It all began after I quit my boring, mechanical IT job which I was stuck in for almost a decade. I was done with the same monotonous mundane routine work of life. I knew deep in my heart this was not something I really wanted to do. I had hit rock bottom. I so badly wanted a break. I wanted a restart and relive my career to the fullest. I wanted to contribute and explore my potential to the fullest. I wanted to do a job I could connect to, was satisfying, and had a purpose. That's when I said to myself I had enough and called it quits!
So I retired from an IT job and had no clue what to do next. I began looking for job opportunities but this time willing to explore, take risks and move out of my comfort zone. I really wanted to give my career life meaning, a true purpose. I came across a speed dating startup that offered me a role of a digital marketer. I had to start somewhere from scratch and considering I came from the digital space, digital marketing was close to my profile. It had a huge scope and so I grabbed the offer. I worked in the role for 6 months and then went on a career break to recover from the repercussion that IT life took a toll on me. Health was a pressing concern that was raising the alarm and I had to pause my life for a while.
Initially, my career break was quite a relief. I did all the things under the sun which I could never really do or enjoy during my work life. I was happy. It was a truly blissful period. I felt lucky and blessed. But then after a while being jobless became boring. I began to ask myself and wondered why am I going through this feeling of restlessness. I realized that being unproductive was never me in the first place. All I wanted was just a short break. I liked the variety in life to keep myself going. So I popped the big question to myself, ok what next?
After having worked as a digital marketer I realized it was creative and satisfying. But I also knew I had to work hard and hone my skills. So I began enrolling in courses and doing research online. The learning didn't stop. It kept me going. I was now motivated to take up a job and get back to shape my career life from where I left. And just when I wanted to bounce back to work, the covid pandemic swept across the globe leaving many jobless. I definitely didn't want to sit idle. Social media kept me occupied during the course. But there was something more I wanted to do. I was always an expressive person and words came naturally to me. I wanted to share my learning and findings in life with the world. That's when blogging started and since then there has been no looking back.
I wanted to culminate my interest and passion into something more fruitful. I was excited and thrilled to venture into the unknown. I knew I had to have my own blog space. I built my website from scratch and used my creative flair to design it. I gave it a newspaper look. It looked amazing. I didn't want to limit myself to a single niche. I wanted to talk about so many varied things in life. So I picked up "lifestyle" as my core niche which was broad enough to cover my desire. I chose my blog name as "hobbyandme". Viola and that was it. Finally, my ideas and thoughts were actually put into action. I happily started off with my first post. That is when I realized the work had just begun. To my surprise, I actually struggled to put my thoughts into action. I then began reading, googling, thinking, and eventually writing. Holy little did I know that it was a complete process. My trials and error versions began. Eventually, I pulled it off with a draft of my first post. But wait it wasn't over any sooner. Then came the even bigger struggle of marketing it. I now had to work on the technicalities of marketing my blog digitally. So I began learning more deeper concepts on how to blog and market my blog like a pro. I had to practice to master the art and there comes no gain without pain. I could only vouch for myself that the blogging journey experience that was about to unfold would leave me only knowledge in a matter of time.
My first post was published successfully. Bingo, I was now officially a blogger. There was this instant outburst of happiness and satisfaction. I felt like an achiever. The road was set and I now just had to walk the path. With blogging comes responsibility. Responsibility for sharing valuable content. I didn't want just anything and everything out there. To me, it was more about quality than quality. I wanted to now build my brand, my identity which my audience and my readers can connect. I wanted to be my original self out there digitally as much as I am in person in real life.
So what really is blogging?
blogging is a conversation, not a code
To me, it's freestyle art, a voice that reflects your mind, heart, and soul. It is a conversation, storytelling, and dialogue with your reader. Blogging is more than just assembling words. It's online journaling and has so much more to it. I can't even stop talking about the numerous benefits that come along with it. Let's take a sneak peep into some of them!
1. Learn new things
While you may want to teach others but before that, you will learn first. Blogging makes you learn so many things in the process, about your niche, marketing, concepts of digital marketing, the technicalities, and all subjects you wish to blog about. You will definitely not proceed without a well-researched subject.
2. Freedom you need
It does give you a sense of freedom to speak and express yourself. On the professional work front, it allows you to work from any location at your convenient time and space to do whatever you want to and enjoy.
3. Connect and network
You get to connect to a whole lot of people during your blogging journey. You not only build an email list and followers on social media, but you also get to engage with them. Your fan base will be based on your content where every relationship is genuine and loyal. Besides you get access to the network and collaborate with other people, brands companies, etc.
4. Improves your language learning skills
You get to improve all your 4 basic language learning skills. You get better at your receptive skills( listening, reading) and your productive skills( speaking and writing). Precisely it is known to help improve your thinking capabilities. Check out this article on why is reading important.
5. Establish your brand and identity
As you begin blogging around a niche, your content out there helps you to establish an identity and create a brand for yourself. Your blogging work becomes a portfolio. People recognize you for your work and contributions.
6. Monetise through blogging.
Once you successfully establish yourself as a blogger in your niche, you will start getting opportunities to make some money, be it in a job, entrepreneurship, or Freelancing you know you can really ways to monetize both small and big time.
7. Plethora of opportunities.
Don't look at blogging as something small. No, you are mistaken. Well, you have no idea what blogging can bring to your kitty. You can venture into a startup, sell a course, or product or become an author, influencer, maybe even collaborate, partner and affiliate marketing, guest posting, coaching, guest speaker, and a whole lot of opportunities that open up for you.
8. Drive traffic, generate leads and clients
There is no doubt that with blogging, you optimize your content with best practices. Therefore with SEO, you are able to drive traffic to your site and generate leads that eventually lead to becoming your potential client.
To know deeper concepts on blogging. check this post where I talk a little more in technical.
Blogging has more advantages than you can imagine and count. After writing a number of articles, blogging did help me in a lot of ways. It gave me wings to fly and leverage my interest and passion into a deeper meaning and purpose. Blogging made me learn, think and process information better. Today I am way better at research, reading, writing, and articulating information. I have the freedom to speak and express myself freely. Blogging nurtured me and helped me to grow and evolve. It certainly made me a better person and shaped my life for good.