Are You Interested or Committed?

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What separates the full-time bloggers from the struggling bloggers? Is there an elusive secret that A-list bloggers know about? Is there an “easy button” that you need to discover? Maybe a secret society or mastermind group that keeps the real ways to drive traffic hidden from the outsiders? Did successful bloggers just get lucky? Maybe they just happen to be at the right place at the right time. What do you think?

Sorry if I am being too simplistic, but I think it comes down to the separation of the committed and those that are just merely interested (excuse my directness). Maybe it is the misconception that online business is simple and easy. After all, there is no lack of sales pages that show pictures of people working on their laptop at the beach sipping on a drink.

The truth is growing a blog is much like parenting. It takes time. There is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. There are moments of frustration and times of great jubilation. Yet, if you want to produce healthy kids you have to be committed and not just interested.

Committed Vs. Interested

MJ Demarco in his book The Millionaire Fastlane makes the following distinction between the committed and the interested:

  • Interest reads a book; commitment applies the book 50 times.
  • Interest wants to start a business; commitment files LLC paperwork.
  • Interest works on your business an hour a day Monday through Friday; commitment works on your business 7 days a week as time permits.
  • Interest leases an expensive car; commitment rides a bike and puts money into your system.
  • Interest is looking rich; commitment is planning to be rich.
I can look back in my own blogging journey and see times when I was “merely interested.” There were times when a month or two would go by and I only contributed one blog post. There were times when I mistook learning for progress. Don’t get me wrong you should always be learning, but balance out the ratios. For every hour you spend reading and learning about blogging you should also spend the same amount of time taking action.

 

When I really started getting serious about blogging, my habits and focus changed. Suddenly 4 hours of TV every night turned into blogging my passion. I wanted my time to be more productive. I chose to listen to the game on the radio so I could work on my blogs. Use my iPad to play a TV program so that I could keep working. At times, I woke up early in the morning so I could get a blog post written before my hectic day got started. Today is the day for you to choose to be committed. The road to Someday leads to a town called No Where.

The Someday Syndrome

The interested crowd have a sickness called the Someday Syndrome. There is always something, someone, or some reason why they cannot do something. We often hear these reasons:

 

  • There is too much competition now, everyone seems to have a blog.
  • Blogging doesn’t work any more.
  • What if I put all of this time into blogging and it doesn’t work. I don’t want to waste my time.
  • There is too much to learn and I am not a very technical person.
  • I want to see some success early on before I put energy in this.
  • I just want to write on my blog when I feel inspired to write.
  • After _______ (fill in the blank) I will get serious about starting a blog.

 

Have any of those reasons kept you from taking action? Are you travelling on the road to Someday? Try this experiment. In the next 7 days actually write down any reasons that come to your mind about why you cannot have a successful blog. Write it down and then actually read it out loud. You may even laugh at what you have written down. The truth is there are brick walls between you and success. You need to begin to see that the brick walls are there to keep the “other people” out. By “other people” I am referring to the “interested crowd.”

Brick Walls Are There for a Reason

Later on in MJ Demarco’s book, he quotes the former Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch when he said:

 

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people.”

 

So, I ask you the question: are you committed or just merely interested?
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11 thoughts on “Are You Interested or Committed?”

  2. Carol J. Alexander

    Excellent thoughts…and quotes…Jonathan. Some days I feel like I spend all my time taking down the brick wall one brick at a time. The brick of coding, the brick of uploading, the brick of FTP, the brick of finding affiliates, the brick of keywords. But with each brick I remove, I see the opening getting bigger and bigger and I continue to persevere. Thanks for the encouragement.

    Reply
    1. Jonathan

      Great way to put it Carol. I honestly feel the same way. I’m not sure that feeling will ever completely go away so embrace it and enjoy it!

      Reply
  4. Belinda

    Great post as usual Jonathan!

    I am stuggling to keep my head above water with the learning curve of blogging and websites.

    Thank you for the inspiration to start again!

    Belinda

    Reply
    1. Jonathan

      Thanks Belinda. Blogging is like building your own home. Each day is an opportunity to build. We get tired and weary at times. Just keep laying bricks.

      Reply
  5. Anonymous

    Since 2008 I have been “interested” in blogging. I read about blogging, signed up for newsletters, rss feeds, teleseminars, webinars, downloaded e-books you name it I did everything but blog! This month I finally committed to doing it. Boy I felt a sense of overwhelm and excitement when I pressed the publish button for my first ever blog post, at that moment I stopped letting the brick wall keep me from moving forward. I’m reading Do The Work by Steven Pressfield and he calls the brick wall resistance. Anytime you step up to do something significant resistance is there to stop you dead in your tracks. Learning to become a blogger and treat my blog as a business is a huge learning curve for me. So I’m digging my heels deep in the soil of commitment. Thanks Jonathan.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      “I’m digging my heels deep in the soil of commitment.”

      Raye, I am loving that quote. You have just passed an important milestone. It is what I call winning at the inner game of blogging. Our biggest obstacle is what happens between our own two ears. We do not take action because we fear failure when oftentimes failing is what leads us to success.

      Reply
  6. Tito Pandu Brahmanto

    Finally i found about my bad behavior called “interested”. Usually i learn something just because i have been “interested” about that. I found also when i get deadline or urgent task from my past boss, i will do it with “commitment”. So my learning is just go by and not used it.
    So you think for freelance like i am, how i can make myself have enough commitment to do something, since there’s no one push me to do something (except job from clients)? I feel i have more interest to something and less commitment to do it.
    Thanks Jonathan, i love this post and waiting for your response.

    Reply

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