Blogging Failure

What is a recent failure you’ve experienced? That is a tough question. When it comes down to it, I have to be honest and say that my most recent failure has been this blog. That seems like a really bad advertising choice to write about, but, so often, you gain so much from failure.

Success or Failure?

Blog Beginnings

Before I look into why I feel I’ve had a blogging failure, I need to first look at why I started the blog:

• First and foremost is that I felt I was supposed to write it.
• I wanted to reach out to others who have been knocked down or abused in life.
• To help others heal from their scars while also healing mine.
• Discovering and sharing hope to walk life in freedom.
• To find my voice and step out into life with assurance.

I feel those are really good reasons for writing a blog. There is a higher purpose to the work. After a couple of years increasingly writing more and more, I know my writing has touched a few lives and I’m slowly learning how to have a “successful” blog. So why do I consider it to be a recent failure?

• It doesn’t get much traffic.
• Subscribers are few.
• There aren’t many comments on my posts.
• I have no idea how to market the blog.
• I still am not sure of what I’m supposed to do with my writing – I don’t know the long-term plan.

I know most of these reasons are success “on paper”. They are mostly statistics that bloggers use to evaluate if their posts are reaching people and how to improve their site or keep doing what they’re doing. These statistics are very important to running a blog, but they can also be misleading and can deflate the writer’s courage and momentum. It is necessary information and it is solely what has prompted me to call this a blogging failure.

So, if I feel the blog has been a failure, then why do I keep doing it? Another good question, but the best response is that, in the larger scope of things, it really isn’t a failure unless I allow it to be a failure. If I stopped writing now and gave up doing what I feel God is leading me to do, then it would definitely be a failure. But that is not what I intend to do.

Learning From Failure

Blogging Failure Knowledge

From failure comes so much learning. I would definitely say that by it not being an immediate success that I have learned so much more than if it was a success. I know it sounds like such a cliché, but it is true, mainly for me at least, because I wouldn’t have gone on such a journey to learn all I could if I hadn’t had some failure with it.

Some of the knowledge I’ve learned is:

• I don’t have to and even shouldn’t do this alone.
• There are so many ways to learn every nuance about writing I could ever want to know – physical classes, writing conferences, luncheons, and so on – from blogging to getting a book published.
• If what one person suggests doesn’t work for me, there are other ways to do it and other people to show me how to do it.
• By writing most days, it continually improves. I learn how to say things differently to get my point across so much better so I can make more of an impact on those who read my posts.

I have also learned that getting writing out there takes time and knowledge. Knowledge takes time to acquire and then put it into action. I now fully believe what I’ve continually heard – it doesn’t matter if there are thousands of people saying similar things – you are the only one who has your voice and perspective. I may be able to reach someone where another writer couldn’t.  Just like certain people get together as friends and some are closer than others, readers like certain writers and connect with some more than others.

Writing With Freedom

But I would have to say that the best thing that has come from the “blogging failure” is that my perspective has changed. I’m not afraid anymore of someone coming after me for something I said in my writing. I used to worry that certain people would read my writings and get very angry. Since I no longer am concerned with this, I have more freedom and my writing reflects it.

I write what I’m thinking and feel led to write. I’m still thoughtful of what I say and take great consideration when I speak of the one I loved and those who have hurt me. I do what I can to not identify them specifically. I feel God wants me to share my story and the one I loved wanted his story to be told so that others won’t have to walk through the same issues, or they can at least find healing.

So, even though my blog would be seen as a failure by the world at this point in it’s being, the failure has brought so much prosperity in my growth – both as a person and a writer.

What is a recent failure you’ve had and what have you learned from it?

~ Joanna Lynn