The Secret Reasons I write blog articles

This is the day to understand I write for my good reasons

Photo by Cathryn Lavery on Unsplash

Did you want, at some point in your life, to start writing articles?

I felt like this a few times already. Having some thoughts to write down in order to keep them alive, to expand them and to share the result with people…

There is no secret here, that’s the main reason I started blogging a few month ago. At the beginning, I didn’t really have any idea of what I was willing to achieve. The secret ingredient happens when step by step, I sharpened my vision and progressed in the understanding of what type of content I wanted to share. I am still on this improvement journey and I hope it will never end.

I decided to write this article after listening to Dr. Michaela Greiler talk (“How to successfully blog as a dev and grow your audience”) during one of the Hashnode writing Boot-camps. She talked about how important it is to know what your goals are, to be able to enjoy blogging on the long term.

Indeed, how to be successful at writing blog posts depends entirely on the reasons your are into blogging. Define your own goals depending on why you want to blog and focus on them seems like the right thing to do.

I did a little introspection and here is what I found out about my blogging drivers.

You can take the opportunity to do the exercise and compare with the following thoughts. You might see that everyone have different motivations.

Why I want to blog?

Learning journal / Build credibility

It started as a way to keep track of the topics I was learning. I noticed it is easy to learn something at some point because I need it on the moment but it is at least as easy to forget it some weeks later. Blogging made me think deeper about what I learn on the way. Did I understood this method entirely? Am I aware of the Pros/Cons of the solution I choose?

At the same time, I want the articles I write to help me build credibility on my favourite topics. It is always useful to be able to showcase my skills by showing some content I created.

Having a blog post about this little proof of concept I build on my free time “just to see” is a way to support my arguments when trying to find a job or step up in my current one.

Improve my writing and communication skills

I always loved to write. When I was younger, I used to write stories (in French) or news articles about things I cared about.

Today, working in technology industry, I need to write in English, and I love that because it helps me to improve my writing skills in this language.

Indeed, it is very easy to lose my English level when the only things I read and write are colleague e-mails or technical papers and documentation!

Writing is another way to express thoughts.

It helps me organize the ideas I have on my mind and the process to define my reasoning. It’s always nice to be able to present clearly some ideas to your team. Communication will be more fluent.

Share and connect with people

Blogging gives me the opportunity to share my analysis on problems as well as my thoughts. I’ve learned so many things from blog articles in the past decade that I want now to do my part in helping others.

Sharing gives me a pleasant feeling. Something like participating to make the day of other people a bit better. I sometimes even imagine some imaginary readers when I build my articles to be sure to “talk to someone”.

I had the occasion to connect with very interesting persons here. I enjoy the discussions my articles can create. This is part of the writing process and one of the reason I enjoy it so much.

Receiving advice and remarks from readers is an other alternative to improve my knowledge, to grow and diversify my point of views.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

My vision

This is a very important thing to have to achieve goals. I am trying to figure this out one step at a time but I feel more comfortable today with the following balance:

• A Clear vision
• A Small part of unknown

What I call my little part of unknown is own by the liberty I give myself to explore new opportunities. I don’t want to miss an interesting topic because I have my head down in my objectives.

Curiosity is part of my personality and I don’t want to lose it !

For now, I am still working on the clear vision part on a short/medium term. It corresponds to the steps I want to achieve to be a little bit closer to my goals. I will share this in a future article, stay tuned…

Conclusion

I hope this article gave you an idea about some of the reason I wanted to blog.

Those goals are not written in the stone. I should review them once in a while to see if I am still aligned with them or if my interests maybe drifted a little. And so should you!

I think this exercise is an satisfying way to take a little breath from the current situation. It helps getting a clear view of the drivers, goals and motivation sources in the writing journey.

This clear vision is a nice thing to have. It is definitly something to reflect in your writing style and on the way you deal with topics and activities around your blog.

Blogging means to invest some time in writing. Make sure you do it for the right reasons and you will never regret it!

Feel free to reach me on Twitter (FlolightC) to tell me about your secrets reasons to start blogging or to ask me questions ! I’m always happy to discuss with you !