How to Blog When Your Work Loses Its Meaning

This kind of feeling happens to all of us, at least once, if not more, in a lifetime. So your posts are bound to resonate with someone, somewhere, and people won’t desert you.
I personally fall in the pro blog category, so my aim is different from yours. But that’s a personal choice. If I feel depressed I tend to keep it to myself or a few selected individuals, I couldn’t face the entire blogosphere ;-)
Take care.

Caroline, I recently started following you on twitter and your blog and really enjoy your content. Keep up the good work and hang in there. Your friend from Texas.

David

Caroline,
While this post was written to hopefully assist readers who find themselves in similar circumstances, I think that the solution is found in the reevaluation of the affected person’s priorities.
When work loses its meaning, defining solutions in those terms is a bit like measuring new kitchen cabinets after your house has burnt to the ground.

Most of us go through crises that require the sort of introspection you’re doing now. I’ll bet that very few of us deal with this introspection in a rational way.

For me, my reevaluation led me to conclude that I didn’t like what I was doing, long before my personal crisis.
As a result, I chucked my whole business model, went back to work and disappeared from the ‘net.

When I got myself together, I made a promise to myself: I wanna have fun helping folks. Sure, they’ll be paying me, but they’re basically outsourcing technical stuff that business owners don’t have time for, anyway.
If I give them great value, and my life is more balanced, AND I’m having fun, then my reevaluation was on the right track.

My point is, just as the crisis is personal, so is the solution.

I do understand the three separate areas, though. I just don’t think we can pigeonhole the solutions.

Cheers,

Mitch

I respect your decision to take some time and make some distance while you reflect. I admire the way you wrote a post to tell us, instead of just disappearing! But then, that is the sort of core integrity that I have come to depend on from you.

I am sure you will find your answers, and I hope the search will not be too painful or too long. For my own sake, I hope your answer will include blogging! I’ll miss you.

I think the answer is 2 out of 3, and 3 our of 3 if you can find someone to pay you to do it for them :-)

I think it would be shame not to have a personal blog, or a pubic diary as you might call it. Because it is a record of you as a person. It may represent values you have that don;t fit in to your business a swell. So it is your concerned citizen voice too. An d I guess many of the blogs are just that. They are not revenue generating, or in most cases even popular.

But for the hardcore following they do have, I think they deserve their friend space on the blogosphere.

The other blog we may disagree on. And is probably the most relevant for your fans…

It depends on if your purpose is to blog “as a job” and to monetise “THROUGH” your content. Then ye shave to have great content, and that could be becoming an authority in something, or it could be you are an artist of some sort (musician, painter, poet, chef, scrap booker, novelist, etc.)

I make the distinction because as an artist you are not an industry authority, you are only the authority on yourself. But still massively worthy.

I also make the distinction because we can’t have a world of chiefs and no indians, and if every one is an authority, and nobody is actually doing, it will get surreal.

In the blogosphere, I think content is still king. You can talk about what you do, or how you do it, or I guess why you do it. Or any combination.

However, we will disagree, I don;t see a blog as a means to itself. A blog can be a communication channel for what you really do.

Certainly in my case, my blog is just a representation of what I do, it isn’t what I am selling. So I have no need to monetise the blog itself.

Content is king still applies, if not even more so, and that raises a different topic of what you blog about in relation to what you do. Tha actually has some fundamental issues behind it, which does not make it clear cut at all. Not for people lie me anyway.

It also depends if you want to talk about film making, actually make a film, or review other peoples films, or just watch films. Each would be a blog style in its own right. No?

I think the key issue for any blogger, as you say, is why?

Is your blog your actual business.
Or does you blog represent your real business.

That choice greatly changes monetisation, promotion, content, interaction and blog style.

Looking at it another way, any blog is a way to meet people. What sort of people do you want to meet?

JM0CW
Peter

You are 100% correct that the niche blog can slide fast if you are not passionate about it. Same thing goes for any job. Something will occur at some point that will make you feel downright disdain for your employer or industry. It does not even have to be a profound, life-changing event.

But when a profound event occurs, the only cure that I know of is time. The nerve endings are gone. When one of the nerves comes back, it sends signals to the brain that make absolutely no sense. One’s whole system is out of whack. You may even find something to be passionate about, but the passion only lasts a week. Fits and starts. But somewhere down the line, something clicks and sticks. It just takes time.

My 2 cents.

I really am sorry to hear that you are going through this. I have probably not be doing this as long as you, but know when you feel the way that you do you need a break. This work will always be here when you are ready to come back - I wish you well!

It sounds to me like you’re travelling well.

There are a few clues to follow to find what has meaning for us. There is our physiology - what grabs our eyes, raises our heartbeat etc. There are leftovers from our childhood (they wouldn’t be still around if they weren’t doing something for us). These are hints for us to find meaningful work.

When our work loses meaning then we can’t blog about it in any worthwhile way (if we want to do something worthwhile - I suppose you could sell worthless product if you didn’t care at all).

I’d like to hear what you now see as worthwhile.

I think you touched on a good point - the need to have a plan of where you would like to go and how to get there. This is especially true if you are blogging full-time.

