As you may have seen, it has been some time since I have posted on my blog with any consistancy. I guess this is the fate of the majority of blogs; the writer has the great idea of writing down their thoughts, and all goes well for the first few posts. But then the monotony kicks in. Do I have anything to say today? Can I be bothered? Does anyone else care? (the comments left, adsense clicks and analytics page show they dont…)

So here I am at this point. Disheartened at the non-immediate success of my blog. When I began posting the numbers of visitors gradually increased. I had pressing issues built up over time which were begging to be written about. And I did that. But then I became lazy, putting off writing. From the heady heights of 7 views a day I am now lucky to see 1 view a day (my own view, of course, to check and see the page still exists)

This appears to be the common fate of blogs. Does a quick blog for a few days or months serve the purpose of those who write it, and those who read it? Does it teach us about the effort required to keep up such activities and how we might not be as willing to put in the effort as we first thought?

This morning the thought came to me that I should really get back into the routine of writing here. But why should I? And what would I write?

My thoughts brought me back to the reason why I created a blog in the first case. I want to be completely happy, and in some way have a positive effect on people in within my contact. Setting up a website would therefore be the best way of doing this. With this, the outreach to people in the world is far greater than humanly possible.

But the purpose of the website for me was not to set up a website in itself. My key goal is for self-improvement to become more happy.

I’ve made promises before that I would write consistently, and they have gone unfulfilled. Creating a successful website with lots of traffic is a goal shared by many a blogger. But often this goal overcomes as the reason for your blog and then this goal becomes so overwhelming its often easier to ignore it. Is your blog successful only because you get lots of views? Wouldn’t you feel success if you felt some kind of realisation or story which leads to a making a good blog post, and not the post itself?

My advice for people who may be struggling with the effort to continue their blog; think about why you created one in the first case. Does the goal still remain? What have you been doing recently to achieve that goal more closely? If you haven’t done much recently, what could you do to achieve it?

To give an example of how this has effected me, I wrote earlier about how working on communication skills was important to me to help me become more happy. After many weeks of procrastination I went to my first Toastmasters meeting. It was there that my vision of self-improvement was re-enforced and it reminded me of my key goals. Part of communication is through writing and of course and while the meeting didn’t help with that, it reminded me that this is something that I still want to improve upon. The articulation of my experiences is helpful in a cyclical manner. By writing it down, it helps me to organise the thoughts in a more meaningful way. I may get feedback from people via the website. And by the whole process, I practise my written communication skills which helps to improve them, for the next time I write about something.

So I encourage you to write something on your blog. Go do it today, even if you only have a few words to write. If you would like some feedback for encouragement, please drop me a comment with the link and I will have a look at it.