Saturday, May 3, 2008

What's True In Life Is True In Blogging

I did it again. Once again I got carried away by the sudden surge in my blog traffic during one of the "Bloggy Give-away" week, that I decided to hold my own "give-aways". The thing is, building traffic isn't really one of my goal for this blog. Sure I love it when I get many visitors reading my blog but I like visitors to come because they get enjoy the posts they read (or get encouraged, inspired, or motivated by it) not just for the give-aways. There is a time and place for give-aways, but it should not be my focus.

Doing give-aways, promoting it, and building readership entail a great amount of time and effort for it to be successful. But I do not have a lot of time alloted for this blog. I love blogging and enjoy it tremendously. However I find that when I get too focused on blog traffic, I get stressed instead of enjoying it.

FOCUS. I need to focus on the purposes of my blog. I need to remind myself why I blog and why I love doing it. I need remind myself of my goals. I need to make it clear to myself the reasons behind my blogging. What is it that drives me, that motivates me, that makes me passionate about it. Then the rest will follow.

One of my favorite books is the "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. Chapter 3 of the book is titled "What Drives Your Life?" He started the chapter by quoting Ecclesiastes 4:4 (LB) "I observed that the basic motive for success is the driving force of envy and jealousy!". That is true in todays world, and I desire to swim against this world's tide. My purpose in life is to glorify God, and that's what drives me to do the best in whatever I do.

Rick listed 5 benefits of purpose driven living (it was expounded in the book, but for the sake of brevity of this post, I will just list the items. I suggest you read this book. It's excellent):

1. Knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life.
2. Knowing your purpose simplifies your life.
3. Knowing your purpose focuses your life.
4. Knowing your purpose motivates your life.
5. Knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity.

Now, let me apply those to blogging:

1. Knowing my blogging purpose gives meaning to my blog.
2. Knowing my blogging purpose simplifies my blogging.
3. Knowing my blogging purpose focuses my blogging.
4. Knowing my blogging purpose motivates my blogging.
5. Knowing my blogging purpose prepares me for eternity (well, I am not sure about this one. I do love "posting about worship" in my blog - and when we go to heaven we'll be worshiping God, so that prepares me for eternity. OK, I'm stretching this one ;)

It's Sunday morning here on Maui. I think I'd close this post and enjoy the day at the beach or do something other than blogging.

Have a nice weekend everyone :)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good for you! God Bless!

Unknown said...

I like the idea about knowing one's purpose. Sometimes I have lost sight of that in blogging and worried about stats and then I back off and tell the inner critic to shut up.
Good for you.