No Giving Up This Time! 5 Ways to Make Blogging a Habit and Keep It Going

As the saying goes, "Persistence is power."

The flip side of this saying is probably that "humans are basically not made to keep doing things."

In fact, genres where it's hard to keep going and get results — going to the gym, dieting, English, studying business, and so on — are thriving as "profitable businesses."

And for me, the genre where it's hard to keep going and get results is blogging.

There are lots of advantages to blogging, but I've given up many times in the past.
If this goes on, my life will end without any results, so I thought about "how I can keep blogging."

1. Clarify your purpose

Without a purpose, motivation won't come for anything.
First, take proper time to clarify what you want to gain in life through blogging.

In my case:

• Make the blog "the goose that lays golden eggs" (turn it into a customer-acquisition and revenue medium, and a portfolio)
• Become able to write high-quality content (and in a short time)
• Make the blog a means of building my voice and
• becoming a rare and valuable person

That's roughly it.

You could even write "I'll make 1 million yen a month with my blog!" on a piece of paper, stick it up in your room, and chant it many times morning and night.

2. Don't pursue quality until 100 articles

If you try to make something perfect from the start, you freeze up.

• You start researching anything that feels fuzzy (research becomes the goal and the writing is left behind)
• You write a fair amount, then mildly hate yourself thinking "this is thin" (deleting the article or shelving it as a draft forever)
• You worry about someone dissing the content behind your back

Famous bloggers often say, "Nobody reads you until about 100 articles. You won't show up on search engines either. Quantity of writing creates quality." And Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's words "Done is better than perfect." also hit home.

3. Write about insights from your current work and what you're learning

Just getting through your work and business study is meaningless; you won't grow unless you gain "insights" from what you've done and apply them to your next work. What you take in only sticks once you "output what you've input."

It's said that "writing a daily report by hand and coaching yourself is self-growth," and while I think that's right, I tried it and gave up. In that case, if you give your blog multiple benefits — "a substitute for a daily report," "providing value for free," and "building a foundation by piling up articles" — maybe you can keep it up without strain.

4. Throw away strange assumptions and pride

At a company I used to work for (a B2B internet service), we took turns writing the blog, and I kept getting shot down: "The logic falls apart; it's not fit to publish. This is content we put out as a company." At the same time, a sense of being bad at writing and the belief that "blogs must be written logically" were imprinted in me like Pavlov's dog.

But after leaving the company and doing marketing desperately, I learned the fact that "when moving people, you appeal not to logic but to emotion." Stirring up "emotion" suits me better than logic, so I got motivated.

It's also important to throw away "strange pride." Strange pride means "how I'm seen by others." Once the stopper comes off, the brakes on writing come off too, and you'll probably be able to build emotional rapport with your readers.

5. Step outside your comfort zone

This is the first article on this blog, and its content was aimed at myself.
As I wrote earlier, at the publishing stage this article is in a state where "nobody is reading," so I could quietly quit.

So I joined a "community of sales writers" and started a "study group on revenue sites" in an entrepreneur community, and in both communities I committed to "keep blogging every day."

Now I have no choice but to keep going from tomorrow on. I've written all sorts of things, but I think "driving yourself out of your comfort zone" is the most effective.