Is It Really Possible To Create The Change You Want In Your Life?
This is part one of a series on how to create positive change in your life based on what has worked for me, what hasn’t, and what I’m currently learning. Rather than write one of my usual 4000+ word monster articles I’m breaking it down for you into more manageable chunks.
This is going to be a very important series if you’re ready to arm yourself with some powerful tools in the battle for happiness, success and contentment in your life, so get ready. Here we go…
This Is Who I Am
As a blogger you are at times more open with your thoughts and feelings online than you might be in person, even with your closest friends and family. Despite knowing that thousands of people read this blog every day, I find it easier and I’m much more succinct, when I share my thoughts and ideas here, at least when it comes to certain subjects.
One of the wonderful, if surprising at first, experiences as a result of being open with people through a blog is that eventually you gain some kind of notoriety for being good at something. When I started Entrepreneurs-Journey I wanted to share my business experiences simply for the sake of sharing and to see whether other people found what I had to say of value. Some people did find what I had to say valuable, so I kept saying things, and more and more people found me and started listening.
Eventually my perception online became that of an “authority” in my niche, at least to a small sub-segment of the population. I became a “someone” rather than an audience, in one little corner of the universe, in this case as a blogger who talks about entrepreneurship, marketing, and personal development.
This is a great event for all kinds of reasons, but the most important reason, and be sure to underline this, is that with authority, more people actually read what I write. With the attention that authority gives me, I enjoy the privilege and honor of being able to influence people. This is power and it’s something you have to be very careful with as power is trust, and you don’t want to abuse people’s trust.
What’s a little strange for me is that I’ve not really done anything to enjoy my position other than tell you what I think and do. I haven’t been officially trained to do this in any way, I didn’t go to school to learn to blog (I started one instead), nor was I instructed along the way about the right way to do things. In reality I’m pretty much exactly the same as you are right now, except I’ve spent the last five years sharing aspects of my life through this blog over and over again, week after week.
The Challenge That Is Changing Yourself
Ego Blogging and the Money Idol – Beware Who You Worship In The Blogosphere
Something about the blogosphere lately has been bugging me. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it is because it’s not a black and white problem and I’m an active participant and proponent of at least part of what I see as the issue.
Blogging as we know it today evolved from online journal writing, a very reflective and personal thing to do centered around one individual’s life. Back then it was expected that a “weblog” would focus mostly on the person writing it and consequently, unless the person led a very interesting life or had a gift for writing, only a small handful of people would read it – perhaps friends, family and coworkers.
Today blogs have become much more than journals, yet many of the blogs we idolize are very ego-centric. Often popular blogs are driven by the personality of the author. While most blogs are not necessarily talking about a person’s personal life, often “life” is the muse for topics, even if they are skewed for relevancy to a certain group of people, a target market.
For example, my blog here is about Internet business and blogging and many of the posts I publish draw on my own experience in these areas. This article you are reading right now is exactly that – I’m writing this as a result of my recent experience reading other blogs.
The blogosphere is personality driven, so it’s natural to expect that the people with the biggest personalities, the most interesting stories, unique talents and/or some form of celebrity, are at the top of the A-List of blogs. There’s nothing wrong with that on the surface, but what I do see as a potential problem is what we value and what concepts we raise to ideals to emulate.
