I just spent about 2 minutes scanning my email. 10 years ago, I received a few emails a day. So it only took me a few seconds to scan my emails. But a number of years ago, I would have spent roughly 30 minutes checking email. Why? I did not evolve efficiently during those days. I resisted evolving. I attached heavily from an energy of fear to each email, treating each message with a life-or-death energy. Not good. I held myself back because I refused to evolve with the times.
Fast forward to today. I am in and out of each email in a second or perhaps 10 seconds. Evolution rocks. Simply seeing where you’re at and what you need to do now to grow benefits you and your readers. Imagine if I spent 30 minutes checking my email daily. No way would I be able to write this guest post for Joy and you awesome readers. Do you see how evolving helps you, your business and your readers? This is simple to see but uncomfortable to put into action. Evolving as a blogger pushes you outside of your comfort zone. Sitting smack-dab in the middle of your fears does not feel pleasant, fun or delightful but such is the freeing, fulfilling journey all evolving bloggers eventually take.
Do you evolve as a blogger? Or do you cling to the past? Do you hold on to old, worn-out blogging strategies? Or do you let go old, worn-out blogging strategies to make room for new, fresh, success promoting blogging strategies? Everything is on you. Nobody forces you to evolve. But if you refuse to evolve, struggles follow. Most bloggers struggle because they attach to the past from an energy of fear and comfort. Simply observe change. Watch how quickly most bloggers complain about change. Observe how fast peaceful, successful bloggers adapt to change.
Last week, I felt a little sick one day. My neck, back and arms felt incredibly stiff from all of the typing that I did over the prior few weeks. Instantly, I knew I had to evolve. Bye-bye typing thousands of words daily. Hello dictation. Now I dictate every one of my blog posts and guest posts. Sure it eats up more time but I have no other choice. I had to evolve or else my neck, back and arms would suffer, followed by my prolific nature dropping off. I had no choice but to change how I created and published posts. Things move smoothly for me because I evolved. But if I complained about not being able to type and resisted dictating, I would not have evolved and naturally would still be struggling with bodily pain and a less prolific nature. One cannot blog while sick in bed, being overwhelmed with bodily tension.
Regularly revisit your blogging vision. See yourself living your dreams through blogging. Does this involve blogging from places like Fiji, Bali and New Zealand like me? If so, picture yourself blogging from the beaches of Thailand. Allow that vision to come alive in your mind. I can tell you from personal experience, blogging from places like Phuket or Koh, Lanta in Thailand feels fun, peaceful and freeing. Feel the cool ocean breeze kissing your face. See the crystal clear water beckoning you to dive in. Now, visualizing this peaceful image, you energize yourself to be the blogger who evolves with change. People with no vision never evolve, then struggle and fail. This goes for blogging or any venture in life. But people with a dream vision energize themselves to be the people who live that dream life. Does that make sense? It should. See an image in mind, feel it as being true in mind and you begin being the person who lives that dream life.
Happy, successful bloggers are flexible bloggers. Top pros simply evolve with the times. Top bloggers are flexible. These folks never complain, moan or whine about change. They simply evolve with change. As should you if you want to be a top, professional blogger. Change is the only constant. You may as well change with change while remaining true to what you value in order to succeed online. But everything begins the moment you decide to evolve.
Expect to be uncomfortable. I only knew how to type blog posts as of two weeks ago. That’s 10 years and 15000 + hours of typing. But knowing how I needed to evolve, I stopped on a dime and began dictating. Something cool happened. My blog post and guest post length increased. Now I hit 1000 words or more because typing tension does not hold me back. I dictate, the words populate and then I simply edit the blog post a few minutes later. Easy peasy! But the change felt uncomfortable at first because I had to leave behind my comfortable writing strategy to make room for my current day dictating strategy. I also had to be more patient and gentle with myself because I obviously make more errors dictating words versus typing the words.
Think of all the ways you need to evolve as a blogger right now. Should you write longer blog posts? Should you write longer guest posts? Should you publish posts more frequently? Less frequently? Give yourself some time in a quiet room to ask and answer these questions. Step away from the online world because your own head trash and negative bloggers influence you to not evolve, to never leave your comfort zone. But nobody grows in their comfort zone. Successful bloggers succeed because these pros evolve, letting go what needs to go in order to be the person they need to be to become even more successful.
At the end of the day, evolving is about changing to help more folks so everybody succeeds. I evolved from a typing to a dictating blogger because it helps me to help more of you. This process allows me to become more successful as you become more successful, gobbling up my simple, proven tips. This is what the evolving journey is all about. But you need to be open to evolving in order to make the uncomfortable, sometimes scary choices that precede your blogging evolution. I know that you are up to it. Evolve. Change. Stop resisting flux. Go with the flow to be more successful and to develop a sense of peace and calm about your blogging campaign.
