“You have to be passionate about your blog.” I’ve seen statements like that over and over.
Now that I’ve really gotten into this “blogging thing,” I want to learn as much as I can about it. I’ve read a lot of tips and advice lately about “how to blog” and “what to blog about.” Many, many people have written about how feeling passion for your topics is crucial to your blog’s success. Some writers also add persistence, expertise, and a few other things to the list, but passion always seems to be at the top.
Here’s some of what I have gleaned from all this reading about passion and blogging:
- Passion gives you incentive to learn as much as you can.
- Passion encourages you to share what you know with others.
- Passion allows you to generate content consistently and continuously.
- Passion makes the work of blogging a labor of love instead of just labor.
- Passion gives you a better connection to your readers. They can tell when you care about them and what you write about. They can also tell when you don’t.
A Passion Progression
As I thought about all of this, I realized there’s a progression related to passion in blogging. It goes like this:
- Blog a passion
- Blog your passion
- Blog your passion with passion
In my second post, Flabbergasted, I wrote about meeting Lorelle VanFossen, the amazing blogger at Lorelle on WordPress (and several other blogs). She autographed her book, Blogging Tips, for me and signed it “Blog your passion.” I mistakenly wrote in my post that she said, “Blog with a passion.”
She gently chastised me for it, and I changed it immediately. It’s a small difference, but an important one. Thank you, Lorelle, for pointing that out to me. (And thank you, WordPress, for the “update post” button.)
Let’s talk about each stage in the progression.
Blog a passion. Many people start writing a blog because they want to make money. They try to find a subject they think will be popular. These bloggers hope there will be enough people passionate about the subject to send them oodles of money. However, if it’s not a subject they’re passionate about themselves, they usually fail. It’s not enough to blog about just any passion. It has to be your own.
Blog your passion. Blogging about a subject you do feel passionate about is much more enjoyable and more likely to be successful. If you’re passionate about your subject, you’ll know more about it and are more likely to keep at it. When you’re writing about something you have a passion for, you’re much more likely to reach your goals for your blog, no matter what they might be.
Blog your passion with passion. While writing about your own passion is important, I believe we must consider another important aspect to this passion progression. To be truly effective, you must blog your passion with passion. It’s not enough to just feel the passion inside you about your subject; you also need to express it with passion. Let your feelings shine through in your writing. Let us feel your excitement about it. Don’t hold back. That’s when people will really start to care.
My Passions for This Blog
My overall theme for this blog is the art (and science) of personal transformation. I’m thinking about the various transformations so far in my life. I’m exploring ideas for other transformations I am making now and would like to make in the future. I hope that by sharing some of these thoughts and opinions with you, we can teach and learn from each other.
Obviously, the concept of personal transformation is extremely broad. Therefore, I plan to focus on the following four categories:
- Health – concentrating on diet and fitness
- Mindset – various areas I’ve been studying lately
- Writing – primarily business-related as opposed to fiction
- Friends – stories of friends’ transformations
These are the areas I’m currently the most passionate about. They still cover a lot of territory, and I’m sure we can go on for a long time about personal transformations involving them.
As I wrote in Losing 100 Pounds – The 5 Phases, I’ve been working on health and fitness a lot over the past few years. I’ve learned a tremendous amount about losing weight and getting fit, and I want to share my perspectives on that.
I haven’t written anything about mindset yet (I think that’s the term I want to use), but I know there’s a lot I want to say about it. Motivation, fear, and inspiration are just a few of many things we can talk about here.
Writing may seem a little out-of-place with the other two, but it’s a really important topic for me. It’s definitely related because it’s a big part of some of the transformations I’m making now and in the future.
If they’ll let me, I’d like to share some of my friends’ experiences with their own transformations, so you can see how others have done it. That way it’s not just my own story. There are other perspectives and ways to accomplish personal transformation. I’d like to explore those, too.
Do you have other thoughts about passion? Do you see it any differently? Please let us know in a comment below.
Robyn
photo by It’s Holly