Last Updated on July 18, 2021 by Sarah McCubbin
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Before I Decided to Start a Blog
So I want to share with you how I decided to start a blog. At the point that I’m writing this, I’m less than 4 months into my blogging journey. So while the information is still fresh, I want to tell you how I’m going about setting up and writing my blog. I will be sharing monthly posts on my Blog Building experience and hopefully(!) income reports in the future as well. Rather than wait until I have something polished and nice, I want to start now while I’m still figuring it out. I think it will be helpful as I make note of the products, ideas and services that help along the way.
Alrighty then….so…I tried to start a blog before…4 times…
I have tried both free and paid platforms. I would get down 10ish posts and then freeze because I would run into some kind of problem.
So, I have not had a great track record of success here. You might want to stop reading…who wants to read about failure…NOT ME!!
But this time is different…1000%’s different because this time, I have the tools and support I need. But before I tell you about those, let me give you a brief snapshot of what led up to starting this time.
So right at the beginning of COVID in April 2020 after going to this great writing workshop in March of 2020, I really felt like writing was something I wanted to do. I wanted to try it again. I was motivated to push past my failures and figure it out. But I didn’t know what I wanted to write about…which was a common problem in the past.
So I signed up with HopeWriters.com, hoping that would help me just to be around writers.
It was a great community but lacked the nuts and bolts that I needed. I mean, running 9 kids around can make your head spin…and when I sat down to work, I needed real tangible assistance.
Also in April of 2020, I signed up for a free WordPress.com site to start a blog. Free is good and I continued to write as I felt led. It didn’t really have an overarching theme….homeschooling…fostering & adoption…faith etc. I mean, all of those are interesting to me so I wanted to get them out of my head.
The Early Days of My Last Blog
I still had content from past blogs so I imported them in.
Meanwhile, I had started to make an effort to lose weight. It had crept up to an uncomfortable number and I wanted to lose. By September, I was using NOOM and Body FX to help me develop new habits.
And it worked…by December I was down 30 pounds!! It was SO GREAT!
At the same time, I started reading and listening to a lot of business and productivity books.
Resources to Start a Blog
The book Eat That Frog was especially helpful in identifying simple shifts I could make in how I viewed my “To Do” list. I began to realize that I could do more. It didn’t matter that I had a houseful of kids…I could do more.
So as 2021 rolled in, I realized that if I wanted to do this writing thing…this blogging thing…I could do it. Before I had no knowledge of the tools that were available. But now I did…and I realized that I WAS WORTH INVESTING MY MONEY IN!
It sounds so simple to write it out that way…but as a mom, I’m used to being last. I’m usually last to eat, last to buy new clothes, last to have free time, last to do lots of things.
But this time…I needed to prioritize my needs and wants. My husband and I talked and He agreed…we would spend some time and money so I could learn how to do this right.
So that is my first blogging lesson for you to….If you want to do something new…whether it is start a blog or something else, it is ok to INVEST IN YOU! If you are wary of spending too much, start small. Buy a book, download some freebies in your field of interest, or join Facebook groups that look interesting to you. But do go ahead and INVEST IN YOU. YOU are WORTH it!
In the next post, I’m going to tell you about the Blog By Number Course that made setting up a blog as easy as 1, 2, 3.
If you want to follow along and learn from my successes and mistakes as I build this blog, I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter below!