Blogging Tips

I’m a huge fan of Dave Ramsey. For those who don’t know, Dave is a talk show host who preaches debt freedom. One of his favorite sayings is, “Debt is dumb.” Why am I talking about Dave Ramsey and debt freedom on a blog about blogging?

Well I assume that most who visit blogs like BloggingTips do so to learn how to make money online – or make more money online. One day while listening to Dave’s show, a caller asked him what his wife’s role was in helping them to achieve debt freedom, as she was a stay-at-home mom.

To paraphrase, he said she provided a stable, peaceful environment at home. This freed him to go out and make money without any emotional baggage. And, this is the crux of this post.

Making money – online or off – is easy. It really is. It’s the mental stuff that holds us back most of the time. Whether it’s a lack of confidence, a lack of organization or an “emotionally dirty” environment – it drains the number one resource you need to make money — focus.

Here I want to focus on how an “emotionally dirty” home life affects your ability to make money blogging.

The first thing you must do if you want to make money blogging is to treat it like a business, right? This means doing things like adhering to a posting schedule; using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to drive traffic; figuring out ways to monetize this traffic; setting rates; conducting research for posts; etc.

If you do it right, blogging is exhausting, time-consuming, frustrating – and rewarding; just like any other small business.

But, how can you do all of this if you’re constantly fighting with your mate, or if your mate is just a negative person. Ever meet people who you don’t necessarily fight with, but who just never have anything positive to say; they always see the dark side? This is just as draining as arguing, for it saps your energy and robs you of your creative juices.

When your home life is not “clean”, you lose sleep, become agitated, are more tired (physically and emotionally) and lose focus. In short, all the things you need to build a successful blog – ie, energy, focus, patience, creativity – are the very things you lose in an emotionally dirty environment.

In his reply to the caller, Dave went on to say that he couldn’t quantify what his wife contributed to their quest for debt freedom in terms of an exact dollar figure. But, he said her contribution was every bit as important as his, which was actually going out and making the money.

The whole point I want to make is, if your blog or online business is not as profitable as you want it to be – it could have everything to do with your emotional environment.

Are you in a toxic relationship that drains your psychological, emotional, creative and physical resources? If so, take measures to change it as soon as possible. Many times, we don’t even realize we’re in a toxic environment/relationship, until we run across posts like this one – and it smacks us right in the face.