Space … Silence … Solitude … [What I Need More of as a Blogger]

As I reflect upon the times when I’ve felt most “effective” as a blogger (and perhaps as a human), I think it’s times when I’ve built these three things into life.

Perhaps it’s just me and my personality, but I find that if I don’t create space…

to reflect on lifeto consider how I’m feelingto analyze what I’ve experiencedto ponder priorities.

then I tend to allow the busyness of my life determine what I do, rather than letting what is important determine my actions.

I find that if I don’t create space, blogging either doesn’t happen, or it happens in a very ad hoc way without me really thinking clearly about the journey I want to take readers on.

Image copyright Tyler Olson - Fotolia.com

If I don’t create silence, I don’t notice the gold in the clutter of life.

I need to turn off what distracts me sometimes—Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, the Media, the iPhone—to truly hear what I need to hear.

I spend too much time broadcasting, and I need to learn to listen more. When I do listen, I find what I say is more useful to others.

I spend a lot of time alone physically, but emotionally, in the work that I do online, I’m realizing that I’m not switching off from those around me.

This point is connected perhaps to the silence I mention above, but the realization that I’m having is that I need to build times of solitude into my life.

I need to learn how to disengage—if only for short periods of time—from the conversations, the requests, and the demands of readers, friends, and followers.

I need to do this not because these people are unimportant, but because if I don’t experience solitude, I’m not really in a position to be able to help anyone.

View the original article here

5 Ways to Improve Your Writing and Become a Better Blogger

When it comes to being a better blogger and building a successful blog it is important for you to realize that your communications skills matter a lot. Working on improving your writing as a blogger can result in great rewards for you since writing is one of the major modes of communication for bloggers.

Whether you like it or not as a blogger you have to write everyday. Your writing can be in the form of articles on your blog, it can be in the forms of guest posts on other blogs, it can be in the form of your contribution on forums and it can be in the form of comments on other blogs. This article will be giving you a few tips to help you improve your writing and make you a better blogger.

1. Write Everyday

This can be something extremely difficult to do but is something that can help improve your writing significantly. While reading is one of the best ways to improve your writing skills it is very important for you to know that practice makes perfect, and no amount of reading will help make you better unless you start writing regularly.

Try to write at least one article everyday, no matter how short. You don’t need to publish that article, you don’t need to submit it as a guest post to another blog but writing constantly makes it easy for you to see what you’re doing wrong and as a result work on improving on it.

2. Read Everyday

Another way you can improve your writing as a blogger is by reading everyday. It doesn’t matter if it is a book, if it is a top blog in your niche or if it is comment made by your readers. You will be able to notice a significant improvement in your writing skills if you are able to read any good thing you lay your hands on. You shouldn’t be restricted to books or blogs in your niche alone, but anything that is written in the English language, and anything that is written by an author you trust.

3. Learn from the Leaders in Your Field

It is also very important for you to realize that, as a blogger, while reading a lot of great books and articles in magazines can help improve your writing, learning from the leaders in your industry can also have a significant impact on the results you get. The leaders in your niche have been blogging for years now, they have experience with writing for your field and they have improved their skills over time. By observing how they write and why they do so you’ll be able to develop your skills and write perfectly for your audience.

It is important to realize that you don’t just have to copy them blatantly though. The best way to build a successful blog is by being unique. Don’t try to be what you are not but make effective use of every opportunity to learn from others.

4. Write Your Mind

Another thing you should realize as a blogger is that the best way to succeed isn’t just to write, but to write well. Learning to write well isn’t just enough, but learning to write your mind might make a whole lot of difference.

In most cases a lot of people who read books today do so because it is necessary and in most cases it isn’t necessary for your readers to read your blog so don’t write like you are writing their next school book. One of the key to writing content that gets results as a blogger is by connecting to your readers emotions, and the best way to do this isn’t by trying  to write the next perfect article but by writing exactly what is on your mind.

The key to writing content that gets results isn’t to write the perfect content but to write to your true self. I have seen bloggers without perfect English get great results and I have seen people write posts with perfect grammar that goes nowhere. The reality is that if you learn to write your mind and do it regularly (tip #1), and you also follow the second tip in this article you will be able to improve your writing skills significantly.

