11 Tips for Slaying Your Most Insidious Blogging Limiting Beliefs

This is a guest contribution from Ryan Biddulph.

“Should I write this post? I do not know. I mean, it will probably go live in 1-2 months. 1-2 months is a long time. Not worth it.”

These thoughts traveled through my mind a few minutes ago. Honestly.

Limiting beliefs cripple most bloggers. A select few embrace their limiters, listen closely, tune into their nasty little dialog and do it anyway. Which is why I am writing this post now.

Imagine yourself as a successful blogger. Or if you have seen some success imagine yourself supercharging your results. What do you hear? Listen in to the internal dialog and you might hear stuff like:

“I have no time to run a successful blog.”

“I have no friends in high places.”

“I have no talent.”

“Nobody will read my posts.”

“Nobody will promote my posts.”

The list can go on forever. I know, because I created such a list many moons ago. I felt comfortable creating and then defending my limiting beliefs because I enjoyed being comfortable. So much easier to reside in my safe, quiet, peaceful comfy zone.

I mean, if I ventured out into uncomfortable areas I might actually grow. Yikes!

I might be faced with intense criticism. I might actually make real money through blogging. I might become free. I might need to push myself more and hit deadlines and enter into prospering partnerships and write detailed posts and do research and attract ghostwriting clients and publish sponsored posts.

Wow! That sounds like a lot of work. I convinced myself that being comfortable made more sense than growing so naturally I obeyed my limiting beliefs.

As you can imagine, obeying your limiting beliefs ruins your blog. No need to expound on why.

Imagine yourself being free. Imagine 10,000 or 30,000 or more eager readers/rabid fans devouring each of your blog posts. Imagine yourself traveling the world. Truth be told I have nowhere near that many subscribers but hey, I am traveling the world.

I have spent the past 2 and a half years living in places like Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Peru and Costa Rica. I have visited Japan, Taiwan, China and El Salvador. I mean, a guy who struggled to make a dime – literally – 4 years ago learned how to live the internet lifestyle so he could chill in Bali and Phuket?

Are you kidding me? An ex-fired-security guard turned world traveler? How did I do it? How did I go from jobless in New Jersey to swashbuckling globe-trotter? I faced, embraced and released my blogging limiting beliefs. I faced ‘em and did it anyway.

On to the tips!

1: Meditate

Image courtesy of tiverylucky / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

It seems like 50% of my practical blogging tips focused on meditating but honest to goodness, spending at least 20 minutes daily sitting in quiet accelerates your blogging growth like no other practice.

Most struggling bloggers walk around in a haze. The crowd has no clue why they fail. This makes perfect sense because until you become aware of your limiting beliefs you cannot solve these low energy, success-killing ideas.

Meditating helps you hear the chatter. Like this morning, as I sit here in Kathmandu, Nepal, I wanted to go back to bed. Big league jet lag after spending 23 hours traveling from New York JFK to Kathmandu. I heard the negative chatter shared above, and said, the heck with it; I am writing the guest post and submitting to Problogger anyway.

Meditate for 20 minutes daily. Sit in a quiet spot. Observe. You will be stunned by what comes up. You will feel liberated after listening in to what is REALLY happening in your mind.

2: Submit Guest Posts

Submitting guest posts introduces you to 2 people; supportive types who spur you on to create, and conquer your blocks, and unhappy trolls who criticise you needlessly, helping you to embrace resistance.

The supportive types inspire you. The trolls teach you how to process feedback from a lesser developed, unhappy mind. In both cases be grateful for the experience because you can grow quickly by guest posting frequently.

3: Connect with Inspirational Figures

They can be inspirational bloggers like Darren Rowse or inspiring folks from any walk of life. If these people could crush their limiting beliefs you better believe you can do it too.

If you are deeply depressed, or if you have 4 cents in your pocket, or if you were assailed by your family for making high energy, freeing, courageous choices, I feel you, because I experienced these nightmares too.

If I can experience these nightmares and come out on top you can too. Connect with inspirational figures.

4: Do the Uncomfortable

I admit it; I felt that quick and easy posts were the only way to generate revenue. After creating 50 – yes FIFTY – video posts between my 2 blogs daily for about 3 weeks I came to a revelation; short posts will net you little revenue.

I felt uncomfortable writing longer, detailed, in-depth resources like this post. Sure I saw success writing such posts in the past but I did not experience the rousing results I so craved. So I bailed, and shot myself in the foot in a major way.

I hated sitting down to write a 2000 or 2500 word resource. I felt all of my fears, worries and anxieties up close and personal. I was wasting my time, I was losing money, and nobody is going to see this post anyway, blah, blah, blah. I hated feeling these feelings but new that slaying your limiting beliefs means being uncomfortable, to blast through these blocks.

Do the uncomfortable. Become comfortable with these acts. Prove to yourself that your limiting beliefs die a quick death if you will simply do what you feel uncomfortable doing.

5: Do Crazy Stuff Outside of Blogging

Speaking of ‘Crazy Ideas’

3 years ago I had never flown on a plane. My first trip? From New York to Denpasar, Bali. 23 hours on 3 separate planes. It was crazy for me, kinda scary, a massive challenge, but doing crazy stuff builds a faith in yourself you simply cannot replicate through other others.

Click through to my blog after reading this post. Or now. See me petting a 400 pound tiger in Thailand? His name is Ron. Real gentleman. But I was freaking terrified to step inside the cage. I shook. I said “no” but after seeing my fiancée Kelli walk into the cage with no fear and the Thai guys laughing at me I pushed myself through my terror and sat inside the cage.

This was perhaps the most empowering experience of my life. I felt scared, of course, but I also felt free from the intense fear that I could never step into a cage and actually pet one of the top apex predators on earth.

