What I’ve learned a week into starting my blog and why I’d recommend it to anyone & everyone (even with zero page visits!)

As someone who loves setting goals or intentions, measuring progress and reflecting back on lessons learned, (I mean, I did start a blog about precisely these things!) I have been blown away by these 5 completely unexpected lessons learned as a brand new blogger that would make starting a blog worth it for anyone, whatever your measure for success.

But hang on just a second….

Before we jump into the things I didn’t expect, I guess its only right that we address the scenarios I had imagined! You know the ones I’m talking about. Those nasty, scary things we tell ourselves (in our minds) will happen if we take the leap and put ourselves out there to start that blog we have been wanting to forever?

I guess first and foremost is that overarching fear of what people will think. For me not only was this friends and family but more than anything the embarrassment of anyone from work getting wind of what I was trying to do. I imagine sniggering behind my back, pointing and utter humiliation, equivalent to if I had shown up to work naked!

Then of course there was the fear of failure. What if my writing was rubbish? What if nobody read my blog (or worse just my mum! Cringe!) What if I had absolutely nothing to post about or I was sending people to sleep with my (Yaawwnn!) boring content.

Next up there was that gut wrenching dread of having to take photos of myself , I mean lets just say lockdown was not kind to my figure and age has not been kind to my face! But theres also that need to try and come up with creative original insta worthy images to compliment your content to contend with.

And of course, on top of everything else there’s the complete overwhelm of trying to understand what domains, DNS, A records, and IP addresses are!! Let alone trying to sound like I have the foggiest about any one of them.

If you’ve gotten this far I’m guessing this all sounds more than a little familiar?! But here’s the thing, dear friend, not only is none of it really worth worrying about because you can learn and do all these things step by step as you solve one problem at a time but more importantly, and here’s the kicker… you will grow skills and confidence you didn’t know you had, it will change the way you perceive things and how you capture your experiences, it will enhance they way you interact with the world and everyone you encounter in it and for these reasons alone succeed or die trying, blogging really is for everyone! So without further ado…..

Here’s the 5 most important lessons I’ve learned as a brand new blogger:

1. Friend’s, Family and loved ones get surprisingly into it!

Far from the judgement and ridicule I had expected, when I reluctantly did reveal my dirty little blogging secret to my family & friends. Not only were they super supportive and inquisitive but they are surprisingly into it. Some would love to be featured, some would love to offer feedback and some had long had aspirations of blogging themselves and were keen to know how it was going. And as for those pesky little fears of anyone from work finding out, well in that respect I guess its me who has surprised myself, in that I’m no longer embarrassed or ashamed, come what may of my blogging endeavours because I recognise the skills I’m developing along the way and they are building my confidence slowly, step by step along the way.

2. Inspiration is everywhere! Worried about having enough content? Worry not friend and start focusing on how you will keep up.

From the moment Me, my Tea & I was published and out there for anyone to find, I found all of a sudden I was viewing things from a content creation lens. Conversations with friends become questions or problems I could investigate and discuss. In fact, this very post, was inspired by a friend, as mentioned above, who had aspirations of blogging himself ( Phil, if you’re reading, this ones for you!). Every Google search or Pinterest rabbit hole is now a question of what am I searching for and why? and if I’m looking for answers, how can I answer these questions for other people too? What better way to learn than to have a goal in mind when setting out after all!

3. Forget camera shy, get camera confident!

While I’m not sure I will ever love having my photo taken and I’m definitely sure I’ll never love uploading them to blog posts. Learning to use my camera with a creative goal in mind is fast tracking getting too grips with my long loved camera. More than that, when I was stuck in a rut with where to start when trying to finally build this blog it was experimenting with my camera and getting one okay shot of out hundreds of duds that marked the starting point for getting Me, my Tea & I off the ground.

4. Learning and logging – how blogging shifts your perspective.

As mentioned in LL#2 you may find, as I did, that blogging shifts your perspective and when you start approaching learning from the perspective of teaching to someone else or utilising that information to delve deeper and expanding. Then learning and processing information becomes more focused and by trying to capture those learnings, thoughts, questions, you may find that you are better able to organise your thoughts and process information.

5. Speak the lingo and learn by doing!

It’s no secret that theres a lot to learn when it comes to blogging, particularly if you are going down the route of self hosting (as I did). While I am by no means trying to pass myself off as some sort of code speaking super user just yet… the best way to start learning is by doing. Every frustrating hiccup on the journey from building to publishing and writing content becomes a massive learning curve as you try to sort it out (usually via online chat with Bluehost, as was the case for me at least) and often those oops moments where you don’t know what you just did can lead to some new feature your glad you now know about. Before you know it, you know what your IP address is and where your A record needs to point and feel the bomb just casually throwing these phrases into conversation because, now my friend, you’re a blogger and you speak the lingo!