5. Get Feedback

As bloggers and writers it can be quite easy to deceive ourselves with the hope that our writing is great when it indeed isn’t, it can also be easy for us to believe our writing sucks when it really doesn’t. When you do the same thing over and over again you get used to it and hardly notice the changes and writing shouldn’t be any different. The only way to know if your writing is improving isn’t just by writing and telling yourself it is, the best way to know if your writing is improving is by getting feedback. Try to get your readers to give you feedback about your writing. Try to get them to give your suggestions and over time work on writing the perfect article.

Image Credit

View the original article here

3 reasons I am proud to be a Amateur Blogger

This guest post is by Dan Meyers your life, their lifeof.

You press the submit button to your next big idea to introduce students to the world.  Finally, this would be the one that pulls in some real traffic.  Up to this point, the majority of your visits come from you and your parents.

Amateur golfer (image is author of own)

Crack your bubble when you check your Web traffic and realize that this was not the.  If only you could like to your blog page, your Facebook friends than you would have some legit numbers!  You've been asked time and time again, however, and most of them don't come through.  Your subscriber count remains the same.

Life as an amateur blogger is not fun, but it reminds me of my experience as an amateur golfer.  I say that out loud my sub-par capacities (pun intended) not worthy of my anger. But that doesn't prevent me getting upset with every ball that bounces in the brush slechtzittende.  Check out the picture: I'm so bad!

For a few months I only blogged on my current site.  Of course I don't expect great traffic or a large subscriber base.  Not numb the pain, however, that of a hard reality!

Are you embarrassed to admit that you are an amateur on anything?  Admission so can make you feel worthless.  Our culture teaches us that it is better to than to admit that you're not good at something.

My name is Dan, and I am an amateur blogger.

I started blogging in 2007, but it was one of those blogs one month.  You know the kind: you all fired up, pay for a website or sign up for a blog account, three blog posts, and quickly be discouraged if you don't write all visits. That's what my was, but I appreciate my parents, brother and friend Ryan for click on it!

I'm back at it again and now I'm not afraid to admit that I am an amateur blogger.  It's easy to start a blog, but it is not easy to successfully create a blog.

I am now convincing myself that life should be enjoyed as an amateur blogger.  Here are the reasons why.

Life as an amateur gives me room to grow, and the humility to accept that my first ideas will probably not my best.  It will allow me to kill some of my ideas without feeling like I am part of myself to kill.

This is relevant to more than blogging.   Charlie Munger said: "If Berkshire Hathaway a modest progress had been made, because it is a good deal of Warren [Buffett] and I are very good at destroying our own most beloved ideas.  Each year that you destroy one of your most popular ideas is probably not a lost year. "

I am an amateur. Of course I'm going to have a number of bad ideas!  Investing Ben Graham made an observation that is analogous to real life, when he said, "good ideas than bad investments cause more doom ideas."  Are your good blogging ideas giving you more pain than your bad ideas?

Confirmation of my life as an amateur I myself can not comply with the high standards of a professional.  However, I am forced to know that I am ruthless should strive to get to that point.

Professionals got where they are because of the many years of hard work.  As I said in my previous guest post, problogger.net put Malcolm Gladwell that amount of practice on outliers10,000 hours in his book.  If you try directly to the professionals, you will be frustrated quickly, that can lead to an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy.

However, you must realize that it is possible to get on that point, just as they did.  You are not willing to put a lot of time, you will likely join the death of my first blog.   As they say, was not problogger.net built in a day.

This is my favorite part of life as an amateur.  I am passionate about helping others to get out of debt and take control over their lives.  I do it, although I am not a professional; I make no money and it's a lot of hard work.

The Call, In his book, Os Guinness explains it as the following, "to our disgrace we have taken the word amateur, moderns against the professionalism and excellence, and turned it in a matter of tepid motives and counterfeit results.

"But amateur, as G.K. Chesterson never tired to say, means" love. "  Man must love a thing very much when he's not only the practice without any hope of Fame or money, but even the practices without any hope of doing it right. "

This does not give you a free pass to sub-par work and your ambition to strive for excellence should not cap.  However, it does not prevent something just because you're not a professional.  Your message is important because you can help others, and it's worth.   G.K. Chesterson also said, "If there is one thing, it's worth worth bad do!"

I can guarantee you one thing: If you have something bad long enough, but you are trying to improve and are passionate about, the more quickly will not bad!

These are the three reasons I am proud of my amateur title, but it doesn't mean that I want to continue longer than I have!  I am so excited about my topic that I know I can be a professional; It just needs time.  If I continue to work hard and not get discouraged, can I make it and help many people.

