“It’s just a hobby, RIGHT?” people may ask as you yet again set up for a marathon blogging session. “Why take it so seriously? Why waste time? Don’t you wanna doom scroll like us?”
Hard Mode is blogging to higher standards, adhering to discipline, and putting in the work without relying on shortcuts that don’t ultimately work, like churning out AI ghostwritten articles that will get your blog nuked by Google. Hard Mode forces the blogmaster to build valuable skills and knowledge that will lead to massive success. There are no shortcuts, only hard work!
Mindset has been quite the buzz-word for about a decade now. When I first started hearing it I thought it sounded cool but now when I hear it it sounds cringe. I was first introduced to it at the gym, it was used by big dudes lifting big weights to get bigger. It was about discipline. That’s when the word was cool and tough and meant something. But then the word was hijacked by pansy self-help gurus and lost all meaning. It started being associated with bubble baths and wine for “self-care.”
Many things in blogging are out of your control, however one thing is not: effort. We can choose how hard we work and for how long. We can choose to wake up at 5:00 AM to blog for three hours before work. We can choose to educate ourselves more about our craft.
The goal is to find a blogging niche that is going to help people and help ourselves by making a lot of money. So, it seems like a pretty important thing to be able to recognize a blogging opportunity: they don’t come around often, and when they do, you gotta be ready.
I am writing this blog post for myself more than anything else because I could really use this reminder right now, I figure it’s a good reminder for all the bloggers out there too; so I’m posting this article on the blog rather than keeping it as a private journal entry. Obviously, much was altered from the original journal entry, but the theme remains the same: focus on strengths, not interests for blogging success.
In blogging, delusional levels of outrageous optimism beat negative realists every time. Believing you already won the blogging battle in your mind is over half of the battle. It is what will keep you pushing forward all the way to success.
I recently took an inventory of today’s blogging landscape and my optimism for massively winning the blogging game has skyrocketed. I am thoroughly convinced that financial blogging success is now at an all-time high and that if you aren’t in the blogging game and want to make a lot of money, you need to get in now.
True blogging success comes from serving readers and staying humble, not from flexing your ego. Letting go of the ego leads to faster learning, better content, bigger audience, and more money.
When I launched my first blog I thought it was my ticket out of NoWhereVille and my ticket into a luxury condo on a beach somewhere in Thailand, with a cigar hanging out of my mouth, a coconut smoothie in my hand, and a million dollars of change shaking loose in my pocket, just like all my blogging heroes.