Don't Work. Blog!

Each week I post lessons learned and insider shortcuts designed to help you build your blog, grow your audience and make money. These posts will be combined into an eBook, entitled 'Don't Work. Blog!'. This week's lesson: knowing your goals.

It is possible to make money blogging. You will be required to be good, of course. You must be diligent. Likely, this will consume your days. Eventually, you will want to quit your job to blog full-time.  Almost certainly, you will use your blog as the keystone to other offerings and opportunities, including, to name just a few:

• consulting
• writing
• eBook authorship
• speaking
• freelancing
• product sales

Only, where do you start?

That's simple. You start with your goals. No, not the goals for your blog. The goals for you -- for your life. What do you want to be, not be, accomplish? What is it you seek, hope for, love, hate, dislike, are annoyed with, fear?

Blogging, done right -- done well -- is hard. Wonderful, but hard. You will not succeed if you are not committed. You will not be committed, over the long haul, if you do not know what your goals are for yourself. Blogging is a passion. Passions are the waking hour reflections of our dreams (and nightmares). Passions can be sustained. To succeed at blogging, your work, your writing, your site must stand out. Your passion is the best and fastest and most unique way for that to happen. If you merely begin blogging to tell the world how you feel, or to seize upon some quickie market, odds are you won't make much money, if any.

So, which is it? Is this a passion? A get rich quick scheme? A rebellion against a terrible boss, a bad job?

The only way to know for sure is to write out your goals.

Write all of them out. Read them. Every single day. If your blog is a reflection of some or all your goals, you have a chance. If not, don't waste your time.

Here are mine, edited for public consumption:

1. Be fit, healthy and live a joyful life
2. Be a paid writer, speaker, analyst and commentator on that which I am passionate about (in this case, for me, it's smartphones and their cultural, economic, political and personal impacts on our lives -- bingo!)
3. Guide my children to [edited]
4. Keep my marriage great
5. Run a 5K, for the first time ever, by Christmas 2010, and then at least 3 times per week after that.
6. Write a novel
7. Several times a week cook a great meal for my family and/or friends
8. Don't fear making decisions
9. Travel the world
10. [edited]

Step 1. Write out your goals you have for yourself. Not for your spouse, not for the "world", but yourself. Read them every single day.

Good luck!