Have you prepared to live as an amateur in the hope of one day a professional?  You have a voice, don't be afraid to use it!

Then Your Life, their lives started to you Meyers control of your life to help.  Read how he paid off $ 50,000 of debt in two years and how are strategies can help you.

View the original article here

The 23 Blogger breeds — who are you?

This guest post was written by Stephen Guise of Deep Existence.

A new blogger is born today! Aw, look at her beautiful blue Twitter and Facebook icon eyes and her cute little RSS nose. This baby blogger does not know the perils of comment moderation, stalkers, low traffic, and spam that await her. I wonder what type of blogger she’ll be.

The blogosphere is populous and it keeps growing. With millions of bloggers out there, there are a certain number of very identifiable qualities that are seen. This blogger aims to cover as many of those qualities, or “breeds,” as possible.

While there may be some purebreds out there, 99.832% of bloggers will be mutts, possessing a combination of these traits. Keep that in mind and don’t blame me for oversimplifying your primary breed! It is highly unlikely that you are a purebred.

You can consider this a tribute to blogging, but it will be educational as well as I’m listing pros and cons for every breed. You will laugh. You will relate. You will (probably not) cry. Enjoy!

Blogger machines know how to pump out content … like a machine. They post on a daily basis and sometimes multiple times per day. Microbloggers fall into this category as they write very short, frequent posts.

SEO— the more content you have, the more information Google has to work with.The readers of a machine blogger know that they can visit every day and still get fresh content—possibly boosting reader engagement and traffic.Burnout—I can’t imagine having to post every day (let alone multiple times a day) without getting mentally exhausted. That could be because some of my posts take me 15 hours to write, but I know I’m not alone in this.Quality could suffer from the obligation to produce content every day and forcing the issue when inspiration is lacking.

Ninjas are stealth bloggers and the opposite of machines. While the machines are pumping out blog posts like ipads, the ninjas are sitting back for days or weeks without posting. When the time is right, the ninja strikes with a mind-boggling post and dashes away for another few days … or weeks.

Every post is special. Like the Summer Olympics and World Cup are special for being held every four years, new blog posts are a rare treat for fans of the blog.Quality can absolutely be assured if each post is being crafted over several sessions and multiple days.The audience might forget you exist if you post once every fortnight.If a new post fails to impress, there is a high probability of unsubscribes or generally upset readers. The stakes are higher and the consequences are greater when you post less frequently.

Social engineers are on Twitter and Facebook more than their own blog. They are the masters of the social world. There is something about the way they conduct themselves online that draws people towards them. That something could be that they are connected everywhere with 50 different social accounts—Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Google, Yahoo Buzz, Reddit, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn, etc.

Social Engineers are very popular. They know what social media platforms to use and how to use them best. Their reach is far and they are always up to date with the latest social gadgets (such as Google’s +1 button).

Oh, they have blogs too? Social media is notorious for sucking away valuable time for trivial socializing. Social engineers are particularly vulnerable to this as their popularity results in many social interactions.

Chris Brogan said that…

Darren Rowse did this…

53 other bloggers in my niche are great because…

Excessive name dropping is not my favorite for a few reasons, but some people thrive on it. Name-droppers mention other bloggers very frequently. If you become very entrenched in the industry and your blog topic is relevant to what other bloggers have said, you might find yourself dropping names everywhere.

From what I’ve seen, name droppers benefit tremendously from their efforts. They come across as unselfish “community bloggers.” The people that they mention will often be so flattered that they return the favor or at least leave a comment and share.

If people with my mindset visit your blog and just see you dropping names all over the place in most articles, we’re going to ask, “Okay, but what do you bring to the table?” Sometimes name-droppers will drop names because they know it gets a lot of attention. Skeptical bloggers like me wonder if excessive name droppers actually do it for selfish reasons (i.e. it helps their blog grow).

I see Steve Pavlina as a near purebred soloist. I frequent his blog and know that he does not write guest posts, accept guest posts, have a public email address, or allow comments on his blog. He has never spent any money on advertising. When you visit his blog, you’re getting Steve Pavlina and nothing else.

If you’re very good like Mr. Pavlina, then you can just focus on writing great content and word of mouth will eventually spread everywhere. Steve has said that his blog grew because people wanted to share his content. I have shared his content often.Not needing to worry about writing for others, moderating comments, editing guest posts, and responding to emails is a HUGE time and energy saver.Most blogs will die if they are not connected, advertising and promoting themselves, writing guest posts, allowing comments, etc.Being out on an island has drawbacks too. You might be perceived as elitist or self-absorbed if you don’t engage with others.

