Many times when I speak to new bloggers (or Pre-Bloggers) and ask them what might be holding them back from taking their blogs to the next level (or holding them back from starting blogging) the response I get is around ‘fear’.
- What if nobody reads?
- What if I can’t write well?
- What if people laugh… or worse… what if they attack me?
- What if I say something stupid that might come back to bite me later?
The last goes on and on.
When I started blogging my own fears resembled those that I listed above pretty closely and over the decade of blogging since I’ve added quite a few more to the list at different points as I faced new challenges and obstacles.
One of the sessions I’m planning for this years ProBlogger Event is going to be on smashing through your fears as a blogger and in preparing for it I asked last week for my followers on Twitter to share some of the fears that they’d had that they’ve had to overcome.
The response was pretty amazing so I thought it might be a good discussion to have here on ProBlogger.
What fears have you overcome as a blogger?
Or – if you still have them – what fears are you currently facing as a blogger.
I’d love to hear not only the fears you’ve faced in your blogging – but also if you have a moment I’d love to hear your story of how you’ve overcome them (or attempted to).
False Evidence Appearing Real is my favorite way to think of the word Fear…
I love the acronym, where did you pick it up?
That’s a good question to analyze. One of my greatest blogging fears is that I’ll lose enthusiasm and momentum before my blog starts reaching critical mass. To combat this, I’m finding some great podcasts to listen to (Smart Passive Income, Entrepreneur on Fire, etc…). If I make time to listen every day, the fear is replaced by confidence.
Not exactly a ‘fear’ but, as I’m discovering how time-consuming blogging can be, I sometimes wonder if it’s all going to turn out to have been worthwhile. I guess my main fears are on the technical front – as a bit of a technophobe, I worry about dealing with the practical problems that can arise – security issues, technical glitches and gremlins, that kind of thing.
I am a new blogger and these are all thoughts that popped into my head! The fear of loosing enthusiasm is definatly one for me also! Another one would be wheter I can get my blog looking ‘pretty’ enough, because I know the look of a blog is importaint too!
Same questions arise when I started blogging as a newbie, because cyber laws are strict and anything should happen anytime. regarding to your photo or video. but now I understand the things easily thanks to problogger.
“If I blog without compartmentalizing myself, will my mixture be able to attract anyone?”
It’s easy to find people interested in children’s book illustration.
It’s easy to find people interested in Islamic calligraphy.
It’s easy to find people interested in electronic music.
But people interested in children’s book illustration, Islamic calligraphy and electronic music?
… I’m glad to say I’ve found them.
Or, better, they found me.
My fear is that my blog will not attract readers. I will spend lots of time in it which will be a waste without audience .
Not so much on fear, maybe only when my posts were flamed. More angry than really fear.
Oh ya, talking about fear. My biggest fear was account termination. I had my adsense account terminated, and several Facebook accounts suspended as well. I believed these were my biggest fear.
I think that most of the bloggers have a fear that they will not be able to get approved Google Adsense and those who have Adsense have a fear that they might loose it. :D
Thanks
I have a big fear to write in English because I am not a native speaker of this language. I blogging on my Romanian blog for more than 6 years , 1-2 article per day, and I want to start a travel blog in english.
My biggest problem is to maintain my interest and update with the current trends. Well what others thinks after read my blogs.
I had a fear of wasting money; wasting time; writing rubbish; writers block, but my biggest fear is: What if this works?
I have just started a blog a few days ago and I haven’t had any visitors yet.
Main fears – what if what I write simply sucks and nobody reads it? What if my MOTHER reads my blog? (one reason to publish ha ha!). But mainly a combination of the 4 you mentioned.
And overcoming them? Like everything else in life, I’ve imagined how life would be like if I didn’t hit ‘publish’. How would I feel 6 months or a year down the line? Yep, pretty crappy. So I hit publish, and realised my fears were lies.
Apart from the fear of mother reading the blog. She hasn’t read it yet. The God of Blogging help me if she does…