I’ve now been blogging for just over three years and running my own blogging business for a large chunk of that time. During my blog-journey (X-Factor moment!) I have gone from writing purely to capture our memories, to blogging for brands and now creating online courses for bloggers to advance their own skills.
As bloggers, we are constantly learning new things about our blogs and also about ourselves, our businesses and the larger online world.
So today, as the year draws to a close I thought I would share some of the lessons I have learned so far.
- Connecting and collaborating is MUCH more valuable than competition.
- Who you are in every day life is who you want to be in your every-day business.
- Take imperfect action.
- We can do anything we set our minds to.
- Sometimes you can fail yourself forward.
- Embrace the things that make you unique.
- Being consistent = being successful.
- Find and embrace your people. You will always need them.
- Be open, honest and vulnerable.
- If it scares you, do it.
- Let go of guilt and embrace that you will be a powerful role model to your children.
- Value yourself and your time.
- Say no more than you say yes.
- Do what makes sense and what you love.
- Don’t worry about what strangers think. They don’t matter.
- Never stop learning.
- Just do one thing at any one time.
- Do your own thing.
- Keep moving forward.
- A task expands to fill the time given for its completion (o.k so this is Parkinson’s Law, but I had to get it in!).
- If your goals don’t make you feel uncomfortable, they aren’t big enough.
- Automate anything that you do repeatedly.
- Build your email list rather than your social media followers (You own your email list).
- Don’t limit yourself. You can do great things.
- People buy from people they know, like and trust.
- The best time to act is before you’re ready.
- Serve first, ask later.
- Nothing worth having is ever easy.
- You can’t do everything on your own.
- You don’t have to be an expert to teach, you just have to know more than the people you intend to teach.
- Just do it.
- We all have a superpower, we just have to find out what it is.
- Good marketing is using the exact words your audience uses.
- Write for your true fans, not for traffic.
- Use Facebook ads to validate your idea.
- Be confident and kind (arrogance is not confidence. Arrogance is being dismissive of others).
I have probably learned a whole bunch of other lessons too, but these are the ones which stand out. What lessons have you learned this year?