Being a blogger can be rewarding and fun, but it can also be stressful and a lot of work. If you haven’t experienced these things as a blogger, you will if you’re serious about your blogging career.

There are thousands of blogs out there telling you how to blog well. Do this, they say. No, do this instead! It’s down to you and your singular focus. And no list from someone with a million followers will change that.

If you don’t change, nothing will change.

Your focus determines your reality. This may be a fictional quote from a fictional character, but it’s true. I’ve completed a few blogging courses in my time, which I will blog about here for anyone interested. And the one message I see over and over from exceptional writers is “What is your why?”

Think about it. It might not seem like a hard question to ask. But it is. Because everyone has an original reason for blogging. Some blog for fun. Some blog for self-expression. Some blog for the sole reason of making money.

Until you know where you want to go with your blogging, you can’t move forward, especially if you want to make money as a blogger.

Why do you want to blog?

To make money from your blog and live the dream is what most bloggers want. I have dallied with the thought of monetizing everything I write. But once you begin down that road, you are in for a very bumpy journey.

What I’ve discovered is that the only factor that matters in the equation is you. If you want to be a full-time blogger, you must have 120 percent commitment, day and night to do it and do it well. You can’t just want to write a blog post here and there. Blogging is hard work.

What a lot of “experts” don’t tell you is that if you want to blog for a living, first you must choose what kind of blogger you want to be. And once you’ve done that, you then need to work on a marketing strategy, learn all about SEO and the countless ways to draw in and attract traffic to your blog.

And that’s just the beginning.

Being a writer or a lover of words is nowhere near enough.

You won’t succeed if you are in love with the romantic ideal of what a writer is. Today, writing is one of the most competitive industries on the planet. And the landscape of writing is constantly changing, and you need to change with it.

Are you prepared to take the next step in your blogging career? Or are you happy with the way things are and content to blog as a hobby? Everyone is different.

I’ll be writing a series of blog posts focusing on the challenges and struggles of blogging. And I’ll be sharing whatever I have learned with anyone who wants to read it.

Have you had similar experiences? Do you have something you think is important to share with other writers? Please, let me know in the comments. I am always looking for other writers and bloggers to collaborate with.

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Thank You!