Improving Blogging Skills: Taking Risks Day 1

Remember the first time that you created a blog post? I do. No I don't remember the first time you created one, I remember the first time I tried to come up with something. I think it went something like this:-- testing, testing, this blog is about quotes my father used to say and is what you might call under construction. Please come back and visit.-- That's pretty much how it went in the beginning. Now that felt a little strange putting something out there with the chance that the whole world might see it. The thing is I don't think anyone saw it other than me and maybe my brother who I encouraged to " look at my blog, look at my blog." His response wasn't too overwhelming needless to say. I thought to my self, I don't care it's mine and it'll get better.

The most fantastic thing about it is that I took a risk. I discovered years ago that life is about risk taking. I counseled people for a number of years and challenged them to do at least one thing each day that they didn't want to do. To take a risk and do it because they knew it was healthy for them. I saw a lot of fears conquered with that exercise. And I saw a lot of people grow in their personal lives by the challenge. Little did I know that I would need reminded of this in my own personal journey towards marketing a blog.

One person who has had influence on me lately in taking risks to build a better blog, gain confidence in my writing and publishing skills is Brian Clark. Brian founded Copyblogger.com  in January 2006. I won't go into all of his many accomplishments, but I do encourage you to head on over and see them for yourself in his about section. There is a nice piece of content written on the The 7 Harsh Realities of Social Media Marketing by Sonia Simone on that blog. One of the realities that sticks out for me and one I will expand on later because it has worked in other areas of my life is, "keeping what you have by giving it away." I too want to add that if you don't think that it is important for you as a blogger to read some of the content on Copyblogger then you are not wanting to improve your blog or you just don't need to. For example, when I began to write this post I noticed that it had a retweet widget at the end and was showing to have retweeted 1493 times. I am amazed to say that only a short time later it has now been retweeted 1507, oops make that 1510 times. I think I need a retweet widget on my post footer. Just saying maybe I should take that risk.

The biggest and most important risk I have taken lately is not allowing myself to be influenced by what you might think of my post. But to be influenced by what some of these probloggers are saying and go with it. If I am so afraid that I will fail that I never take healthy risks then I will never succeed. I encourage you to write, write, write and ask, ask, ask. Don't be afraid to write and don't be afraid to ask. These probloggers didn't gain success by letting their fears become a brick wall. Their continually throwing grenades and making a huge splash by taking risk everyday with success coming their way. All the while enjoying what they are doing because of the self-esteem they've gained by taking risk and giving it away. Did it happen overnight? I haven't read ones overnight successes but maybe he/she is out there. It's there for the taking. Take some, give some back!

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