There are many posts about the benefits of blogging. From networking and bettering your career to developing writing skills and examining the world more closely. I think there is one benefit that has been overlooked: increased initative.
To be an amateur blogger takes lots of will power. To be a professional blogger not so much because it’s a job and it supports you. No body is making amateurs write. The blogger has to have the initiative to do it. It is easier to be a spectator and just read, read, read, admiring other author’s ideas and creativity. Believe me I know. It took a whole lot of strength for me to even build my blog (which is rather primitive by most standards). It was a whole other story just to get my first blog post together and with all of life’s distractions blogging remains a happy struggle for me personally. I often fall into the cycle of reading other blogs instead of writing my own. But the ones who stick with blogging and churn out great nuggets of wisdom consistently, are people I greatly respect and see as self-starters that take charge of conversation.
People who blog have more initiative than the average person. It really is that simple. And the best part is if you don’t take a lot of initiative in your own life blogging is a great way to develop that mind-set. I feel that I am an example of someone who stood in the background in many situations before I started blogging, but now take more initiative daily. That’s right, blogging can help you build initiative! For example, in group projects at school I more or less went with the other group member’s ideas. I tended to not fully engage in conversation and brainstorming. Now, in my group working on a LEED ND (leadership in energy and environmental design for neighborhood development) project, I am far more comfortable leading discussion, interacting, bringing up ideas and action items and overall taking more initiative.
But initiative is only a product of the greater confidence that blogging creates. When I write about ideas and the way I feel about life so that everybody in the world can read, I have to be confident in my views. I also have to be willing to take potential criticism from others with a different angle and with different life experience. The confidence blogging instills is a huge asset to anyone who writes. Bloggers are continuously testing their ideas, thus gaining perspective when a commentator teaches them something new, or growing their confidence when they receive positive feedback. There is no way to lose by blogging.
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Are you afraid to blog? Don’t quite get it? How has blogging changed you? Tell me about it.
Cameron Plommer 