How Blogging Can Change Your Life

When I started my blog, I had some vague expectation of it being fun to do and maybe it would make some money at some point.

What I didn’t know was that it would make my life so much better. Here’s how blogging can change your life in unexpected ways.

Blogging literally changed my life. When I wrote my first blog post, I was not in a very happy place.

However, even when feeling my worst, I always believed that I could have the kind of life I wanted and I optimistically named my blog, My Think Big Life.

Since that time I’ve learned how blogging can change your life in wonderful and unexpected ways. To experience these changes though, you have to not just start a blog, you have to work it consistently. It’s so worth it though and I hope my experience will encourage you to think about starting a blog.

How Blogging Can Change Your Life by Building Confidence

In the early months, my life was everything but “Big.” I had imagined my blog would be about my wonderful adventures in the big city. I’d be cooking, entertaining, and having loads of fun adventures.

That’s not what happened and I was more lonely and bored than having adventures. So, I started a blog, something that I had attempted twice before but always gave up on. I started by writing about the things I was doing to help me move forward.

These posts were about losing weight, walking, forgiving (lots of forgiving!), getting unstuck, letting go of toxic people, etc.

The first six months was a time of writing and trying to learn to make graphics to go with my posts. It was right around the six-month mark that I finally had a post get some traction. It was exciting to get as many page views in a day as I had ever gotten in a month.

At that point, I knew I could get page views and I renewed my commitment to writing. During the next six months, I wrote and worked on improving my graphics for Pinterest. I had a lot of posts do really well and they were chronicling my journey with losing weight and feeling better emotionally.

This gave me confidence in my abilities as a blogger and a writer. Through writing and building my blog and finding my voice, my confidence naturally grew and I began to feel better about myself.

Blogging Created an Atmosphere of Positive Change in my Life

I was writing about and sharing what was working in my life. Every time I wrote a post, it contained parts of things I’d learned through being a counselor but also what I’d learned from the experience of living life. I wasn’t telling anyone to do anything I hadn’t done myself.

Post by post, my life began to get better.

Post by post, I became a blogger and a writer.

Post by post, I built a body of work that I was proud of.

In the meantime, as my life got better, I started having really cool experiences.

Writing My Way Into An Amazing Life

A while back, I wrote about the power of saying YES. With that fresh in my mind, I said yes to a couple of experiences, I might not have otherwise. These experiences changed the trajectory of my life in a big way.

I wrote about not letting toxic people steal my joy. After writing that, I was finally able to let go of a couple of painful relationships. My life improved in a profound way and a short time later, I met the man I’m now engaged to.

When I wrote about procrastination, I finally broke the code of why and how I procrastinated.

I could go on and on about how each post changed my life in either an incremental or profound way. Because they truly did. I wrote my way into a new life and good stuff started coming to me easily.

When people see me now they comment on one of several things: how young I look, how happy I look, and how they are amazed at all the things I’m doing now.

And that was all with a blog that wasn’t even making money yet!

Blogging Can Change Your Life with New Relationships

In addition to creating a new life, the craft of blogging taught me so much and enlarged my life with new connections and friends.

I used to be an extremely private person, probably too private. By blogging, I began expressing who I really am. It was scary at first.

Yet, the more I did it, the more comfortable I became. My blog is not a diary of my life. It’s a curated collection of experiences that I am able to share in a way to illustrate helpful ideas.

Through social media, my Facebook groups, and my newsletter, I’ve met people online that I would have otherwise never crossed paths with.

It’s a different kind of friendship than people I see face-to-face but these are real relationships that bring enjoyment to my life.

However, the change wasn’t just in gaining new online friends. Because I was more open and having new experiences,

I became more interesting to people in the REAL world. Being an active blogger has helped me attract new friends and rekindle older friendships! 

Blogging Can Change Your Life by Teaching You New and Marketable Skills

If you’ve already started your blog, you know that there is a lot to learn! Learning is good for us and blogging has pushed me to learn new technology and new skills.

Let’s face it, being a blogger is about learning one new darn thing after another. No matter what mountain you climb, there’s always another peak to get up. Setting up my domain and Word Press was just the start!

Since then, I’ve created opt-ins, an email list, a Facebook group, instructional demos, videos, and a class on how to make Pinterest pins.

I’ve learned to use graphic editing programs such asPicMonkey and Canva. I’ve used automated mail systems Mail Chimp and Convertkit. I have an online class and I even created some guided meditations combining audio with video.

Trust me—I never expected that I could learn most of that but somehow I did.

And if that all sounds scary, don’t let it intimidate you. I didn’t do any of that in the first few months. But eventually, you’ll get an itch to do something with your blog and you’ll either learn how to do it or hire some help to do it.

Blogging Can Change Your Life by Creating New Opportunities

Blogging created opportunities for me to coach others, write for pay, create a class, and so much more.

I also credit blogging for helping me become a more positive self-confident person and that has helped me get a job I love, find a partner, try new hobbies, and build new relationships.

What do I Mean by Blogging?

Now, I want to take a moment and clarify what I mean by blogging though. When I say that I’m a blogger, I mean that I am serious about the craft of blogging and I have consistently and incrementally been developing and improving my blog since I started.

I write quality content on a consistent basis in the forms of blog posts, newsletters, and Facebook posts.

In addition, I use social media, especially Pinterest and Facebook to promote my work. Besides all that, I connect and network with other bloggers. Finally, I am always reading and researching ways to improve my blog and my presence.

Putting up a blog and writing once in a while and not doing much else is not being a blogger and won’t bring the same rewards. It’s the act of working and building your blog that brings the rewards.

How You Can Use Blogging to Change Your Life

If you haven’t started—get started. Starting a blog is relatively inexpensive. You don’t have to do anything fancy to begin. You can set up a basic blog with a host such as Blue Host, the one I used for my first two years.

For the first few months, really all you have to do is write blog posts and get comfortable with your writing voice and your message.

Facebook groups are great places to learn and socialize with other bloggers. I learned so much by interacting with other bloggers and I made several friends that I talk to online to this day.

Only you have your unique perspective on things and only you can say it in your way. Many people are able to use their blog to build a business as well as create an amazing new way of life.

Being a blogger is pretty cool and I feel proud to call myself one. Admittance to this remarkable group does take some work and time but it is totally worth it!