8 Lessons You'll Learn in Your First Year of Blogging

Support comes from where you least expect it

This is one of the biggest things I have learned since starting my blog and then becoming more serious about it about 7 months ago. When you first start your business, you’re excited and happy to finally put yourself out there and make a name for yourself. What tends to happen is that those around you (friends and family) will listen to you talk but they’ll never randomly ask you how everything is going, if you need any help, or even what your future endeavors are. In actuality they don’t really care as much as you would expect them to. They wouldn’t even do something as small as expressing their support by purchasing one of your items, viewing your content, or even shouting you out on social media. I have discovered that those who truly support and are happy for you are strangers and acquaintances. These are the people who will help you to reach your goals and attain success. These are the people that you need to remember when you make it big. Not those who didn’t care in the beginning, but start to resurface when money and opportunities come your way.

(Disclaimer: not saying that all friends and family members are unsupportive)

Keep pending business endeavors a secret

This is another major thing to keep in mind. While your business is new and you are still curating ideas, you need to be mindful who you share them with. Even if it seems like a small idea you would be surprised how many people are secretly wishing for your failure or to take your great ideas. You just never know, this is why it is always best to keep your ideas and plans to yourself until they actually happen. After your idea has already happened or been made real it makes it harder for people to just steal from you or to take part in your idea failing. And when I say keeping it a secret from people I also mean keeping it a secret form social media. I made this mistake once assuming that it would be okay to share some ideas because I have a smaller following on social media. I assumed the majority of my followers didn’t pay too much attention to my blog and what I was doing. But when my idea ended up crashing and burning I knew exactly why, because I share to the public my idea before I made it happen.

Don’t expect much from people

Yes, you are just starting out and the best way to learn is from others. This statement is completely true and I definitely agree with it but something I struggled with and I working though is taking things too personal. There would be times where I look to other bloggers doing better than me for help and advice and I would get less than satisfactory responses. I noticed that I would want people to be extremely open and excited about someone coming to them for advice, but at the end of the day you can’t expect people to behave in a way that you would. It just isn’t realistic. Now don’t look at this as a reason to not leverage experienced entrepreneurs in your field. But just keep in mind that nothing is personal. Ask your questions and reach out, when the vibe feels strange then kindly fall back and move on to the next person.

Never compare yourself

Another big thing when first starting out, and just a good tip in general is to never compare yourself. You are starting out and not everything is going to be perfect. You just have to make things happen with what you already have. You can’t expect your business to look like someone else who either has been in business for 5+ years or someone who has a lot of money (can have everything running from the start). Your goal is to learn as much as you can so you can avoid possible errors, but at the end of the day there is a lot of things you will have to learn from experience and that takes time. As long as you put in the effort, your business will pick up and youll look back and smile because of how far you have come in a short period of time. As an entrepreneur you must always remember to run your own race and try not to compare your chapter 1 to someone else chapter 5.

Leverage your resources properly

As an entrepreneur you don’t know it all. This is a fact, so get out your head that you can do it all on your own and instead start to leverage your resources. The internet is your friend and connections are key. By using these sources, you will notice a significant change in your work ethic and quality of work. One of the best ways to learn, is from the experience of others. When you can teach yourself how to do something in relation to your business rather then just figuring it out, you will put yourself several steps further then your competitors. Now I’m not saying that when starting your own business, you wont learn anything on your own, but what I am saying is why waste your time figuring out things that many people have already figured out?

Master social media

Social media is king. In todays age technology plays a significant role, it is where the majority of possible clients, customers, and readers spend their time. No matter what your business is, it is a necessity to get on social media to connect with your “tribe”. Social media isn’t just about your personal life, there is such much more to social media then just posting selfies and getting likes from your “friends”. After this first year I have learned so much about different social media strategies and utilizing it in a way to increase awareness about my brand while maintaining a personable page which makes me relatable to my “tribe”.

Advertise, advertise, advertise

This is something I definitely can not stress enough. Advertising goes hand in hand with social media. Your business will not grow if people are unaware if what it is that you are doing. You can be creating amazing content or even have a product that can alter people’s lives for the better. But all of this doesn’t matter if those people don’t have access to your content. The only way to benefit your target and to gain success is by actually telling people what it is you do and how it can help them.

Never allow someone else’s success to intimidate you

Now we are all human and something that gets the best of us at one point or another is jealousy. One thing that I have definitely learned is that worrying about what others are doing and comparing yourself will not help you to move forward. I find that it is best to look at someone else’s success and to learn from it rather then to put yourself down because of it. One of my favorite quotes is, “don’t compare someone’s chapter 5 to your chapter 1”, this quote speaks volumes to me and it states so much in a small phrase. You should never compare yourself, but if you find yourself in this situation always remember that these people have been reading the book for longer. You cant expect to know as much as them when you have only gotten past chapter 1.