What would you do if you were required to write your own blog?
It’s certain that the first thing popping up in our mind will be something like: “What am I even supposed to write? I’m not an author and I’ve got nothing to tell the world. It isn’t my cup of tea.”
Yeah, that is more-or-less what I thought when around 3 years ago, my mentor had suggested me to start my own blog. I was a final year student at my college then. So, the idea of starting my own blog publishing my own content felt kind of irrelevant initially. Anyway, I slowly realized the profoundness of that suggestion, and after waiting some time and gathering some courage, I posted my first blog post. It wasn’t great (I know you can write better than that). However, the most important point is that it gave me a momentum to keep going.
Not that I am now able to write some great posts (:D), but still, I have been writing something, which I believe is better than nothing. Actually, I have a very niche audience (mostly technical people and my friends). Still, isn’t it worth to share something useful and helpful for them? Honestly, I owe so much to all of those writers from whom I learned so many things. The least I can do is share what I learned. In fact, the information you share might help someone to solve their problem, save their time and even shed some happiness in their life. So, don’t you think it is one of those small acts that can help in making a better world? I trust that you’re capable of doing the big things, but why not also do some small acts like these?
Okay, I hope now you’ve got a little motivation. However, the major question still remains unanswered: “What am I supposed to write?” Well, the answer to that is simple. Write about what you like. Write what you feel passionate about. Write about the reasons you wake up early in the morning. Write about your work, hobbies, skills, and so on. Trust me, if it is worth your time, it is worth to someone else too. You just need to write your ideas for that someone. And then, you’ll know how large audience that “someone” can represent over time. For example, in my case, my first post had hardly 10 views back then. I just checked the total views of this blog for last year and it was over 28,000 (not much, but means a lot to me anyway). You see, you never know until you give it a shot.
One important note, don’t be in an illusion that you have to be as wise as the famous philosophers or as smart as the popular scientists or as literary as the writers. Seriously, you don’t have to be best at whatever you do. All you need is to be honest, sincere and simple towards your audience. Try to put yourself on your readers’ shoes and tell your story or whatever you want to teach them. The goal is to share your knowledge and ideas (doesn’t matter if you don’t know it all) so that others can easily benefit from them. The simple you make it, the better it is for your readers. But remember Einstein’s quote on simplicity “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.“
Also don’t assume that only fancy or big topics are worth writing. Yeah, there are many big and controversial topics that might appear to be important to the world. If you can tackle and write about them, great! But that shouldn’t prevent you from writing about the simple and trivial matters. Sometimes these small matters make a huge difference in people’s life. For example, let’s say you had lost your key to your house and got locked out. Then, after some hit-and-trials, you somehow learned some cool tricks to get around this problem. I think you should totally write about it. Yes, it seems small and maybe unworthy, but remember how you felt when you were locked out. Did you even worry about the big topics happening in the world then? No, right? Similarly, someday someone will also go through that problem. So, if they come across your post about locked-out tricks, won’t that be super helpful for them? And provided the immense size of our world, after some time, you’d have already helped thousands of people. Isn’t that cool?
If you have been wondering “What’s in it for me?”, then here’s your answer. First, it’s the feeling of satisfaction that comes with doing something good for the world. Sometimes, people will even send you “Thank you! You saved my day!” messages. Any normal human being will be happy to hear that. Second, you’ll have your personal brand, by which you’ll be remembered. The more lives you touch and help, the stronger this brand becomes. It’s also the symbol of your trustworthiness and authenticity. This can help you in various steps of your life. Then, you can also monetize this brand like putting advertisements in your blog and earning from them. However, for starters, it is important that you first focus on helping other people rather than harvesting results. As mentioned in Vagwat Geeta, good results can or cannot happen, but our deeds should always be done with good intention and honest heart.
I hope this post creates some spark of motivation in the aspiring hearts and lead them to starting their own blog. I totally understand that it’s hard to get started, but once you do, you’ll thoroughly enjoy this ride. And after some time, you might even thank me the same way as I always thank my mentor. As always, thank you for reading! All the best!!
P.S. If any of you decide to start the journey of blogging, however don’t know where to start, just put your questions in the Comments section below and I’ll try to answer and help you as much as possible. I might even write a series of posts to teach you the steps involved.
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