You’ve probably heard a lot of buzz around the topic of blogging. It seems that every business big and small has a blog today. But if it’s a business tactic, how can it help you as an individual? Believe it or not, it can, and it’s not just about monetizing your blog and making money. Use blogging as a tool to improve your life in the following ways.
1. It Reduces Stress
Even if you choose to stick to a single niche—even one where you reveal little about yourself—blogging can serve as a sort of journal. The great thing about keeping a journal is that it’s been shown to have numerous benefits by helping you understand your thoughts and feelings better. It’s even been shown to relieve anger, sadness, and other strong emotions.
Why not just keep a private journal, then? Because blogging can have so many other benefits that a regular journal just can’t compete with. For example, publishing your thoughts online helps you connect with people who can support you or who are going through the same thing. That factor alone can help reduce stress, says a recent study.
Not only that but keeping a blog and converting loyal followers makes you accountable for journaling whereas it can be easy to fall out of the habit if you keep a personal journal.
2. It Helps You Improve Your Talents
People who choose to blog about their hobbies and talents get the chance to explore their talents further. For example, if you love antique restoration, documenting your projects through a blog can help you become a better restorer.
How? For one, writing down the processes you went through gives you a second chance to evaluate your project and see where you can improve next time. Furthermore, sharing your talents with others gives you the chance to gain feedback and advice—sometimes from people who perhaps know more than you do.
3. It Helps You Find Your Passions
For someone who doesn’t know yet where his or her passions lie, blogging can be an effective tool in discovering them. That’s because when you write about your experiences, it’s easier to sort through your thoughts and really get a good idea of what you enjoy and what you don’t enjoy. And if you can’t blog about the topic for more than 20 minutes, it’s probably not something you enjoy enough to be your passion.
But what if you hate writing with a passion? (See what I did there?) Then don’t blog through words. Blog through pictures or videos instead. No matter what type of media you blog with, blogging will still help you explore the world and sort through your ideas.
4. It Makes You a Better Communicator
Blogging is all about communicating your message to a wide audience, and it can serve as a platform for practicing communication. Whether you communicate through words, pictures, or your own voice in video recordings, you get to practice and improve the craft through blogging.
But it’s not just the practice that will help you. With blogging, you’re opening the floor for questions and feedback. With this feedback, you can figure out where you’re missing the mark with your communication skills and then refine them.
5. It Can Boost Your Career
If you choose to blog about a topic in your industry—however broad or narrow—it can actually help you land a job or boost your career! That’s because blogging can help you demonstrate your expertise.
But even if you aren’t blogging in your industry, you can still use blogging to your advantage in business. Let’s say you start a blog that quickly gains 10,000 email subscribers. If you’re applying for a job in sales, you can use this statistic to prove that you can capture an audience and make them take action.
What’s more, your blog can serve as a platform to help you network with people in your industry. This networking alone can lead to job opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise.
6. It Helps You Build Relationships
As mentioned, blogging is all about communicating ideas. The great part about it, though, is that it promotes a two-way conversation. People can comment on your blog, leave feedback on social media, or even join your forum if you have one.
Each of these practices can lead to building strong relationships with people across the world. The cool thing about blogging is that it attracts the types of people worth networking and building relationships with. For example, if you blog about your personal struggles, your followers can help build a sort of support group. If you’re hobby blogging, you’ll end up with followers who can share their ideas about your hobby.
7. It Encourages You to Pursue Your Passions
Following your passions on your own is tough. I mean really tough. There’s no one there to tell you to keep it up when you don’t think you have the time and energy.
But with a blog, you’ll feel more accountable for your passions. Let’s say you have a craft blog and plan to create a new project every week and post about it each Friday. Knowing that people are counting on your post, you’re more likely to pursue each weekly project than if you were only doing it for yourself.
What’s even better is that you can develop a support network with your followers who can help you work through the self-doubt and give you tips for success.
Want to improve your life? Consider starting a blog. Not sure where to start?
