Life travels fast these days. Regular readers will know that I will soon be moving to Canada with my fiancee and baby boy to live. This move has been on the cards for sometime, but it always felt like some far off event. Now it is less than 3 weeks away….

I find it’s important to every so often hit the pause button on my life and see what’s working well, what could be done better and what to ditch. Now is one of those moments. In particular, I want to reflect on this blog.

This blog has consumed significant amounts of my time and energy the past few months. Below are some of the positive and negatives I have experienced:

Positives

1. New skills

Prior to this blog, I had little to no experience in blogging. I have developed a range of new skills by entering the world of Wordpress, domain registration, feeds, Statcounter, hosting, plugins, and design.

2. Increased motivation

A blog is a bit like having a baby. Since I started thechangeblog.com I have felt motivated to make the blog a success, excitement to watch it grow and responsibility ensure it is regularly updated with new and insightful articles.

3. Sense of achievement

On a personal level, I feel that this blog has helped me grow as a person. The process of writing about a particular subject helps me to clarify my thoughts and attitudes. In many cases, by the end of an article I have reached a new level of understanding about that particular subject.

Publicly, I have found the desire to be a better person and live our best lives is something that has resonated with many people. I have received some good feedback from readers via comments and emails. I have also noticed from Statcounter that many readers have returned which, to me, means I am doing something right.

4. Networking and Promotion

After spending up to a few hours working on an article, it is only natural to want people to read it. Networking and self-promotion do not come naturally to me, but as part of my personal development I have tried to “put myself out there”. Each of the following are ways in which people have found this blog: forums, blog carnivals, my comments on other blogs, Stumble Upon, MyBlogLog, and FuelMyBlog.

5. New friends

This blog and the activities associated with it (see positive #4) has led to some new and genuine online friendships.

Negatives

1. Difficulties finding the right balance

When you begin to develop a passion for something, like I have for blogging, it can often consume your life. At times I have found it difficult to find the right balance between spending time blogging and other alternate uses of my time, such as with my family, having fun, relaxing, exercising, and reading.

Overall Assessment

Well I could only come up with one negative in the end (I guess that means the heading should be “Negative”) which indicates blogging has been a very positive experience for me to date. The negative is an important one, though, and finding the right balance is something that I am starting to pay more attention to.

Going forwards I have recognised that I am currently not in a position to write everyday as I was trying to at one stage. I want to focus on producing approximately 3 quality articles per week. As I am sure you can understand, though, my priority over the next few months is ensuring the move from Australia to Canada goes as smoothly as possible for myself, Kathryn and Xavier.

I am also interested in having more guest posts my site after the success of Scott Bird’s article Starting Your Fitness Journey: 10 Things to Consider. If any readers are interested in having a guest article shown on this site please drop me line at peter@thechangeblog.com. Guests posts are a great way to build relationships with other bloggers and to expose your writings to a new audience.

Tags: Blogging, Meaning & Purpose //