Bruce Lee is the most influential martial artist to ever live.
In the book “Tao of Jeet Kune Do” he shares many of his philosophies on life and fighting. The great thing about his teachings is that they can be applied to just about anything, including successful blogging.
Let’s examine what Bruce Lee can teach us about the art of blogging.
1. Drive to succeed
“You can win if you want to badly enough,” means that the will to win is constant. No amount of punishment, no amount of effort, no condition is too “tough” to take in order to win.”
Becoming a successful blogger is damn tough. The fact that such a tiny fraction of bloggers actually make a living from it underscores just how challenging it is.
While the above is true, to have any chance of reaching your goal of making a living as a blogger, you really have to want it. It can’t merely be a passing thought, or a fantasy you have when feeling inspired. It has to be a fire that rages within you from the moment you awaken to when you hit the sheets at night. If you don’t have that kind of passion, your chances of becoming a professional blogger are slim.
2. Seize Opportunities
“If you think you have the opening, you should let it fly and not be half-hearted about it.”
When opportunities arise, don’t hesitate. Instead, make the move and put your full effort behind it:
If you notice a popular blogger hasn’t posted in a while, this could be your golden opportunity to submit a guest post. Don’t hesitate, churn out your best material and let it fly.
If you come up with a killer idea for a post and decide to save it for when your blog has a larger audience, that’s a mistake. It’s far better to write that post now and submit it as a guest post to a large blog which will grow your audience, now. The time to increase the popularity of your blog is now, not tomorrow. Seize the opportunity.
3. Use Your Energy Wisely
“A relaxed technician expends mental and physical energy constructively, converting it when it does not contribute to the solution of the problem and spending it freely when it does.”
Blogging is hard work, so using your energy wisely is essential to your success.
Don’t allow nasty emails or comments from haters to diminish your energy. Instead, use all your existing energy to further your goal of making your blog even more successful.
Likewise, if you’ve reached a temporary plateau, don’t feed the flames of frustration. All that frustration drains you of energy. Instead, use your energy to write guest posts, and brain storm new ways to broaden your reach and gain new subscribers.
Your energy is the currency for which you can further your objective. Use it wisely.
4. Practice
“Each performance of an act strengthens the connections involved and makes the next performance easier, more certain, and more readily done.”
Are you writing daily? If you’re a blogger you’re a writer. The best bloggers make writing a consistent habit. You don’t have to post everything you write, but you should create a habit of writing as consistently as possible. Not only will this lead to you writing better blog posts, but the time it takes you to write posts will decrease as well.
Practice your craft as much as you can and it will only improve with each passing day.
5. Passion
“We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. Yet, it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents as well.”
Don’t get hung up on whether or not you have the requisite talent to become a successful blogger. Talent isn’t a fixed phenomenon. On the contrary: You can significantly improve your blogging skills by reading and writing daily.
If you want to become proficient at writing headlines, you can do it. If you want to write quality openings in your blog posts, you need only study and internalize the proven methods that work for other successful bloggers.
If you want to write great content, you’d be wise to follow blogs like Darren’s and to read often and widely.
Apply the wisdom of Bruce Lee today and you’ll be kicking-ass in no time.
About the Author: Ted Pendinun is a part time actor who aspires to one day have a blog that inspires many. In his spare time he enjoys surfing, martial arts and going on whale watching expeditions.
@Dave Schulz
Darren Rowse would win.He is a genius on blogging field.
@Ted Pendinun
Great post.Thanks.
Whoa Ted, we must be on some sort of space/time continuum thing here. I wrote a guest post yesterday for someone that so close to this is’t scary! I didn’t use Bruce as my example, but the ideas were very similar.
I have to say, you did a better job of it than i did. Too bad I didn’t read yours first! ;-)
now thats what i call an inspirational and motivating blog, cheers to bruce lee!