Note: When bloggers reach a certain level of fame, it is very common to develop soloist tendencies. Don’t take it personally, they just want more time to write posts and spend more time with their family. It takes a lot of time to thoughtfully respond to 100 comments, emails, and tweets per day!

This one has nothing to do with copyblogger.com, a fantastic copywriting blog. Copy [space] bloggers are actually terrible. Some of them will rip content word-for-word from other blogs’ RSS feeds (some person is doing this to my blog). Others will paraphrase content they read on other blogs without attempting to create their own content.

It is possible to get better content than you’re capable of creating—for free and without doing any work.

Oh that’s right, it’s illegal. Darn.

Guests are always seen writing for other blogs. You’ve seen it—you’ll read two articles on two different blogs only to see they were by the same author of yet another blog! Guests feel at home on other blogs that have more influence than their own. There is something warm and cozy about traffic spikes.

I am one of them. ProBlogger seems to be my favorite host. At time of writing, I’ve written as many guest posts for ProBlogger as the others combined! I write for my own blog sometimes too.

Seasoned guest bloggers know the pros already—inbound links for SEO, increased traffic, credibility, valuable connections, and many more. Guest blogging is good.

Guest posting on a relatively dead blog is not fun. You’ll find yourself refreshing the page to see if there is any action—but nothing. You’ll look for incoming traffic on your own blog—but nothing.

I once guest-posted on a blog that buried my post under three other articles in the same day (I won’t be posting there again).

Guests need hosts. The purebred hosts are those blogs who live off of guest posts. They have enough traffic and reputation to consistently attract high quality content.

ProBlogger is the quintessential host of the blogosphere. Darren blogs here every once in a while, but if you’re a regular here, you know that the next post is probably going to be a guest post like this one. Guests like myself are very thankful for the opportunity to contribute!

Darren doesn’t have to write another article for ProBlogger ever again if he doesn’t want to. There is enough content coming in that he can simply post whenever he feels like it. Premium hosts can ride the wave of success into the sunset if they so choose.

It does take quite a bit of work to sort through guest posts, edit them, and manage the whole guest-posting process.

You see this blogger everywhere. They are not guest posters, they are the commentators. After every blog post you read, you scroll down to the comment section, and sure enough, there is the dude that commented on the last five blogs you visited.

I love commenting on blogs. It is enjoyable to engage with others who produce quality content. There are also some who believe that commenting is a viable traffic-generating strategy, but that has not been my experience.

Some comments are better than others. If you leave stereotypical “great post” comments everywhere you go, nobody will like you or visit your blog.If leaving comments is your main strategy for getting traffic, I doubt it is going to get you very far. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Spam. Did you just shudder when you read that? Recent surveys show that approximately 0% of bloggers enjoy spam (that includes the internet and canned versions). Spam isn’t always in the obvious form of broken English and a shady link—sometimes the commentators will covertly use your comment area as a platform to advertise their blog and products.

It can work to the tune of a whole lot of money for those who run automated programs. It can also work to get sploggers more traffic. (That link is from a 2005 ProBlogger article and is a fascinating read … a little dated, but still good).

Everyone will hate you because spam is the worst.

The comedian is always out to make us laugh. Some blogs have that as the only goal. Other blogs are about different topics, but have an author that can’t resist to squeeze in a one-liner or share a funny story.

Who doesn’t like to laugh? Seriously, I’d be interested to know the answer to that. The fact is that laughter is enjoyable and a successfully comedic blogger will be able to gain fans quickly because people love to share funny content.

If your humor fails to impress, it has the opposite effect of “gaining fans quickly.” There will be some people out there that don’t appreciate your particular style of humor. Humor doesn’t mix well with all niches (sewing?).

Statisticians see blogging as a numbers game. They are usually the ones who make the most money because they track what visitors or doing and why. Then they make changes based off of that information.

You’ll hear them talk about “conversions” a lot—which is the number of desired actions divided by the number of visitors. Three advertisement clicks out of 100 visitors is a 3% conversion rate.

As I said, they tend to be able to make more money by making tweaks and experimenting with their sales pages. Split testing allows them to isolate variables and make definitive conclusions.

Statisticians could possibly make poor decisions by interpreting data incorrectly.Analyzing statistics is a time-consuming affair (but the results can make it worthwhile).

