) and thought it pretty much nailed what I have gone through as a blogger. I wouldn't say blogging or writing professionally is my dream, but I do enjoy doing it and like any one else doing anything, you want your work to be seen and appreciated. We definitely tend to mix our value in with the things we do...blogging is no different...many times I thought about cutting ties with ol Holy Bloggers simply because people weren't reading...and for a while I did stop posting...but I feel like this blog provides an arena for me to write about what God is showing and teaching me in my life. If you choose to read this blog regularly, I appreciate you taking the time to do so! -----------------------------------------------------------
Jon Acuff - Blog |
| People ignoring your dream? Awesome. Posted: 04 Apr 2012 04:00 AM PDT For about a year before I started www.stuffchristianslike.net, I wrote a blog called Prodigal Jon. On my best day, two hundred people showed up and read what I wrote. On the average day, fifty people did. And a lot of those fifty people shared my last name. And were my mom. It was a quiet blog that, by blogging terms, wasn't very successful. If the goal of a blog is to grow an active, vocal community, then I was failing. Almost no one read it. And, even though I worked as hard as I could, it stayed roughly the same size. Day after day, month after month, I wrote Prodigal Jon. At the time, I felt like it wasn't going anywhere. I felt confused that so few people knew about it. I didn't see the point of writing to a handful of people on a consistent basis. That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But looking back on it, I needed that year. I needed the gift so few of us want but most of us need: the gift of invisibility. When you start something new, you want it to be successful right away. You want it to grow and get visible quickly. But there are some problems inherent to visibility.
The temptation to play it safe increases with each new fan or follower. Suddenly, instead of just doing what you love to do, other people are speaking into it with their hopes and plans. People tend to get safe and small in the spotlight. Your honesty also seems inversely proportionate to the size of your audience. Your willingness to be open shrinks in proportion to the growth of your crowd. It's not that difficult to be transparent to a group of ten readers. You realize that if you say something they don't like and they all stop supporting your dream, you can always start over. But if you've got four thousand people buying your product or using the services of your company, you now have four thousand reasons to keep things polished and pretty. Let's think about this whole honesty thing. It's the reverse of every Jerry Bruckheimer "Guy goes on a revenge streak movie." The tagline is usually something like, "The most dangerous man in the world is the man who has nothing to lose." The opposite of that, especially if you get some attention and visibility for your dream early on is, "The safest man in the world is the man who has everything to lose." It's true. One of the costs of notoriety is safety. Anonymity allows you to make big, gross mistakes without everyone watching. Anonymity is the best creative lab because you've got nothing to lose. Anything is possible. Anything is on the table. There are no expectations to miss, no fans to disappoint, no follow up fears. That's why famous writers are so terrified to follow up on success. I've heard mega best-selling authors confess that, when they sat down to try to write their next book, they were overwhelmed with fear. The expectations, the hope that they would recreate the success of that first book, that they would catch lightning in a bottle again, were so high that these authors felt crippled. You don't have that issue if you are invisible and anonymous. You're free. As long as you are invisible, you have what Justin Bieber and Martha Stewart and LeBron James will never have again—the freedom to make mistakes on your own. Visibility can be great, and maybe one day you'll have it if you don't already. But don't miss the wonderful gifts invisibility is trying to give you right now because you're so busy trying to be visible. (This is an excerpt from my book Quitter Question: |
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"It was a quiet blog that, by blogging terms, wasn't very successful. If the goal of a blog is to grow an active, vocal community, then I was failing. Almost no one read it. And, even though I worked as hard as I could, it stayed roughly the same size. Day after day, month after month, I wrote Prodigal Jon.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, I felt like it wasn't going anywhere. I felt confused that so few people knew about it. I didn't see the point of writing to a handful of people on a consistent basis. That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But looking back on it, I needed that year. I needed the gift so few of us want but most of us need: the gift of invisibility."
Those two paragraphs sum up almost exactly how I was feeling when I first started this blog...occassionally I still have those feelings creep up but I'm thankful that God has shown me that this blog is more about me worshiping Him through writing than me gaining cool points and becoming a popular blog guy :)