The Real Secret Behind Blogging Success

Us bloggers are all searching for blogging success. We concentrate on page views, income and social media likes, but what is the secret to making it all come together? The secret of having a blog that not only brings in money, but gives us joy and helps people?

It might surprise you to learn that the secret to blogging success isn’t page views, how many people follow you on Instagram or how much money you made from Amazon last month.

These things are important. Definitely. But if you are just concentrating on them then at some point you are likely to hit a plateau or just find that you can’t get the exact results you want.

The real secret is inside all of us.

It’s mindset.

This does get talked about in blogging circles but not nearly as much as it should.

When I first heard about it, I thought it was all airy fairy and a load of rubbish and did not give it the time it deserved.

I was too busy trying to build a blog to have time to devote to my mindset.

This is because I did not understand that it’s not airy fairy at all. Having the right mindset affects everything you do and every part of your blogging business. Working on your mindset is working on everything at once.

I was lucky in that, really accidentally, my mindset was always fairly good. I started this site and believed I could have success and this was instrumental to my success.

However, it was definitely holding me back from taking things to the next level and I have been devoting time to it this year. I think about it and work on it every day.

It’s that important.

If you feel like switching off right now and think this is a load of rubbish, I’d urge you to open your mind, even just a little, and keep reading on.

1. What mindset isn’t and why it is so powerful

Mindset isn’t about just wishing something will happen and so it does.

This is where I used to get confused about how mindset could be useful for success.

It’s about 100% truly believing that something will happen.

“

So that every action you take will reflect this.

This is what is so powerful about mindset.

That’s why I talk about putting your blogging goals out there on your Facebook profile for the world to see.

It’s a way to help improve your mindset, to give you no choice but to keep moving forward and to push through whatever barriers there are.

It affects the way you talk about things which will affect how others see you and your blog.

If you come across as confident in your blog posts, social media, videos, email, etc and 100% believe you know what you are talking about and have information valuable to everyone, this will come across and it 100% makes a difference to your success.

If you are 100% confident with you approach a brand with your pitch and how you can help them, they will notice that and be more likely to respond.

This is not airy fairy at all. It just makes sense.

This is just one example.

It affects every area of your business. Even starting to call your blog a business is an important mindset shift.

It will help you work the hours you need for success. It will help you feel confident investing money into your business. It will help you stay on track and productive.

A way I have realised that I have changed over the last few years is how I talk about what I do.

I used to be nervous when that question came up. When I first started describing myself as a blogger, people literally laughed.

Now when I talk about it, it’s far more likely the person I talk to will be genuinely interested and impressed by what I do.

What has changed?

All that has changed is the way I talk about it. The bits and pieces are the same but it comes across differently because I view it differently.

If you think about it, if you can make a change to your mindset and it can affect every behaviour and action you take, how could it not help you have success?

It will also help you STOP making the biggest mistakes in blogging – you can find them here.

2. How to work on your mindset

Having the right mindset, one that will lead you to success (I call it a success mindset) and that you can be 100% behind is not easy.

In fact, I definitely find it the toughest part of being an entrepreneur.

It is something I work on literally every day.

The hardest part about building a successful travel blog was not working out SEO, traffic, affiliate marketing etc.

It was committing 100% to building a successful blog. It was working hard every day with no guarantee that it would pay off.

So how can you work on your mindset?

Work on the big picture

This is what has worked for me.

Step 1: Realising the importance of mindset and committing 100% to working on a success mindset.

Also realise that this is a process that will take time and that you need to give yourself the time and space to work on it.

Step 2: Being 100% honest with myself about what I want for my business and setting goals according.

This is where you are not allowed to let fear or self doubt play a part.

Step 3: Telling myself that there is nothing special about people who have the success I want. If they can do it then I can do it too.

Step 4: Making a plan that will help me reach this success.

I like to break up my big goals into achievable monthly goals and then split this up into tasks.

You can learn about my process and follow it to in the free 5 Day Goal Setting Challenge.

Step 5: Coming up with some mantras that will help me and that I can repeat every day

See more about this below. I also recommend this article on manifesting affirmations to help with some ideas of what you can do to work on this.

Then when I feel like I am wasting my time working on something, I remind myself how it relates to the big picture and that it’s important to my goal.

I am also very clear why I have the goals in the first place and remind myself of that.

I want a great life for me and my family where we have freedom and flexibility. It’s important and we deserve it.

Give fear a name

I find it helps to give my fear and self doubt a name and to call it this in my thoughts.

I call mine Larry the Loser.

When he starts telling me I can’t do something, I tell him to go to hell. I’m quite competitive so I think about how I won’t let Larry win.

Just because he is a loser, it doesn’t make me one.

I also like to imagine my doubts as big weeds and I picture myself cutting them down.

Change the story

It’s also about changing the story whenever you are telling yourself a negative one.

Blogging is too competitive, I can never be a success

to

Many people have shown how possible it is to have a successful blog so I can do it too!

