Been there. Done that.
I did the roller coaster bit for more than enough years. Be up. Be down. Be left. Be right. My stomach could not take it.
Time to level out. Because if you do not level out, expect to be up and down for your entire blogging career. Leveling out involves making the firm, definite decision to face, feel and release fears that feed wild, excited highs, and the lowest, depth-finding, horrible lows.
The blogging journey is just a blogging journey. Neutral. But you add the roller coaster effect by injecting emotions into the journey, complements of your judgments and perceptions. For example, I feel good mind-wise now, but my neck feels painfully stiff. If I was completely unaware of my emotions – and the difference between bodily and mental pain – I would say today was a total blogging loss, a dip in the roller coaster, a massive loss, a terrible day.
But since I can observe my feelings kinda skillfully, versus injecting my feelings into all I do, coloring experiences through my judgment, I simply watch the feelings, keep blogging, and largely feel leveled out, relaxed and well on my way to another serene blogging day.
Do you feel stoked to take this solopreneur ride? Good. BUT….reign in that excitement to level off. You need to level off, in order to avoid being on a roller coaster, but on a flat, calming road. Imagine receiving payment from a client or observing your first commission check as an affiliate marketer. Sure it feels good. Feel appreciation, freedom and happiness on receiving the money. But beware being swept away in a roaring rapids of wild-eyed excitement, as is the case for most bloggers.
People get so attached to money and so excited about making money – from energies of shock, fear, scarcity and wildness – that they take off the rest of the work day, all because they made money. Some fools take off the work week because they made some dough. Some genuinely lost, deluded bloggers take off even more time, after profiting.
Would you take off from your 9-5 job after receiving a paycheck? Nope. You do not take off days or weeks after getting paid because you’d be fired. Employers pay you for doing your job. Blogging businesses yield money only for bloggers who put in 1000’s of generous work hours. Develop emotional intelligence to keep blogging by being calm, confident and poised on your blogging journey.
Wild-eyed excitement is just as damaging as hopelessness because both are unstable, poverty conscious energies. Try putting in a generous, calm day of work if you feel wildly excited about signing up a client or placing a sponsored post. Impossible, because wild excitement is fear (masked as surprise at making money blogging, etc), and fear is an unstable, damaging emotion that kills presence of mind, fuels writer’s block and also goads you to get lazy, the death knell of all failing or mediocre bloggers.
Meanwhile, someone like me moves along, publishing 10 posts daily, whether or not I sell eBooks or placed sponsored posts. Why? I face my fears routinely so need not ride a roller coaster of emotions. I feel calm, generous and energized largely independent of circumstances. This is the key to persisting while most bloggers burn out, flame out or simply quit, their fears guaranteeing these poor outcomes. Slow down. Calm down. Stop riding the wave of emotions flowing through your mind during the blogging journey.
Observe your thoughts and feelings. Consider meditating and doing Kriya yoga to practice observing your thoughts and feelings, versus labeling neutral blogging events with your thoughts and feelings. Imagine walking a peaceful, calming level path through the rice paddies. Do you feel serene? Of course you do. No matter what happens with your blog, walking a level path keeps you generous, poised, patient, persistent and trusting, allowing you to seamlessly knife through obstacles, promoting your long term blogging growth.
See the journey through. But beware getting too high in wild excitement or too low in the depths of despair. Relax. Accept your fears. Feel ’em. Release ’em. Level off to an energy of peace, prosperity and blogging success.