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Hi Ryan,
Thanks for this your latest – long – article. It seems as if dictation has really boosted your productivity! It also seems as if dictation software has improved in leaps and bounds since I last tried it, several years ago, when it generated gibberish. Or perhaps that was just my accent it couldn’t understand.
My own blogging evolution is seriously considering whether to turn off commenting, as you have done. I spend longer removing spam comments than approving good ones. The jury is out at the moment….
Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark
Joy, thanks for the opportunity. Dictation has improved; although I need to edit with my Northern New Jersey accent sometimes, LOL 🙂
Haha,
I wonder how it would get on with a Yorkshire accent – although that has softened over the years!
Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark
Yae I do evolve as a blogger. Evolution is something you cannot take away from blogging
Absolutely Eddy – when we stop evolving we move backwards relative to other bloggers.
Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark
Eddy this is true.
Hi Joy and Ryan,
Good to read yet another engaging post as usual.
Hey Ryan, I can very well relate % the things you said about email.
The time flies and now there is a flow of emails in the inbox.
As my main email space is almost full and I received a warning message from Gmail to create space or go for a pro version.
I need to check now 3 email inboxes.
Change is always a bit painful experience to many, but the truth is that charge is inevitable.
The present crisis with corona made a big change in everybody’s life. And we all coped with that, that’s really wonderful!! Yes, there is no other go so we all adjusted to it.
Do you evolve as a blogger? Or do you cling to the past? Do you hold on to old, worn-out blogging strategies? Or do you let go old, worn-out blogging strategies to make room for new, fresh, success promoting blogging strategies?
Oh my, a great lot of questions to be answered.
For most I say Yes, but few a relectant yes. LOL
Yes no doubt, we need to learn to go with the flow otherwise we’ll be left behind.
Yes, Happy, successful bloggers are flexible bloggers.
So as the time goes by let’s learn to evolve more and in the long ren achieve more.
Thanks to both of you.
Have a healthy life ahead.
StayHome StaySafe.
Best
~ Phil
Hi Phil,
Yes, there are many things we have to let go of in blogging and move forward.
However I’m still very atuned to my inbox – partly because my paid work comes in that way, so if I miss that I’m in trouble. But I have it pretty much under control.
I was talking to a colleague the other day, who is in my team, and he was wondering why he hadn’t received notification of an event that was being held. I was surprised, but forwarded him my own copy. Later he admitted he had found his own copy in amongst 14,000 unread emails!!
Hope you’re coping as well as I am with ‘Stay home’ – I am very lucky to be here in beautiful Norwich 🙂
Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark
Phil what an awesome comment bro. Thanks for publishing it and for reading the blog post. Change can be scary and painful but going through it then growing through it improves our blogs and our lives.
This is a really awesome article with tips that will be helpful for my blogging life.
Hey everyone,
Anyone reading the article can get a different plus of information depending on the level of blogging they have previously done.
I am relatively new to blogging, I started it when I got my website created. Since then I keep looking for inspiration and doing my best to post articles. I am not super frequent in my posts, and that is something I know I must improve. I do blogging as a manner to attract my clients even more and talk about my services. I am no full time blogger, but I do understand some of the challenges.
I really loved how you mentioned that “successful bloggers are flexible bloggers” – that talks a lot about the mindset and character of a person. A blogger and a business owner have so many similar things in common: hard work, creativity, flexibility and determination are some of them which come to my mind.
Thanks for the inspiration and keep sending great vibes in the universe, it will all come back multiplied.
Hi Inchirieri,
Joy here – good point. It depends on your level of blogging expertise.
I’m by no means a full-time blogger, but I just do whatever I can – hard work and determination are definitely in my genes and I’m working on the rest.
Caryy on with your blogging and enjoy it!
Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark
Hello and regards from a fellow writer
I am new to the industry, got into writing the blog and created my site in February this year. I can not talk about reinventing myself , yet, :).
I appreciate your voice dictation method, but I feel a little insecure on thinking so fast and dictating final versions of articles. Still, it is an idea to test. Exactly like you mention it is a little uncomfortable at the start, but in case it will allow me to easier create longer articles, that will be heaven for me.
My target was to get 300 words, after that I increased my target to 500 words. Now, my objective is to create 700 words long posts. It is an easy task because I love writing, but it takes so much time and I have to multitask and do some of the other, not pretty, tasks about my business.
If only writers could just write and other people could do the rest :)) well, that is far from happening. I am looking forward to see what my level of expertise and my writing skill after the full 12 months in business.
My kind regards and all my respect for the work you do.
Hi Roxana,
Joy here… like you I don’t have the confidence to dictate blog posts – even after all this time. I go backwards and forwards changing and refining. Spending far too long on it.
I too wish I could just write and let ‘a team of other’ do the rest. When we’re rich and famous!!
Joy Healey – Blogging After Dark