis. Developing a substantial blogroll is another factor that I would pay more attention to if I were starting this blog over again. This way I would appear on the radar of some larger blog sites and it would also help my readers to link to many relevant blogs in the same niche.

3. Commenting is a powerful strategy to bring visibility to one’s blog as well as to integrate it into conversations taking place online. Comments provide a great platform to showcase opinions and suggestions which could help attract new readers to one’s blog as well as develop closer relationships with other bloggers.

These are some straegies that I would use to build stronger networks and deeper relationships with prominent bloggers in my niche. The sooner we begin putting in that extra effort to develop these relationships the sooner we will see results of our blogging effort. If any reader has any good link to articles that discuss linking or networking through blogs I would appreciate it if you could post the links. Thanks.

Advice Health Inspiration

5 Steps to Better Health

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“Without health, there is no point. To anything.” Everett Mámor

Health is one of those things in life you value once you lose it. Ill health propels us to value it a lot more for a while, then we lose track of it yet again. We fail to understand that without good health, there is very little we can do. Ill health makes us realize that all the things we take for granted should be the very things we ought to be thankful for, day in and day out. As entrepreneurs we tend to push ourselves harder, as great things can only be achieved by great efforts. During this process one of the things we tend to lose track of is our health. I made that mistake recently and hence dedicated this series to help remind myself of the importance of good health.

Listed below are five factors critical to good health:

1. Sleep: Having sporadic sleep cycles can be most damaging to one’s health. Lack of sleep or inadequate and untimely sleep patterns cause lethargy and lack of concentration. This in turn results in not being able to perform optimally and eventually leads to developing related illnesses due to exhaustion. Developing and having the discipline to stick to a sleeping routine can have a positive impact on your health. To read more about developing better sleeping habits please click here.

2. Exercise: A lot of people feel tired at the mention of the word exercise. The association may be a result of associating all forms of exercise with the tedium of weights , running for miles, monotonous repetition and sweating through it all. Developing a healthy exercise routine however can start from something as simple as having a yoga or stretching routine when you wake up in the morning. It is vitally important to establish some form of exercise into your daily routine. To read more about easy exercise routines that you can adopt please click here.

3. Eating Right: Other than staying off the fatty junk food, there are many simple tips we need to integrate into our daily diet plan. I wrote about ensuring to drink enough water during the day and making sure that a healthy breakfast is how you start your day. These small changes impact greatly on energy and fitness levels. It is not necessary to go on strict diets and give up eating all favorite foods . What is important is that we make the small but important changes which will help us live a healthier life. To read more about eating right please click here.

4. Having Fun: Doing the things you love and enjoy has a deep impact on your health. It helps exude energy and a zest for life which is infectious. We have to stop sacrificing the things that bring joy to us simply to be able to assimilate into the society we live in. If you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing, there is no better time than ‘Now’ to start making the necessary changes. To read more about the importance of having fun please click here.

5. Positive Thinking: Having a positive attitude has a major impact on the quality of life. It has the ability to remind us how fortunate we are for everything we have. It helps us to shift focus from all the things we do not have, to all that we need to be grateful for. This level of inner peace creates an aura of positivity around us, which in turn attracts our wants and desires to help make our life a more fulfilling one. To learn more about the power of positive thinking please click here.

Losing perspective of the truly important factors in our lives is a mistake committed by too many people. We become so lost in the daily humdrum that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Life is way too short to miss out at truly living life to its optimum. It is important that we keep a healthy balance between work and fun in our lives. Only through such a balance can we experience a level of inner peace and help bring perspective to the chaotic lives we lead today.

Advice Health Inspiration

The Little Difference

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“There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.” W. Clement Stone

All of us have fundamental choices in life. We can either embrace life for all its worth and live each day to make a difference, or we can simply go about, just living. This seems like a fairly easy decision to make, and it should be, because it is! Each and everyone of us is in control of the sort of life we want to lead. The decision is completely ours, and our life is a reflection of the decisions which we have chosen to make. If anyone is not satisfied with the results so far, it is up to them to change the way they may be doing things. In truth it all comes down to, whether we are looking at the glass half empty or half full. Two people can look at the same glass with radically different perspectives. In the end, what matters is our attitude, and whether we choose it to be positive one or negative.

I must admit, most of the time I do not understand why so many people have such a negative outlook on life. The mind boggles that someone deliberately chooses to look more at the negative side of life. There has to be some driving force behind such behavior, I have yet to understand it. Being negative not only brings your own spirits down, it has a domino effect on all those who come into contact with it. It permeates into every aspect of your life, from the way you walk, hold a conversation, relationships, social interaction and the vibes you give out. An aura develops around you which only seems to attract all the things you do not want in life. Why anyone would want to do something like that to themselves is a mystery.

Life is way too short for us to be worried about all the things which are not in our control. We need to focus on factors we can do something about, and our health is one those key factors. Having a positive attitude has a major impact on the quality of life. It has the ability to remind us how fortunate we are for everything that we have. It helps us to shift our focus from all the things we do not have, to all that we need to be grateful for. This level of inner peace creates an aura of positivity around us, which in turn attracts our wants and desires to help make our life a more fulfilling one. We all have the same fundamental choices in life. The decisions we make about these choices will impact and determine the sort of life we choose to live.

Advice Health

Are you Having Fun?

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“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” Dale Carnegie

Life without fun and enjoyment, is living life without, really living. It is imperative to enjoy ourselves in whatever we do in life. If we are not doing something that we enjoy, then it is time to face reality and make the necessary changes. Continuing to do something which one does not like is like a virus, and it slowly eats away at the soul. It becomes a cycle, and finding the courage to step out of it requires, a lot of courage. We make up all sorts of excuses why we choose to remain in jobs we do not like, in relationships which are not working or in businesses we no longer have any interest in. The longer we stay in such situations the more reasons we create for why we cannot leave them.

I believe this is often due to a clash of interest. We sacrifice personal goals, dreams and visions for what society deems acceptable. Along the way we forget who we are and what we really wanted in life. Unfortunately this is a path taken by far too many people and tends to have major repercussions further down the road. The fact is that each and everyone of us knows what really makes us happy. The longer we keep these emotions buried, the more we lose touch with them. Therefore, if there is something that you would rather be doing, take time out now, and first just write it down on a piece of paper. Then, think about it, and visualize ways you could eventually be doing that for a living.

My own decision to become an entrepreneur was made in a similar fashion. I was always fascinated with the world of business, and the challenge of starting out from scratch and building it into something, has been a lot of fun for me. Having been through a successful iteration of this process, there is nothing else that I would rather be a part of. Doing something that you love and enjoy has a deep impact on your health as well. One has a lot more energy and a zest for life which can be infectious. If you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing, there is no better time than ‘Now’ to start making the necessary changes.