How To Stay Motivated Blogging

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Most people’s dream is to work for themselves, on their own time. But the biggest response I’ve seen from bloggers who try to do it full time is how hard it is to stay motivated blogging.

Staying motivated is hard at any job. But, in a “structured” work environment we most likely have people who are holding us accountable, whether it’s the boss or co-workers who need certain documents by a deadline. If you don’t have the urgency, you won’t find much motivation to produce a lot of content.

Working for yourself allows for a lot of flexibility, but you have to set boundaries to succeed. You want to set yourself up to stay inspired in your work.

Related: My 7 biggest lessons I learned as an online business owner.

Staying motivated isn’t just about staying inspired, though, it’s about also having built up the consistency and discipline. You know how it’s super hard to get back to work after an extended vacation? Yeah, it’s extra hard when you work for yourself. You can extend the vacation indefinitely unless you’re strict with yourself.

So how can we make sure that we’re staying self-motivated?

How To Stay Motivated Blogging

1. Set Up a System

“Setting up a system” refers to a structure. I’ve told you before about making your work life easier by batching, automating and outsourcing. Batching is one of my biggest friends. I have days separated based on tasks. Knowing I only have one task to focus on makes things a lot easier, because if I’m not looking forward to writing on a particular day, but I do want to edit photos, I can just focus on that one task that I’m motivated to do.

In other words, let’s say Monday hits, and that’s my post writing day but Tuesday is my photo editing day, I can just do Tuesday’s tasks and move the writing to Tuesday when I might feel like doing it a bit more. If I’m done editing my graphics and photos, I’m 50% closer to having a completed article, which then motivates me to write. See how that works?

The important part here is to make sure you stay somewhat consistent and follow to the batching process.

2. Give Yourself Rewards

Ok, I recently started doing this. I’m setting little goals, and when I achieve them, I get myself a small reward! I also started giving myself more rewards for staying consistent. A reward can be anything, a pair of shoes, a visit to the salon, or even an R&R weekend trip.

I find I tend to stay happiest and most motivated when I have trips planned, so this year I’m using reward points to take short weekend trips to new places. I find myself writing 6-7 articles every week and scheduling out all the articles ahead of time so I can enjoy the vacations when they come!

Stay Motivated Blogging With Little Rewards
A masking spa ritual can be a very simple reward.

3. Share Your Progress

Talk about what you’re doing with your friends and family! I think it’s cool to share your progress with your readers too, but ultimately your family will follow up with you on the goal. I know my husband does that. He’ll ask me a thousand questions as it pertains to the current goal I’m tackling, so I stay accountable for doing the tasks.

4. Take Short Breaks

These breaks should happen in your work day and also in the week overall. Walk away from the screen for an hour a day and do something you wanted to do. I tend to clean the house because I’m weird and that makes me happy. I have two pets..it’s necessary to clean daily. It’s also a good way for me to fit in some exercise as I move around the house scrubbing and dusting.

Related: Short breaks are also a good way to prevent burnout. Find out if you’re at risk.

Your version of the break can be more fun, though. ;p

Stay Motivated Blogging
Go out to a cafe for a coffee break in the middle of the day to get back to work refreshed.

Do you have any tips for staying motivated that work for you?

Nataliya Ogle

Founder

Nataliya Ogle likes making sure others live to their full potential. She publishes articles on her primary website styletomes.com and works as a freelance writer for other women's interest sites. Her physical body is in New York but her presence can almost always be found online. The internet is her first love.

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