I’m setting myself adrift on memory bliss (listen at your own peril, it’s catchy)
I’m going a little counter-cultural, a little rogue and a little rebellious this week. This Thursday I’ve decided to quit looking for answers. Let me clarify that a little; I’m going to stop looking everywhere else for answers and/or the silver bullet to success regarding this blogging thing. Today I’ve decided ‘To heck with all the experts, I’m striking out on my own.’ This is not to say I will ignore what I’ve learned thus far.
When I started blogging nearly 11 months ago I didn’t know SEO from SEM (that’s Search Engine Optimization vs. Sumner-Eddyville-Miller). I had no idea what it took to create a blog or how to design it or even administer it. I didn’t know what companies I would have to work with or even the building blocks to start the process. Thank goodness our daughter Abbie is in this field, a whiz with design and has patience with her dad through all his shortcomings. As I tried to learn about how this was all done I oftentimes felt like a Bedouin in a sandstorm; off-track, wandering and poking about with no tangible idea where I was going. My online attempts to learn were more miss than hit but I tried to maintain a sponge-like philosophy.
I read countless blogs, newsletters and books about how to build an audience, offer useful content and someday have a following that might support a book I would write. Through all the reading, studying, webinars and online classes I got many, many tips, techniques and processes from people who had, apparently, done exactly what I was trying to do. They had started, many of them years ago, just as clueless as I was and through trial and error managed to reach the zenith that I so desired. Now, their goal was to impart their hard-earned knowledge to me so that I might avoid the pitfalls and roadblocks and hasten my ascent to the top. I could do that through their course, with their book, in their webinars and if I was really serious through one-on-one coaching. The caveat was that the really good stuff, the juice that got them to where they were now, came with a price. Although not exorbitant and usually available with an easy monthly payment plan: all their knowledge wasn’t free and that’s where I pulled back on the reins.
I suppose a critic might say I didn’t go far enough. I didn’t invest in myself. I left myself half-pregnant and my blog hamstrung by the iniquities of my decision. I’ll allow all of those criticisms but counter with one of my own. If these online people have unlocked the secret to success and reached a level I so desperately want, why are they not producing books and leveraging their audiences to catapult themselves onto one bestseller list after another? How is it that they have reached the promised land only to decide to return to an indentured status? Call me a cynic but to me it appears the utopia they’ve supposedly found may not be all it’s cracked up to be. To paraphrase Yeats, the center does not hold, at least not for me. So, back into the storm I trudge.
I know I’ll draw from all the content I’ve done my best to absorb but I have also determined there is no blueprint. Certainly given the speed of change there are no guarantees and the idea that anyone’s plan should be my plan seems more than a little silly. I’m grateful for the information I’ve been able to glean and will still continue to peruse but today I’ll stop looking at it as some sort of recipe. I’ll give up on notating the steps and the schedule. I think this is a logical progression and I hope that I’ve gone from being consciously incompetent to being unconsciously competent. Only time will tell.
It’s a little scary casting off that bowline and setting yourself adrift. I’m wondering if you’ve ever experienced this and how it worked out. If you wouldn’t mind, leave a short comment below and as always please share this with a friend if it might do them some good.
I’ll continue to blog every week even without a supposedly tried and true plan of attack. If you want to read more, click here to go to the blog. I trust you’re getting something out of my writing and if you are I hope you’ll subscribe. It’s free and you can do that at the blog or by clicking this. You’ll receive an email on Saturdays with links to the week’s posts as a subscriber, nothing else, as I never share or sell emails.