When I read Rick’s post on the thrills new bloggers get to experience this morning, of course I laughed (I’m not really a margarita kind of guy). Rick’s post is great—I love it as an example of the way we can use humor to get a message across in a blog post.
And that message is loud and clear: celebrate every win.
Every advance you make as a blogger—whether you’re just beginning your blogging journey, or you’re a bit further along the path—is important.
It’s true that as you practice something and develop your skills in it, your expectations change about what you can achieve—or should be achieving. But this is a constantly growing and changing field, so I think somehow, we’re always learning—somewhere in our blogging, each of us is still a beginner. So I think it’s important to acknowledge each challenge we attain.
As an example, over the last few months I’ve been looking to change the email service I use. That has meant that I’ve had to research providers, ask for recommendations from others, and take baby steps to test different services.
Each time we try something new, we take a risk. As bloggers, we work hard to build our blogs and audiences, and we don’t want to upset the fine balances we’re working to maintain and build upon. When that risk turns out to be worth it, we should definitely celebrate it.
There are plenty of ways to do this:
- share your success on social media
- tell your blogging buddy (or buddies!) about it
- if it’s appropriate for your blog and audience, blog about it
- tell family or friends about it.
There’s another way to note your blogging wins—perhaps the ones you don’t feel comfortable sharing with others—and that’s simply to stop for a moment and give yourself a pat on the back. Whether you just pause to think consciously about what you’ve achieved, or you treat yourself to a coffee or an afternoon stroll (or whatever you do to relax), it’s important to recognize your achievements somehow.
We learn from our successes as well as the things that don’t go so well. The difference is that the experience is usually much more pleasurable. We should enjoy it!
I’m interested to hear about any thrills—big and small—you’ve experienced recently in your blogging. Let’s share them in the comments, either here, or on Rick’s post.
I celebrate every success I have no matter seemingly insignificant it seems. It gets exciting when a blog post goes viral, which sadly hasn’t happened lately. But the year is still young.
This is really true! I think too often new bloggers get down on ourselves about not progressing fast enough. It’s great to take some time to celebrate!
My latest victory was getting an email from House Hunters International asking if they could put a casting call up on my site. It’s one of my favorite shows, so I was flattered.
I agree i have accomplished alot this week but what matters to me is my ROI in my time I put in! I work alot of hours on my computer and I have only managed to get a little from it compared to what I should be getting, so learning everyday is a must, whether you want to read or not.
Success is a funny thing, bit like looking for a girl or boy friend, the harder you try to get it, the more elusive it is.
For the first five months of my blog, I used the default look of StudioPress’s Prose theme. If any of you have seen the theme’s demo, you know it has a very bland and spartan appearance. About three weeks ago, I went live with a complete redesign: self-designed logo, color scheme, etc.
About a week after that, I left a couple comments on StudioPress’s blog about the release of one of their new plugins. Brian Gardner (the founder of StudioPress) responded to my comment saying he checked out my blog and thought it was very well designed. He featured my blog on their blog showcase and I got a huge boost in traffic.
I’m not a “design guy,” so his complement validated all the effort I put into developing my blog’s new design.
Back around New Year’s you challenged us to take our blogs to the next level. I think you asked what we hoped to do, or something like that. I actually blogged about it. At that point I was getting single digit page views per day. I had resolved to post 5 times a week, and your challenge was a great spur to me.
i celebrated when I got to 10 page views per day. Around that point I joined a blog network, and started working to grow an audience. My Alexa ranking on Jan 16th was 13.1 million. This morning it was at 194,747! I have learned so much through helping others and paying attention to “way of the (blogging) elders”.
I felt so encouraged along this two month journey that I started a new niche blog focusing on technology for Boomers. I am a boomer and have helped people with technology/gadget questions for 20 years, so this one is a much easier blog to write for.
Anyway, I am celebrating the small victories, and wanted to give you props, Darren, for having played a part in them!
Wow! Your dropped it super quick! Congrats! :)
It really helps to find a blog network to join. You simply learn a great deal from people who are similar stages of blogging.
I like Max’s comment of “I celebrate every success I have no matter seemingly insignificant it seems.” – I wrote on the newbie blogger’s post how excited I am to have 1 person talking about me on Facebook, every time a reader comments on my blog I put that on my “win” list.
Besides, celebrating your successes is very motivational – and this is even more important in the beginning when things are tough. I remember at Uni we were talking about small things making a difference – trying to get 100% every week on our vocabulary test in class for example, but every week it was a small win that showed us we were making progress.
I agree we should all celebrate our wins, if you plan and organize success will come.
I loved Rick’s post since I’m right there with him. I have a new(er) blog, and every new milestone that the site hits may seem quaint to the big guy, but it’s a celebration for me. I know my highest traffic day, my Alexa score, my Google PageRank and my loyal commenters. I’m always pushing to reach a new milestone, and I border on obsessive about those goals. It’s exciting, and the minute you stop celebrating those “little” wins will be the minute it’s no longer enjoyable.
Thanks for giving Rick a shot, Darren!
I had my first $100 day – well, the first successful day in a long time. I woke up, saw a major announcement about facebook and had a post written for a client within 3 hours. I also made my first affiliate commission in a while, and had peers writing about me again.
It felt so amazing, especially considering I’d falling to obscurity in 2011 while dealing with offline stuff. I was able to take a full day off and not feel stressed. Right now, I feel amazing. And like I’m on the right path at last :)
I agree that you should have a way to celebrate a win even if it was not a direct result of your action.
