Blog Republic

Blogging for dollars personality quiz - EMBS - Part 8

by Darren

Okay, in our “Earn Money Blogging Series”, we’ve gone into detail on the ways you can make money. We’ll go into even more details in future posts, but it dawned on me, we may need a way to look at applicants who want to go into the blogging for dollars game. Are there certain personality aspects that make for great bloggers? There might be, and these just might be them:

Bloggers must be unreasonable

As George Bernard Shaw said:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

If you think about starting a blog, it’s a pretty crazy idea. How will you start from zero and build a readership in a field that’s already crowded with tons of talented people? By ignoring the obstacles and plunging ahead. The idea that you’re not special enough to make it might be reasonable, but it will definitely end in your defeat. Never give in to self-doubt.

You can’t become discouraged easily.

Like anything else, blogging will have its’ share of ups and downs. Most days you’ll receive very little feedback of any sort, and in order to make money you’ll have to produce over an extended period of time that might see you feeling sick, or suffering from a personal crises. Each time you may wonder if it’s worth it, and you might consider giving up. Don’t. You only fail when you quit. If you keep on trying, you’ve always got a chance at greater success.

You must be motivated by something.

I don’t care what motivates you, but you must have a positive motivational force guiding you to continue. Call it a grand plan, or something far more mundane, but a motivational force is necessary. Let’s look at some of the motivational forces that could help you succeed in blogging:

1) Your lust for money and objects is so intense that nothing will prevent you from succeeding once you hear how much certain people earn blogging.
2) You passion for your subject is so accute that to not share the information would be unthinkable.
3) There’s a girl in your college class that you want to impress with your writing skills
4) Your father used to beat the hell out of you daily telling you that you were “no good”. You want to prove him wrong and blogging is the artform you choose to do it.

I can continue to write more on the list, but I’m sure you get the idea. It doesn’t matter WHAT motivates you, just as long as something does. If you aren’t motivated by a drive, you just might not have enough energy to continue.

You must be self-disciplined and a self-starter

Ads for jobs used to always contain the phrase “self-starter” in them, and for good reason. If you need a boss to tell you exactly what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, you won’t get very far blogging. You need to be able to think of your own story ideas, promote your own websites, and do your writing constantly.

You have to get up early and go to bed late. You have to work all day and give it all you got. You need to put forth so much effort that people can’t help but notice the type of work you’re doing. And once they do, and once the world awakens to the full capabilities and talents of your blogging, your consistent effort will be worth it.

You need to be consistent

It’s not enough to write one big post or get one big link. Even if you get picked up national news sources, the traffic boost only lasts for awhile. It’s the consistency that keeps people coming back for more. It won’t matter if you hit homers, as long as you keep on stroking singles. It’s the daily efforts that add up to success in the long run.

Undoubtedly, there are millions of personality traits that go up to making successful bloggers. These are but a few of them, but these are traits that I’m sure will go a long way towards helping you achieve your goals.