How to Grow Your Blog with these Persistent Actions

Persistent actions will provide consistent growth—whether you’re a blogger or a runner. Find out which five persistent actions will help you the most.

Running for a Cause

“Are you crazy?” my friend asked me. “You want to run a marathon? You do realize that’s 26.2 miles of running. In one day.”

“Not only that, I want to raise $2000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, too.”

“You’re nuts.”

“Maybe, but will you sponsor me?”

“Sure, but what happens if you don’t end up running?”

“The money still goes to a good cause. Will you donate?”

“Persistent, aren’t you?” she said as she pulled out her checkbook and shook her head. “I don’t see why anyone would want to run that far.”

Good question. Why did I, and why do other people show up to run marathons? Why does anyone take on a seemingly impossible task that has no blatantly tangible rewards? Like blogging.

These Five Persistent Actions Will Help Your Blog Grow

1. Know Your Why

Training for and running a marathon takes persistence. I knew that if I joined the Team in Training to raise money for a cause, I’d receive support for the long runs. And since my husband had gone through a catastrophic diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I wanted to support a charity that helps patients. I could support a cause and achieve a crazy goal at the same time.

Because I had identified my why I could easily align the rest of my actions towards achieving my goal. Persist actions required knowing my why. Make sure you know why you blog.

2. Set Goals

I didn’t start out wanting to run a marathon. I started running because I wanted to feel better about my health. Running provided exercise and conditioning without having to learn how to do two things at once (dribble a ball and run, for example). As an introvert, running also provided solitude and time to think and reflect (or catch up on podcasts or listen to books).

I didn’t start with lofty goals, though; I ran in numerous 5Ks before I tried a 10K. After running several 10Ks, I thought a half-marathon sounded like fun (I’ve claimed normality).  I discovered that setting a goal helped motivate me to show up for my daily runs.

Goals help us focus our efforts and motivate us to achieve. They also need to change as we make progress. You can find more information on setting short-term goals, long-term goals, and achievement goals by clicking on each word.

3. Show Up

Every day I checked my running app to see how far and how fast I needed to run to reach my goal. Some days I didn’t run at all—I worked on muscle strength or walked. But I showed up every day—even if I didn’t hit the mark for the daily goals, I had the satisfaction of showing up.

When you blog, if you know your why and set goals, just showing up to work on them each day will provide satisfaction. You may not meet your goal for the day, but if you work on your goals, you have already won. You showed up. A persistent habit of showing up will help you grow your blog. Especially if you make a commitment to never stop learning.

4.  Never Stop Learning

Evidently, running involves more than just, well, running. In order to run more quickly and efficiently, I had to learn how to breathe correctly. I also had to learn to shorten my stride (longer doesn’t equal faster).

You’ll want to take time in your blogging life for learning, too. Develop a persistent plan of learning how to do things on and for your blog. As with running, blogging involves more than just blogging. Learning about things like SEO (search engine optimization), graphics, Pinterest, Twitter, and platform building will all make you a better blogger.

5. Celebrate Your Progress

One of the things I love about running in races might sound weird. I love the camaraderie of strangers brought together by a common goal—whether they run or they cheer, they all show up to celebrate achievement. I’ve stopped to take up a complete stranger’s offer of a free hug, and I’ve encouraged people who passed me or I’ve passed.

As bloggers, we need to celebrate not only our progress, but we need to form a habit of persistent encouragement for fellow bloggers. When we cheer them on and celebrate their accomplishments, we banish the comparison phantom to the corner where it belongs. If we busy ourselves with building other people up, we have less time to tear them (or ourselves) down.

If we busy ourselves with building people up, we have less time to tear them down. #blogger #amwriting #community Click To Tweet

Make sure you join a community of writers or bloggers or sympathetic people that will cheer you on and encourage you on your journey towards a better blog.

The Running-Blogging Connection

Why run marathons? Why Blog? Perhaps our need for adventure and desire to conquer things form the basis of our seemingly rash actions. For me, running a marathon seemed like the next step—after all, I’d already finished several half-marathons.

Blogging and marathon running have a lot in common—and they have both taught me something about the other. Persistent small actions will help us achieve more than we ever thought possible.

Come back tomorrow for the last post in this series, when we leap into action.