See, we all are a bit schizophrenic – we have conscious and unconscious part of our self, and the latter is the most effective one. He thinks the problems out when you sleep, he makes decision when you’re stunned in horror – it’s the part of you which survived the school and university, the one which is responsible for your creativity and emotions.
So, if someone mentioned your blog somewhere and this triggered a sort of Slashdot effect on your website, and you’ve got a monthly norm of visits in a matter of hour – clearly it wasn’t the direct result of any single action of yours. Still, you just have to get yourself a present – be it a latte with a cake, or whatever would give you that 15 minutes of peace and comfort. The reason here is to show to that unconscious yourself, that every success will be rewarded.
Next time “he” will do his best to create more creative article, to stay in focus to finish important task or whatever that you wouldn’t ever link to that good thing you did to yourself a few days ago. “He” will have reason to help “you”.
And in case this sounds like a tale from asylum – it’s just one of psychological tricks I am practicing with my students, and it works. So, I believe Darren is right and I think that you shall consider this little advice as important one.
My blog has just started to reach an average of 10 visitors per day. Just started it less than a month ago. Also just last week I got my first organic search visitor! When I started my blog I set small goals with timelines, I have already reached my first month goals and I still have another 8 days! Going to have to reach higher next month.
Being a part-time blogger, I usually lay low on the progress of my blogging venture, thus, sharing my success openly on social media is not an option for me (at least for now). If there is some good progress in my blogging venture, I usually pamper myself with good foot reflexiology treatment (I know there is no relevancy here), but just treating myself with something I enjoy!
Cheers!
Thanks for this reminder. I just had a great win this week and I posted out on my favorite social networking sites. Why not celebrate???
At a trade show yesterday, I gave my card to a potential blog sponsor. Much to my delight, she was already familiar with our blog. SQUEE! That was the first time I had ever met someone who already knew my blog and was a reader. It gave me such a burst of confidence. Definitely reason to celebrate!
Recently I was selected from among 700 applicants to be a guest blogger for a new entrepreneurial women’s website launching in mid-March. It’s my first paying gig as a blogger!
Its really nice topic and i agree with you. We want to celebrate our win because its remember that. Thanks for sharing.
I joined my first JV, successfully. Well, I guess success is relative but I did get some subscribers out of it and since it’s the first one, I was really thrilled!
For travel business owners, I must add that you can submit the news of your victory as a press release and make your celebration a breaking news announcement for those who are enthusiastic to know more.
Rahman Mehraby
TraveList Marketing Platform
This was exactly what I needed to hear recently :)
I started blogging three weeks ago, and couple of days before I got my first guest post published. And since I’ve been rejected one time also, I can clearly see your point when you say how important is to learn to appreciate our success. Even if that is on small scale.
The motive that success alone gave me was something really great in terms of increasing productivity, more involvement on side projects, more and more enthusiasm after all.
At the end there is only one question- If we do not recognize our success, how on earth can we expect others to?
Everyone likes success stories so they can get inspired and keep being on track to become successful as well. Sharing wins should be mixed with loses as well as they rises more discussions and probably you will understand what you did wrong.
Darren, I love the part about the beautiful women cleaning your glasses with $100 bills …
As a business coach, I’m constantly suggesting that my clients take time to notice and appreciate their success. And in case anyone needs some research to back up this approach, check out the business consulting model called Appreciate Inquiry (AI)
The 2 basic questions of AI are:
1) What’s going well?
2) What do you want to do more of?
It’s been used here in the US by the US Army, The Girl Scouts of America, Roadway Express and other large businesses very successfully. It works!
Great post with wonderful comments. Thank you!
Some healthy food for thought, Darren.
As long as we are still learning and growing through those learning experiences, we are on the right path.
Some of my ” Epiphany” style moments usually came after breaking through a learning curb, which then broadened my understanding of certain aspects of Blogging.
We will never know everything, and that’s the beauty of it!
If not Margaritas then what Darren??? lol
I agree, celebrate each goal, be happy to have reached any milestone, no matter how small it was, and just grow from there. I remember getting my first likes, tweets and so on. Also remember my first $100, then my first $1000 and so on. I was and am happy with each goal that I achieve.
So, some friends of mine and me started a blog, Blind Mouse Entertainment, back in the beginning of January and we have been growing fairly well. What was crazy is that last sunday we were super excited at finally hitting 2,000 all-time views (this took us two months to do) and then seven days later we had broken 3,000. My sister is the Editor-in-Chief of the Blog Crushable, so I get some advice from her, but, I would love to know what some other professionals think. If you check out my site http://blindmouseentertainment.com let us know what you think and [email protected]
Typo in the email. It should be [email protected]
A recent win was having 100 people sign up for my newsletter. May sound laughable for most people, but it was a milestone for me. :)
This is a great post. I love celebrating the little things, its what doing anything is about. Every time I gain a new subscriber on my site, I jump up from my seat and start dancing :) You have got to enjoy the little things!
I had a win today, I contacted a potential jv about being part of a new fitness community blog and she said that she had a similar idea and was also looking for a jv partner. Its great too reach out to someone and find out you’re thoughts are in sync
Blogging can be a monotonous process. Celebrating every win is a way to pause to think that those monotony are not so monotonous after all. There are stages that our blog goes through. Just like growing a child, it is easy to lose sight of what the kid is able to do by seeing him day in and day out. But people who rarely see him will notice the big changes. Celebrating a win is stepping out from the daily duties to acknowledge what has been accomplished.
Even a single post is a result of hardworking of one blogger. Its encourage very much to all bloggers to “”celebrate-every-win””