One man’s treasure is another man’s garbage?

What is hard for some people might be a cake walk for others. And vice versa.

There is a group of bloggers at a university in Silicon Valley that have for the past 2+ months, put their heads down and gone to work blogging, some at a furious pace, some at pace they couldn’t maintain, and some who thought – “What this is a hard pace? You’re kidding, right?”

I am curious to know from them and you (if you take your blogging seriously) – what is the hardest part about blogging? If they gave up, threw in the towel, why? If you have given up, why? If you haven’t given up and are hanging tough – what makes it tough for you?

Couldn’t find the time.

Don’t really like to write.

Don’t know how to write.

Not enough to write about in your niche or the niche was too broad, too narrow.

Couldn’t find a good rhythm.

Life got in the way. Sickness, death, health issues.

Navigating the dashboard was a hassle.

Couldn’t see results soon enough.

Why? Why? Why?

What is so hard about blogging that make people quit?

What is the hardest part even for those who continue to work away at it?

You tell me your struggles and I will tell you mine.

1. The hardest part about blogging for me is that at the start it might be one of the worst paying jobs a person could pick if that person was trying to make a living at settling here in Silicon Valley.

I worked for less than a penny a page. Indeed if I could make a penny a page, I’d be thrilled.

2. Not knowing if my effort at researching, writing and hitting publish was going to pay off or not was always hard. There is a bit of a desperate feeling that if I don’t get traffic, how will I eat. Yet, I didn’t have a plan B.

3. Having made up my mind that I was going to be a problogger but not knowing anybody personally or even remotely who had blazed the trail before me was hard.

4. Not knowing the parameters – the answers to the questions of how many articles do I need to write to get there? How often do I need to publish? What are the guidelines for good quality? How long is this going to take? – was really really hard.

5. No mentor. No standards. Just writing, hitting publish a LOT, and learning through that master school of hard knocks was the really hard part.

6. Facing criticism from those I love and who love me was always hard. My good friends who I love and who I know love me never offered me encouragement, rather would even try to dissuade me. Still I persisted. That was tough.

I can live on the edge. I can do what no one else has done before. I can open new doors, try new things, take risks. But just because I can live in those very precarious positions even with my family depending on me and facing the real possibility that I may be on a fool’s errand or just a fool, doesn’t mean it is/was easy for me. It isn’t. It wasn’t. I can do it. But it’s hard. It’s always been the hardest part.

How about you? What’s the hardest part for you?

Where’s your biggest struggle in blogging?

This past weekend I gave my MBA students a test for them to determine if they have what it takes to make it as a problogger.

Can You Pass This Problogger Test is available at Amazon.com for a whopping $2.99. It includes instructions on how to improve your score. But that’s not the point of this post.

I am a problogger = I pay my mortgage and a lot more through income from traffic alone at my sites. That is, ad placement, on my well-trafficked sites.

Yet, I still have room for improvement.

In the book there are 20 some personality quirks, um, traits that will make a blogger better.

Here are 6 areas that if I were to improve on, would make me a better blogger.

1. I could love writing more than I do. I mean, after all, I am a writer. But, honestly, I don’t always enjoy facing my keyboards. It might be burnout. I have written well over 12,000 articles. Still, if I enjoyed hitting the keys, I could be a better blogger.

2. I could enjoy reading more. I am a terribly slow reader. I can’t just look at words. I have to digest the thing. I might read somewhere between 200-300 words a minute. Slower, depending on the content. And what I read (I am readying a book on the History of Christianity and another on the Life of Winston Churchill)doesn’t usually, okay, almost never has anything to do with what I blog about. I could do better in this area.

3. I could be much more organized. I have no idea how much time I have lost by looking for things. Or just trying to remember – what was it I was going to write about?

4. I could definitely be more social. I think social networking is a waste of time to the blogger. I will write about this later. But given a choice of how to spend my time, it will not be in social situations. I need to change this. Yesterday, I went to a luncheon…came back with a solid lead on a new client. Makes me wonder why I don’t get out more often.

Out of the list of 20 things in the problogger book these are where my weaknesses are.

How about you? Where could you find improvement in your work habits, your personality?