My approach to blogging is to write like I’m talking with a friend or relative about a subject they may be interested in knowing more about. And since I am essentially sharing my knowledge, expertise, or discovery with the reader, I don’t take it personally if they don’t respond in a certain way.

It’s kind of like sharing a new flower in my garden with a visitor. They may or may not like it in the same way I do. So what…

Thanks for the insightful and inspiring post. It’s great that you are willing to share your experience on blogging for newbies like me.

Rgds

I read this on the day you published it- 24 July. I’ve been contemplating for a while on starting my own blog, as my fears were failure to draw traffic, nobody will bother to comment, and facing a handful of rejections.

But after reading your post, it really motivated me. As of today, I finally did it, my blog is 4 days old!

Thank you so much! As a new blogger, this post will serve as a constant reminder of the importance of self-worth over everything else.

Many of my posts have helped one person, or given a mom a sounding board for her concerns, or made someone laugh, or think differently and for the better… even if I am only reaching one person a day, my blog matters to them and that makes all of my work worth it. I also chose a blogging topic I feel passionate about: green parenting, saving our planet and our children. No matter who reads it, I am learning by every word I type!

Thanks for your insight and for peeling back the layers of superficiality, and for reminding us all what really matters.

I have a couple of blogs–one of which, gets very little traffic, but more often than not, I get very positive comments. To date, I’ve only had one negative comment, not about my blog, but about my point of view on the topic. However, I don’t let the comments affect my mood, I let my faith in God determine that.

I’m very open about my spirituality on my blogs. In fact, I’m launching BooksNBeats.com, which will be a music and book entertainment, faith-based blog for teens and young adults. I believe that having something outside of yourself and other people, something higher to believe in and connect to, you get true personal wealth.

That’s my 33 cents:)

I matter because I was created in the image of God, along with every other person on this earth. Because of that, I want to show respect to others even if I may disagree on matters of faith.

How God develops my character is more important than what I accomplish in this life. However, what I do is an overflow of what’s inside my heart. Hopefully, my actions demonstrate my faith in God to others…and it should all be wrapped up in love.

I believe most of Western society adheres to the erroneous belief that something outside of ourselves is the final arbiter of our worth. Even when I joke about it — like when I clean the house, I say I earned another day’s worth of free air! — there’s still a kernel of truth that lies underneath: in this society, we’re taught that what we DO is more important than who we ARE.

Writers (and other creative souls) have long struggled with the gap between self-value and social value, but in the past, the arbiter was the publisher: if your writing was published, it must have value, and by association, so must you have some worth. So we writers used famous rejection stories (such as J.K. Rowling’s) to rise above despair.

Now, publishing is so easy and so fast (just hit that “Publish Post” button on your blog) that we have to turn to other yardsticks — numbers of “hits” and “trackbacks,” Technorati ratings, etc. — to measure the worth of our writing (and hence of ourselves).

Every one of us can benefit from regular reminders, such as your excellent post, that it’s not what we do, but who we are that counts; that it’s not other people, but only ourselves who can determine our true value.

Thank you!

Personally, I would never measure my success, and even less my self-worth, based on my blogging. I realized when I started it that the topic of my expertise would not generate interest with a huge audience. It is directed at professionals in a specific industry and within it a group of people that are interested in what happens next on the web. Blazing a trail is usually not for those with thin skins.

Once you have reached a certain level of success in your professional life and can look at past achievements, it puts the blog writing stuff into a certain perspective. Maybe for someone that is just starting out this might not be the case and I can only advise them to use other, more relevant yardsticks to measure their success and sense of self-worth.

If you tie your worth to anything or anyone outside of yourself you’re bound to a leash. You’re giving your power away and letting outside circumstances determine how you feel.

This gets into the topic of belief in self because one who truly believes in their own self will keep going through all the ups and downs of traffic, RSS subs, comments, and such – sure, if you’re messing up and not giving to your blog like you used to you could be causing some of these shifts, but as long as you’re doing all that you can do to create the success, the rest is out of your hands.

It’s when you start allowing that outside stuff to effect your motivation and determination that you will falter – and again this comes back to belief.

Thanks for the article, you’re spot on, although I bet many could read this and say “hey, what do you have to worry about, look at your stats!” But there are people who still continue to seek outside approval no matter how high their “success” reaches, so your post really applies to everyone.

You have great insight, and I wish everyone would see life this way. Always try to have a positive outlook on life even under the worst of circumstances. Laugh, smile and always have high hopes.

The irony of this idea is that maybe it should convince some bloggers to stop. There. I’ve said it.

It’s conceivable — just as we can easily invision it of the moneyphile on Wall Street, for example — that when we look at the equation, we find we are blogging (or being a marketer or a yoga instructor, or whatever it is we are then pursuing) for the wrong reasons, for the reasons in the equation.

While I think this post offers some wonderful things to think about, and we need more things written like it, I also think there are a few important pieces missing, that though it’s a *start*, it is only that, toward finding peace with productivity, instead of enduring the enervation of a pursuit of praise, or the angst for achievement.

We need to spend more time than what it takes to read through, even thoughtfully, wonderful posts like this, absorbing it like a health-food microwave dinner, and then off to the next nice idea — hopefully ours. (Are you getting this, me? I’m talking to you.)

The question it poses is ultimate. It brings into question such powerful ideas as “success”, “ambition”, many words that connote something more specific than the words in fact intend. It’s a startlingly good fit to the analogy of different blind people describing an elephant.

If we really listen to the plea of this idea, it is not *really* “How do I sustain myself as a blogger (painter, actor, whatever),” but “Is this really what I want to be doing?” “Is this really the value I feel I’m meant to bring to the world and in this way?”

Is it wrong to base one’s self-worth on feedback from others? In some senses, certainly, but I’m not sure that others should be out of the equation completely? Certain *feedback* always. Other people categorically? By no means.

“You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.”

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/a-brief-guide-to-world-domination/

Hence, to allow our personal worth to go up and down with the statistics on my blogs is the very idea of conformity. ;-)

“Man, the typography looks pretty!”
“That post looks really cool, that was a good flickr image to choose.”
“Hey, it says there are two users online! Someone’s reading the blog!”

There are times when I feel a little disappointed with the results, but after abandoning so many projects, I feel as though I mostly just need to stick with it. When I’m feeling down, I try to focus not on, “I’m not being successful” but rather, “what have I done today to get my blog on track?” I think sadness could be a really good motivator if you use it to your advantage.

My self worth comes from being a trumpet player, honestly. I’m pretty wicked at my instrument and so whenever I feel down I get into the “super ego, totally bad-A” sense of being. I try to think of my blog and my life in terms of my status in band. (Weird, but effective.) I’m an officer, and so I have some authority, and so acting like I’m useless wouldn’t make me a very effective leader, would it?

Very interesting post. Nice to see some more introduction of the human element behind the blog!