Gurus are the unquestioned leaders in their niche—Darren Rowse, Seth Godin, Brian Clark, Stephen Guise, Steve Pavlina, Chris Brogan, Leo Babauta, etc. They have legions of followers and their advice carries a lot of weight. It takes a lot of time, effort, and talent to be in this elite group.

What? You’ve never heard of Stephen Guise? Don’t worry about it.

Yes, these guys are pros. They do well financially, are the most respected bloggers, and carry an enormous amount of influence in the blogosphere.

With great exposure comes greater amounts of spam, haters, and hackers to deal with.

One step below the gurus are the experts. Experts may know their subject inside and out, but they lack the notoriety of the gurus. There are many experts in each niche. It typically takes great content over time to build up an expert reputation in your niche.

Lots of traffic from people wanting trust-worthy answers, a high degree of respect from peers (including other media outlets), and a very loyal following.

Increased pressure. When you are considered an expert, the pressure is on to live up to that. If you say something half-witted, you can expect a strong reaction by those who are waiting for you to mess up so they can announce it to the world.

I think of Jon Morrow from Copyblogger as the face of this group. His story is so amazing and inspiring that it has a profound effect on everyone who hears it. He is also a fantastic writer.

Blogging is full of inspiring people and stories. Stories of people quitting the 9-5 job they hated to blog full-time and make more money. Amazing success stories of very young bloggers making five figures a month and traveling the globe. Others like Tim Ferriss that seem to succeed in everything they do.

This is such a broad category because inspiration comes in many different forms from different sources. Sometimes the people inspire us, other times the content inspires us. I’ve come to think that blogging is a communication medium packed full of inspiration—a wonderful thing.

Everyone loves to be inspired. Much good comes from it—changing lives, changing the world, and success.

A con about inspiring others? The only possible con would be if you inspired others to live incorrectly.

These bloggers aren’t the best with written language. I feel somewhat bad about including this, but it is what it is. Most readers won’t demand perfect grammar, but we all have our limits of what we will tolerate.

It is possible to write posts very quickly if no attention is given to grammar.

If the grammar is bad enough, I and many others won’t revisit a blog. Undoubtedly, many promising blogs have died from grammatical failure. I do, however, remember seeing a blog with disgusting grammar that had over 4,000 subscribers—so it isn’t always fatal.

Disruptors create waves in the still waters of the blogosphere. They call people out. The write controversial posts more often than not. They challenge the status quo.

Disruptive posts have a greater chance of going viral (something all blogger dream about) than posts that fit neatly into a well-known category. I’ve noticed that disruptors are usually popular because they stand out so much from the crowd. Julien Smith at inoveryourhead is a popular disruptor.

When disruptors try too hard and aren’t very good at it, it is like watching a middle-aged white man try to dance. (When I’m a middle-aged white man, I will change this stereotype, but I still have 25 years to go.)

Marketing mavens know what combination of words will psychologically induce you to buy a product. Scary, huh? These bloggers are often found in the making money online niche and simply know how to promote themselves and products.

If you are an expert marketer, you stand to make a great deal of money online. In most cases, excellent marketing of an average product exceeds the sales of average marketing of an excellent product. Darren gave a great example of the magic of marketing in this article.

If you’re constantly marketing (I’m talking to you, Twitter broadcasters) and selling, many people will grow weary of you and you could lose potential business. Once a customer thinks you see them as a sales opportunity, they will be hesitant to purchase from you. Then again, savvy marketers know how to avoid this perception.

Everyone loves _____!

These bloggers have the personality and charm to somehow avoid the haters and gain (nearly) universal praise and adoration. My guess is that they use a potent airborne concoction of concentrated love powder that can be dispersed through the internet.

It’s possible that they’re just too amazing to dislike. Still, I think this becomes very difficult as you gain influence and notoriety … unless you’re Barbara Walters.

We love them. All of us.

What’s not to love about being loved?

You think you’re reading a post written for you, but sorry, these bloggers are having an affair with Google. Oh the passion … Er, I mean they just want to rank well for particular keywords.

Search engine optimization done right can result in massive traffic numbers and increased sales.

SEO fanatics might be tempted to try some “black hat” SEO tactics that Google doesn’t appreciate and get banned or demoted.Stuffing an article with keywords has a chance of sounding contrived, unoriginal, and repetitive.

