Why I blog (for six months already)

How to be an Original is 6 months old. I think it’s amazing that six months have passed already since I decided to start blogging, and acted upon that decision within days. I’m still proud about that decision, because it was a conscious decision to not procrastinate. And I was a master in procrastinating, especially on the area of following my own path. But six months ago I decided to just do it!

I did do a little preparation. I decided that I wanted my own domain, I looked at Guy Kawasaki’s blog to see what kind of blogging platform he was using (Typepad). Signed up and started blogging. I’m loving blogging ever since (but I’ve changed to Wordpress as a platform).

I started blogging to accelerate my path towards a productive and authentic life. And I started blogging as a way to do some personal branding. But in the mean time it has brought me much much more:

• Explaining provokes deeper understanding. When you learn about a topic, you will deepen your understanding by applying it. But explaining it to others needs even another level of understanding. On my blog I explain different concepts and ideas, and by doing so I’m deepening my own knowledge of the specific topic. I blog a lot about finding your values, and pursuing your goals. And by doing so I’m learning a lot about the subject in the mean time (and I apply it in between…).
• Personal branding. I want to start as an entrepreneur in training and coaching, but I have no formal education or professional background in that field. And as a trainer or coach you need personal branding to sell your services. People need to want YOU to deliver the service of training or coaching.So how do you brand yourself in an area where you’re not currently working in and have no formal education in? Well blogging of course! A blog has several advantages ranging from a big resource for potential customers to dive into and to get to “know me” through my writing and my ideas. And building a readership and an active community is also a way of building authority in the field I want to be working in.
• Writing forces structure in reasoning. Writing is essentially a monologue. I’m speaking (silently) and you’re listening by reading. Only after I’ve written something, and after you’ve read it, the interaction begins. I speak, you listen, then we discuss. This is totally different from ‘real life’ situations where you explain something. In that case the interaction starts the moment you start explaining. You continuously look for verbal and non-verbal signals to check whether your audience is still connected and you act upon that information by repeating stuff or by picking up pace for instance.Writing does not give you that advantage. It requires more thought to get a message across and keep readers connected. This process is great for structuring my reasoning about a topic. And it gives me a lot of written material that might be very useful in the future.
• Comments help me develop further. When you reflect upon my ideas and ask questions, or add context and information to what I write about, you give me the opportunity to develop further. I love that aspect of blogging! Interacting about ideas in the comments gives a lot of insight, both for the readers and for me. This is really a win-win situation.
• Passive income. After a month or two of blogging, I discovered Problogger and Genius Types. Both blogs are great resources that help you build your blog and discuss options of monetizing it. The fact that you could make money from blogging was appealing. This aspect is a nice addition to this activity that already brings me a lot. And it helps me a step forward to financial freedom, not bad
• Getting to know interesting people. Last but, definitely not least! There are a lot of interesting people that I’ve met through blogging. I enjoy interacting with you and I learn so much from you, about blogging, about my quest, about the importance of co-creation, about the power of collaboration. I love how the blogosphere is growing at astounding rates and essentially is a non-competitive environment.