This faith naturally leaked over into my blogging exploits. I crushed blogging limiting beliefs my proving to myself that my fears were under my control.

6: Meet Fans Daily

Some folks will fall in love with what you do. Some people will promote each post and comment on each post and become one of your blogging brand ambassadors.

Meet more people each day by promoting posts other than your own and commenting on other blogs.

Fans will support you through difficult times. Good friends push you to kill your limiting beliefs. Brand ambassadors will expand your presence, build your blog and help you prosper but of course you need to meet these folks by aggressively networking.

Meet people. Daily. Push yourself to meet at least 10 to 20 new bloggers through commenting on a daily basis to kill your limiting beliefs because many of your new blogging fans will help you succeed and dissolve any limiting ideas that you might

hold.

7: Meet Harsh Critics

Image by Stuart Richards

On the flip side of the coin are harsh critics. I remember the first person who blew me out of the water on the ghostwriting front. This person pulled no punches.

I became enraged but responded in a polite manner. The anger festered. I was really, really pissed, which meant I saw some truth in her words.

After thinking through the criticism/feedback I uncovered one of my limiting beliefs; I could only charge for my services if everybody liked my work. After receiving this stinging feedback I went into a shell, stopped aggressively promoting my ghostwriting services and turned down work. But deeper analysis of the criticism confirmed that I simply needed to accept that when you charge for your services you might not impress everybody.

Sure, you might need to improve your writing skills. Or perhaps a miserable, unclear person wants to unload their unhappiness on you. In either case you can learn what you truly believe about yourself and why you might hold yourself back by dealing with harsh critics.

8: Travel

Traveling is one of my favorite ways to address my blogging limiting beliefs. I am displaced immediately from my comfort zone the moment I leave the US.

Example; here in Nepal – after 23 hours spent flying and some major league jet lag agitation – I went online for the first time. Slow internet. I knew this because I have many blogging buddies in Nepal. So I was prepared but still annoyed.

Then after I connected for a few hours I realized each of my comments was blacklisted. Again, major annoyance. Limiting beliefs arose:

“How the heck am I going to blog here? How can I network? I am doomed! I need to work from my apartment to blog effectively.” Yadda yadda yadda.

Then, it took me about 10 minutes to log into my back office. 10 minutes. I was pissed. More limiters popping up. After some VPN magic I could post comments, network and whatever problems occurred with my blog, well they cleared up nicely.

Why? I traveled. I allowed my blogging limiting beliefs to pop up by moving to a foreign land.

Travel. Get out of your hometown and if you really want to succeed through blogging get out of your homeland. Introduce yourself to a different way of thinking and some hairy situations which force you to embrace your limiting beliefs head on.

9: Open up a Source of Income Outside of Blogging

I was so wildly desperate to make money blogging – so I could eat – that I became totally blind to my limiting beliefs for many years. I pushed myself harder and harder and harder and scared away success.

This was because I had no cushion. Blogging was my main means of making money and since I was not making money I desperately did things which hurt my blog. I was completely unaware of one of my chief limiting beliefs; to make money

blogging you need to do more, quickly, than the other guy.

So I posted frequently, and posted more, and more, and more, and patted myself on the back, until I saw my meagre pay checks, fell into depression, got angry at the world and moved into even more self-destructive behaviour.

The cycle continued until I opened up multiple streams of income. I wrote for SEO clients. I opened up a Google Adsense account. I offered my ghostwriting services.

I wrote paid guest posts. I accepted sponsored posts. I became an affiliate marketer. I made money, and most of it was outside of blogging as I earned nice sized pay checks through writing for an SEO company. Once the cash flowed in I relaxed on the blogging front.

I saw the error in my ways. I saw my “I have to do more than the other guy or gal” limiting belief up close and personal.

What a relief! I could actually work less, more intelligently and see more blogging success by thinking through my campaign. It all started when I freed myself from the worry of putting food on my table or a roof over my head.

10: Release Your Short-Sighted Approach

Much of my blogging failure was rooted in taking a short-sighted approach. I checked my ad earnings daily. If I saw $25 I was pretty happy. If I saw .06 I would flip out. On most days my ad revenue came a heckuva lot closer to 6 cents than 25

dollars.

I also checked my page views and subscriber stats daily. Each day was a failure or success. Of course this “everything hinges on the day’s metrics” limiting belief continued until I release the silly approach. Once I relaxed I saw the error in my ways.

I killed the limiting idea by trying something different. I decided to check my metrics infrequently. I moved my attention toward creating value and making connections. I wrote more guest posts and engaged in more joint collaborations. I joined multiple blogging tribes.

I stopped obsessing over daily fluctuations by developing a long term vision for my blog and my life. Do the same. See your blog as a resource. See yourself as a wildly successful blogger, now, by visualising these dreams.

Adopting a long term vision helps you identify any habits which do not support the vision, otherwise known as “limiting beliefs.”

11: Persist

4 years after being fired from my job as a security officer in Port Newark I am sitting on my deck in Kathmandu, Nepal. Watching the hustle and bustle of a developing city I feel floored. I learned what was stopping me – that being “me” – by persisting through tough times.

If you will just keep at it you will expose your limiting beliefs. You can see why you are preventing your success through your dominant beliefs by working daily. It is not easy. Many times I wondered whether blogging was worth it, or if I would ever live my dreams, but by pushing past these uncomfortable points I observed my limiters. I saw what needed to change if I was to succeed.

Keep going. Through persisting alone you will learn all you need to know about your faulty, error-prone beliefs and by releasing these ideas you can become wildly successful.

How do you expose your limiting beliefs?

How do you slay your faulty beliefs?

What tips can you add to this list?

Ryan Biddulph helps you live the happy internet lifestyle by sharing money making tips through his blog. He pets tigers and travels the world in his spare time. You can visit his blog here.