One of the things that I’m always fascinated with when it comes to many elite athletes is how effortless they look when they are performing at their peak.
We saw Asafa Powell (current 100m world record holder – pictured left) run last night (twice) and while other athletes strived and strained to keep up with him he almost seemed to jog past them.
I noticed this same thing as I watched a number of Australian swimmers on TV yesterday – their strokes allowed them to almost effortlessly glide through the water in an incredibly smooth manner.
As I’ve been pondering this over the last few days I’ve come to the conclusion (after a few conversations with friends and after listening to a few insightful commentators) that what seems to set these elite athletes apart from those a rung below them is their efficiency and ability to make each exertion of energy translate into maximum power.
In a sense it’s an incredibly finely tuned focussing of energy into the things that will lead to maximum output.
As I watched the athletics tonight, pondering these thoughts, my mind wandered to blogging… just for a few moments… as it does. I wondered what I could learn from these elite athletes efficiency and focus.
As I look at my own experience of blogging (as well as what I observe of others) I can see that one of the traps that many aspiring Pro Bloggers fall into is to focus heavily upon elements of blogging that don’t bring results.
My own philosophy of blogging for profit is a holistic one where a blogger needs to work on a range of areas simultaneously in order to build a successful blog. These areas include the writing of content, blog design, promotion, interacting with readers, interacting with other bloggers, Search Engine Optimization, finding and optimizing the right ad and affiliate programs etc etc etc. From what I know of talking to friends that are athletes – they do a similar thing by working simultaneously on strength work, reflexes, diet, flexibility, endurance etc…
All of these elements of blogging (and more) add to the potential profitability of a blog but concentrating on any one of them exclusively, ignoring the others, can hurt a blog’s ability to earn money. Fine tuning this balance doesn’t just happen (any more than getting your body to the point of being able to run 100m in under 10 seconds) – but as you do tune your blogging you find that your efficiency levels get better and better and the ‘effortless glide’ that many elite athletes seem to have begins to take effect.
That’s not to say that good bloggers just glide and don’t work hard (It’s a lot of hard work) – rather what I’m saying is that as you get the balance and focus of your blogging right you begin to see greater results from your efforts.