Passion purists refuse to write about anything they wouldn’t lose a kidney for. They aren’t into making money by working the system and using SEO on an untapped niche of little interest. They blog because they have passion for the subject matter. Some make money and some do not.

Passion is contagious, and humans are attracted to it. If readers sense that a blogger is very passionate about a subject and they share interest in that subject, there is a good chance they will stick around.

Missed opportunities to gain traffic, money, and sales from writing about something that isn’t inspired.Only posting when passion is present could mean an erratic and/or infrequent posting schedule – the effect of which is negative (debatable).

These bloggers will blog about anything to make money. Blogging is a job and a business to them and pa$$ions exist to be monetized.

Money purists are very intentional about making money and therefore will plan from the start how they plan to accomplish that.They are very likely to make more money than most bloggers as that is their primary focus.Possible burnout as a result of not caring what they write about.Potentially less enjoyment (offset by extra money?)

These are massive blogs that have an entire team behind the operation and multiple writers. Engadget is a popular tech blog that falls under this category.

They get traffic numbers that make me nervous.They can make an enormous amount of money.

Conglomerate blogs don’t have the personal touch that individual bloggers have. You don’t go to Engadget to engage with their writers—you go there to read about the iPhone 5.

The blogosphere is bigger than this article of 3000+ words, and I simply couldn’t cover everything. So here are some honorable mentions (you can guess what they might mean).

The Moral Compass/Preacher, The Emotion Generator, The Mommy Blogger, The Novelist, The Fake, The Mystery, The Lurker…

Which breeds did I miss?

Stephen Guise spent a long time writing this. He blogs at Deep Existence, where deep thinking is deemed appropriate. If you subscribe, you’ll get a free ebook on how to remove stress permanently. Deal?

View the original article here

Are you a creative Blogger?

Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Error in deserializing body of reply message for operation 'Translate'. The maximum string content length quota (8192) has been exceeded while reading XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader. Line 1, position 9160.

This guest post is by Chris Kahler of bloggeritus.com.

It doesn’t take a genius to stroll around cyberspace and quickly find that the World Wide Web is littered with junk. There is a lot of “stuff” out there, most of which isn’t very good.

On the flip side, though, there are still many amazing gems hidden beneath the rubble. The magical ingredient that marks the divide is creativity. Creativity isn’t just part of a fairytale that only children believe in. It really exists, and is the one thing that will polish you into a masterful blogger.

The gems you will find online are from the few bloggers who have found their own creative abilities and applied them masterfully towards the many processes that grow a blog. They have their own special style that everyone instantly recognizes.

“Run of the mill” is a term used to describe work done by others who try to imitate someone else’s style—their work becomes obscure and much less effective.

Originality is not attempting to be different, but rather doing what you want to do the way you want to do it. Originality is only effective when approached with creativity.

A blog is created through many small steps, wouldn’t you agree? Depending on how you approach them, these steps can either produce “run of the mill” results and put your blog in the pile of rubble, or they can produce results of original creativity and polish your work to be one of the few gems to be found.

Blogging is a medium thriving on the expressions of originality. Those who can create their own unique style stand out.

You create your own style by being creative with your content and unique with your presentation. The creativity in your content will act as your originality, and over time your style will resonate with people.

For creating a unique style you must quit following trends, trying to fit in with specific groups, or attempting to fit a personality mold you weren’t made for; rather, embrace the idea of creative imagination and flow where you really want to be.

When you become creative with your ability to express your thoughts, your style will carve a path of its own.

As you practice being creative many drastic changes will occur in your life. Here are some of the more noticeable changes creativity can bring:

Creativity can reduce stress (if you learn to enjoy it).It helps to unlock hidden potential in your brain.Creativity helps rejuvenate your vigor.It boosts your motivation.It will help you build and maintain stronger focus on what you need to get done.

Another main benefit, which in my opinion is one of the best, is the fact that you will actually grow to enjoy the process of creating. There is a fine line between work and play that produces the most efficient results toward any goal.

Creators of great achievements walk along this line.

They understand the importance of focused objectives yet are able to have fun during the time they spend “at work” getting them accomplished.

As you learn to be more creative you will grow to enjoy creating just for the sake of it. Results are just results and shouldn’t be the focus of your efforts.

It helps to provide real value when your overall focus is applied in the right places. If you have a goal in mind that you want to reach, by all means remember it constantly.

However, when you find yourself in the trenches trying to make the life you want to happen a possibility, don’t work with possible results as your main focus for inner drive.

