An Open Letter to Bloggers Who Feel Like Giving Up

It feels so terrible to invest so much time and effort in your blog and still fail to achieve any results. But it feels much worse when you’ve been blogging for quite some time — say, a year and six months — and your metrics (traffic, views, comments, post shares, etc) are nothing much to write home about.

I know how horrible that feels — this is my story.

Sadly, I have lost the zeal to blog these past few days and it’s mostly because I’ve been obsessing over my blog’s stats. As often as not, I compare my metrics to how they were last year and even the year before; while this year’s stats are better than that of previous years, I still feel like my blog hasn’t made any significant progress. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just wasting my time blogging.

You know, it got to a stage when the only thing motivating me to blog was the fact that I have come a long way to quit now. But having that mindset as your ONLY source of motivation would do you no good. A time will come when you will feel so frustrated with everything and be forced to take the easy way out — calling it quits.

Some of my blogger friends noticed that I haven’t been blogging as often as I normally did, and they wanted to know why.

I told them why. I explained everything to them, and I’m grateful that they could all relate to my experience.

During my conversation with one of them, she revealed that she could tell from my last two blog posts that I am no longer enthusiastic about blogging. She said that those two posts lacked the elements (humor, enthusiasm, etc) that are usually present in my posts.

Do you agree?

Can you tell that someone has lost enthusiasm for writing or blogging from his write-ups?

Anyway, the good news is that I won’t be quitting blogging anymore (at least not this year). And it’s all thanks to some good friends who reignited my passion for blogging again.

So I coined out four pointers from all the helpful advice that my friends gave me. I would like to leave them here for any blogger who feels like giving up on his blog. I would also like to leave them here so I can refer to them should I ever feel like quitting again.

4 things to do when you feel like giving up

1. Remember why you started blogging.

I started my blog to connect with people from different walks of life and share my thoughts, ideas, and knowledge with them. I hoped that by sharing the little I know, I would also learn from them and see their different perspectives on several topics.

The thought of becoming an authority in a niche or two, growing my influence, and inspiring others intrigued me. All of these opportunities that blogging promised were what prompted me to start Shards of Bards.

And it has been a beautiful journey so far, regardless of the challenges that I’ve faced on many occasions. Thanks to my blog, I’ve encountered some people that I now consider as good friends: the kind of friends that I would invite over to drink some juice, play chess, and maybe watch some movies while we’re at it.

Remembering the reason why I started blogging in the first place was my wake-up call. It was what slapped me out of the illusion I was under. After my friends reminded me of the reason behind my blog’s existence, I decided to eliminate any habit that was fueling my self-doubt.

Which brings us to the next point.

2. Stop comparing yourself to other bloggers.

There are three major reasons why many bloggers give up blogging:

• They are too concerned about their blog’s stats.
• They are yet to achieve their blogging goal.
• They keep comparing themselves to bloggers who are doing better than them.

The third reason is usually the case because the first two reasons revolve around it. You won’t think your blog’s stats are poor until you see someone whose stats make yours look like shit. Likewise, it’s so easy to feel discouraged when you find other bloggers who have blogging goals that are the same as yours but have achieved them in no time.

I remember how sad I was the day I discovered that the amount of traffic I get in a month is nearly what my friend gets in just two days. The fact that my friend and I started blogging the same year made the pain more excruciating. It made me feel like I wasn’t good enough, like I wasn’t cut out for blogging.

But when I thought about it, I realised that my friend and I are so different: We blog about different topics; we have different schedules (mine is busier, by the way), and we use different strategies. These are just some of the factors that contribute to how different our progress rate is.

One thing I’ve learnt is that we all have different definitions of success. For me who wants to connect with many people, I’m concerned about the number of ACTIVE followers I have and the number of comments I get on my blog posts. In one word, engagement.

For my friend, it’s the number of ebooks he manages to sell. And since his readers hardly ever buy his books, he thinks of himself as a failure. Ironic, isn’t it?

According to my definition of success, he is successful, but he thinks otherwise because success means something else to him.

This taught me a lesson:

We are all so different. We have different schedules, routines, styles, strategies, and goals. Thus, it’s not wise to compare ourselves to one another. Rather than compare ourselves to each other, we should study each other’s growth and learn whatever we can from our blogging journeys.

3. Examine yourself and your blog.

“Do not give up blogging because of a problem that can be solved.”

Examine yourself and your blog. You’ll find that the reason you want to give up is something that can be solved. No problem is unique — many bloggers have been in your shoes before, and most of them scaled through that phase eventually.

You, too, can! You need only decide to keep fighting till you achieve the results you want. You might think you have tried everything, but that’s only a lie. There are still loads of strategies you can try out. You just have to sit back and think. Think, then decide to give it another try.

4. Accept the hard truth about success.

I have realised and accepted that success isn’t something you can achieve overnight — it is something that takes a great deal of time, effort, and commitment to attain.

It is okay to feel discouraged. Every blogger who is successful today passed through this difficult stage at some point in time. There was a time when they, too, struggled to get much traffic and achieve their blogging goals. But they only succeeded because even though the idea of giving up was so appealing to them, they didn’t give up. They fought tooth and nail to see that they succeeded.

The rate at which we progress vastly differs. While it might take you a year to attain success, it might take me five years. But the fact that it takes me longer to succeed doesn’t make me a failure. We all have different due dates for our success.

One thing I can’t deal with is regret. I would hate to wake up every morning with the thought that I would likely have succeeded if I hadn’t been quick to throw in the towel. Feelings of regret drive me crazy.

THIS is one of the top reasons I decided to keep blogging. After all, the only way to find out if I would do well as a blogger is to find out, right?

Right.

Special Thanks

I want to use this opportunity to thank you for reading this post up to this point. I also want to thank everyone of you who read my blog posts (and comment on them). Seriously, you guys are the best!

I was going through my old posts yesterday — posts written as far back as 2017. I read some of the comments those posts got, and I was smiling all through the time I was reading them. Truly, I’ve come too far to give up now. I’m only grateful that I realised this before making a mistake I would have ended up regretting.

The End?

Usually, I suck when it comes to concluding a blog post. And this blog post isn’t any different. I suppose it’s best to leave you with this mind-boggling question that I’ve been asking myself for a while now:

In your opinion, when is the right time to give up blogging?