Some personal blogs that are mixed with internet marketing or affiliate marketing are actually quite interesting. It really depends on the personality of the blogger.

1. Dearly Beloved Caroline:
2. Thanking you in advance for keeping on… That is the spirit because….
3. Focus On The Rewards Of Finishing A Task.
4. Complaining People Focus On The Wrong Things… Their Effort, Toil Or Responsibility.
5. Champions Talk Faith Because Their Focus Is On The Finished Results. What Enthusiasm Begins, Determination Can Complete. Be Focused!
6. But focused on what? That is the question.
7. That is why this whole thing is not PLAY FROM HOME, it is WORK FROM HOME.
8. When I talked about the Career Fulcrum the other time, I was meaning to say LIFE, CAREER and WORK not JOB because job is what we do not like to talk about here but…
9. People use to say that knowledge IS power. I dis-concur.
10. Knowledge IS POTENTIAL power.
11. When something is a potential, it means untapped and a latent energy.
12. What is power (or work in this sense), force times distance right?
13. So, it means, if there is no distance covered based on a force, no work has been done or no power has been exerted.
14. I am sure some will go and check what I do to find out that I mostly share PLR articles which is the easy way out for me on the surface. To agree totally with Peter.
15. When it comes to this whole thing, the REASON WHY just have to come forth!
16. And THAT ONE REASON is the only reason to keep doing it.
17. Why do I share common place articles on the surface? Because “content is king!”. If you have next to nothing text on your sites or web pages or blog, you will receive less organic traffic - full stop.
18. The work that I personally do on my articles are safely tucked away in my vault in PDF formats. They are personally written and gold - at least to me.
19. I tried to share the gold with people for free for a space of three months on daily basis in the past and discovered that it was floored like many other articles out there that mean next to nothing to readers. But after thinking deep and wide and getting mind and life changing articles out, it should not be like an article distributed on the public scene.
20. So, all these comes down to this one point…
21. Some have a thousand and one reasons why they should not do what they are thinking and planning to do when all they need is just ONE REASON WHY they should do it and then go ahead to take the right positive action to do it.
22. I will repeat the six steps to success here…
23. DETERMINATION, DEDICATION, DISCIPLINE, DATE, DECISION, DILIGENCE and SUCCESS is inevitable.
24. That says that you must hang in there in PEACE, PERSEVERANCE, PRAYER, PURSUIT, PATIENCE, PERSISTENCE and SUCCESS is inevitable.
25. The next time you receive a message that tells you that this is the way to do it once and forget it, you should go and check how many messages you have received from that fellow. If more than once, then it will not be done once and forgotten after all.
26. You have to keep testing and testing and testing and testing again till it works for you.
27. BTW, I have some of my articles pre-arranged to roll out till the middle of 2008. All I will be doing is adding in one of my own here or there or chipping in some little bits to spice up the reading if not for anyone of the 6.5 billion people on planet earth, at the least for my own personal reading pleasure. :-)
28. In the sidelines, I call you once in a while to my profit making sites, but not so often to disturb your reading pleasure.
29. Hope this helps someone today.
30. Remain blessed and a blessing and we shall communicate again soon if God is willing!
31. Highest regards to all,
32. Olakunle Solomon Fatoye.

it better to evalute oneself before starting to blog and most importantly it necessary to choose a niche which interest you most and you can come up with new topics quite frequently to post on your blog. Ghost blogging is good once in a while but one just cannot depend on other to keep filling the post.

“The big downside of course is that if you feel you can’t write, nobody is going to do it for you and your blog sits empty which can potentially damage reader levels.”

Well, you can offer your readers guest posting opportunities or hire freelancers…

@Olakunle, you raise an interesting point. Usually I would think of work as just a job but because of my complete freedom to do what I want from home, I feel that it could be more than just that, so I do want it to like ‘play from home’, or at least have some kind of impact. I quit the day job because I didn’t just want to be a code monkey, I want my work to make a difference. I want the fact that I am here doing something to have meaning and be worthwhile.

@Ruchir, yes I have already had various offers from guest bloggers but I just feel that the fit is not right for this particular blog. That would work well on an authority blog for instance, but not really a personal one.

Your recent thoughts on internet marketing and the scammy underhandedness of a lot of it seem to me to have defined your purpose perfectly - this is your opportunity to show everyone how it CAN be done without the ‘your last chance to take this one-time offer (until I give you another chance at the multi-time offer tomorrow)’ or the ‘look at all the noughts I’ve added to my adsense cheque and the photo of someone I’ve never met lounging by the pool!’.

This stuff might well be how the majority of the ‘profession’ operate now, but who knows how all that could change a few years down the line once enough newcomers have been influenced by someone with your integrity and then go on to influence others in the same way? Clearly you have purpose and your work has meaning, but you’re entitled to Christmas off. We’ll see you on Boxing Day ;)

very usefull
thanks

Hi,
A very good topic on blogging. You have told the kind of bloggings in a good way.
I have also left my job in search of online work as I have a 2.5 yrs old daughter. I was not being able to devote much of my time to her. But now I am struck in between, no earning from online. Can Anyone tell me how I can earn on blogging without any PRRating of the blog.
Thanx,
rds,
Rita Dhiman

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