3. Mantras for success

Mantras are definitely a huge part of mindset for me and many others.

Part of this is having a line you can repeat when you feel self doubt or fear coming in. In fact, you can treat them like your shield to warn off and disintegrate your negative thoughts (like Larry).

Mantras shouldn’t just be a shield though, you should also use them to lift yourself higher.

You can have many mantras. Ones for when fear seeps in. One of when you wake up in the morning. One for when you start work.

Whatever works for you.

Finding what mantras work for you and what helps you build your mindset is a very personal thing. Here are some I, and other bloggers in the DNW group, use:

• It’s my time and I’m ready for the next steps – Denise Duffield-Thomas
• I deserve success and I’m going to have it
• It’s a great thing when blogging/SEO/Pinterest/etc gets hard as most people quit when things get hard and I’m not a quitter so I’m going to have bigger success now
• I’ve got this
• “It’s my life. It’s now or never…” and more of the Bon Jovi song
• A big part of success is just showing up – Amy
• You only get back what you put in – Sally
• Have a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset – Sonal
• “Eat that frog” (Brian Tracy) – Lisa
• Imperfect is perfect enough. Taking action is the important thing – Jo
• Choose the bigger life – Amanda
• This work will pay off later and keep on paying – Sandra
• When life knocks you down, stand up and kick it straight back! – Jane
• “Rome wasn’t built in a day” – Sylvia
• “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” (Abraham Lincoln) – Jackie
• Slow progress is better than no progress – Wendy
• “This is what a wealthy woman looks like” (whenever I see myself in a mirror) – Kirsty
• Asking doesn’t equal failure (Steve Jobs) – Melanie
• Success doesn’t happen overnight. Keep learning, keep improving your craft, keep believing you’ll succeed. One day, you’ll look back and be proud of yourself – Eva
• Create the life you can’t wait to wake up to – Keri
• “Some people dream of success, others stay awake to achieve it” – Ziad K. Abdelnour
• Hard work puts you where good luck can find you – David
• “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it” (Peter Pan) – Elisa

I also look at my goals and make them a mantra and put them everywhere I can.

For example, if my goal was $10,000 a month in earnings, I would repeat this to myself often.

I’d do things like:

• Put 10kpermonthnow as my password in key accounts
• Put a sign up behind my desk saying this
• Say it to other people
• Put is as my husband’s name in my phone

4. Tips and tricks to improve mindset

I like using music to help with my mindset as well.

I sing It’s My Life by Bon Jovi in my head regularly and often switch the words to It’s My Time.

I listen to Eye Of The Tiger when I have to do a task I particularly hate. It always revs me up and helps me switch away from the negativity I have around the task.

Another good tip is to print great feedback from your readers and put it on the wall or have them in a file you read when you are feeling down.

Different things definitely work for different people so here are some other suggestions to help with your mindset and help you push through when you get stuck.

“What gets measured, gets managed” – Emma finds it helps when she has to work on something that she doesn’t want to do to looks at metrics – like Google Analytics – to see progress to keep her on track with what she is working on.

I focus on what I can do – Bron has a son with special needs and has found that there have been many situations where people/professionals/doctors etc have focused on what they cannot do. She likes to flip that to what they can do and uses this attitude when working on her blog as well.

Turning writer’s block around – Betsy says that when she’s feeling uninspired to create content, she doesn’t think of it as writer’s block. Instead, she’s learned to honor the signal to step back and take a break. The inspiration always returns, but it doesn’t like to be forced. She remembers that she chose this lifestyle for flexibility and she should embrace that.

Remembering that success always requires hard work – Kylie identifies with the “Iceberg Illusion”. When you are looking at others’ success you only see the tip of the iceberg but not everything that lies underneath – the dedication, persistence, hard work, good habits, disappointment, sacrifice, failure, etc – that everyone goes through on their journey to success.

Remembering you don’t have success in any job overnight – Katie remembers that in a normal job you wouldn’t start one day and expect to rise to the top without time and effort. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes an awful lot of hard work, and it’s often who you know as well as what you know.

You’ll notice that what they all have in common is switching a negative situation to a positive one.

Final words

Growing a success mindset takes time and it isn’t easy.

I have been prioritising it for the last few months and I am only just feeling the huge benefits of it and really feeling myself being 100% onboard with my latest goals.

I am writing this a few days before my biggest launch ever, one I have been working on for two years.

Am I nervous?

Not at all. I’m excited.

Because I know I have created a valuable product. I know that I have an audience who wants more from me than I can deliver in blog posts. I know I have sold other areas of my business so I can devote myself 100% to this product.

I was able to do all this because I approached it with a success mindset.

The only thing that could possibly get in the way of my success is Larry. And there is no way I’m going to let him win!

Don’t let your negative thoughts beat you either.

Put time and effort into your mindset. Let it lift you up and guide you to success.

You can do it!

Find more posts on blogging fundamentals here.