Disappointment sets in when you work for results. But even worse, your work will be totally misguided due to the lack of controlled focus for direction.

Now if you have a dream, which everyone should, do keep it in the forefront of your memory; when you visualize your expectant life and realize certain things must initially take place for you to get there, you will understand what’s next—you must create those “certain things” to help you move forward.

This is what visualizing is for—to help you prepare yourself for the skills you’ll need to gain and to give you a direction to begin creating that dream.

As you create your way through the smaller incremental steps giving you advancement towards the dream, make those individual processes your sole focus.

Being creative will help to create a since of pride in you, yet the process of creation will always leave you humbled. The result of this is the constant urge to continue.

When you learn to enjoy the creative process and feel a great deal of satisfaction from your creations, that’s the birth of passion.

Creative passion is one of the most powerful driving forces for producing effective, high quality content in record time.

Furthermore, you will also strive to exceed any current “limitations”—this is just how the creative process is!

Applying creativity towards any kind of work you do will allow you to spark a new connection with what you’re doing, and your progress will grow positively.

No matter what side project(s) you are involved with, such as a blog project, some form of art you want to try out, or any other kind of objective—if you search out a creative aspect in it, you will see things in an entirely new perspective.

Creativity gives you flexibility without expectation. This gives you a full enjoyment for what you do.

As a creative blogger:

Rather than creating blog posts just for the rewards of blogging, you will find yourself stretching your limits to create the best post you can, just for the challenge of creation.

Rather than focusing on distant realities in your mind you will develop solid concentration on tasks that are enjoyable.

You’ll also begin feeling passionate for these tasks.

Also, a lasting impression for seeking creativity is the new mannerism developed for modeling the success of others.

Rather than seeing limits that seem to impose themselves on you when considering yourself in comparison with a notable leader, you’ll just see the distance as mere obstacles that you will overcome in increments … creative increments, that is.

The only steps separating you from the most established professionals are the many smaller and focused processes of creation, which have given these professionals every asset, tool, and skill they use to travel the path of achievement.

To become a more creative blogger is a very wise thing to do. However, it takes time and effort to establish and build a mind that leans towards creative thinking.

Here are the things you must do in order to be more creative:

You must be more positive with your outlook on everything. For any situation, try to find the positive aspect or potential outcome. This is key for creative people.Stretch yourself past what you may perceive as limits. There is a simple mindset to consider for doing this effectively. You need to learn this mindset in order to expand your own abilities.Observe any professionals in your field or niche. Try to discern what makes their work different. Whatever it is that gives them a pizazz comes from creative thinking.Master the aspect of innovation. By learning how to take an idea and improve it you not only give yourself room to expand the originality of your own ideas but also can benefit from observing the professionals you admire.Practice the habit of writing every day. Writing a journal is one of the best ways to initiate a creative spark. A lot of ideas come to us every day, but only those who discipline themselves to organize their thoughts in ways that can be referenced are able to hold on to the good ones.Learn how to be flexible. Allow yourself to take on new ideas, allow yourself to question your inner beliefs, but don’t change who you are for anyone. Flexibility just opens you up to new channels of thought and is not meant to make you have a different belief system, only a more acceptable one for good ideas.Learn how to experiment. Experimenting is the essence of creativity. When you do something that’s different than everyone else, you will not know how the results will be. Learn to do this and improve from it.Learn to accept criticism and how to give criticism. Find positive results either from yourself or others who critically analyze what you do is a great way to make improvement.Above all, enjoy the process of providing quality content to the rest of humanity. You will grow as a passionate person and will establish a lasting legacy on this planet if you can do these steps.

As you can see, creative thinking isn’t something you can expect to master overnight. There is a lot of information pertaining to our imaginations, most of which we have yet to discover.

According to what I’ve gathered from modeling success and acquiring new skills is that those who balance their thinking by relying more heavily on creativity than average people tend to stand out as above average.

These people are the ones who establish influence, trust, and higher levels of success using originality and boldness—both directly gained through creative thinking.

Unfortunately space is limited here, I like to keep my posts from turning into small novels! However, comments are a great way of continuing this discussion.

In what ways do you think you are creative already? How are you working to improve your creativity?

Chris Kahler has recently discovered the definition of a creative personality. He has also discovered that there are a million things still left unsaid which you should know about. Maybe subscribing to his RSS feed is a good idea? He thinks so, oh and while you’re at it follow him on twitter as well.

View the original article here