Why You Should Start Blogging (Again)
I have this theory: inside of every person there is a blogger trying to get out. Everybody has the potential to maintain a blog with, at the very least, weekly updates. I do not care how busy you are. There’s no excuse not to do it.
The benefits of blogging are many.
Blogging facilitates powerful introspection.
In my years of blogging, I have found that writing in general, and blogging specifically, are great ways to discover truths about yourself. When you sit down and distill your thoughts into the written word, you are forced to cut out all of the junk.
Now, I don’t know about everybody, but I naturally tend towards introspection and analysis, so when I start distilling my thoughts into a blog post, I get curious. I start asking myself: “Why is it that you think that? Is this thought part of a pattern? Does your personality influence this thought or does this thought influence your personality?” Then, I start to analyze the analysis, and so on. It’s turtles all the way down.
What I’m getting at is: when you blog, you’re presented with a great opportunity to learn about yourself, and knowing about yourself is a very good thing because you will a) become aware of your strengths and weaknesses and with this awareness you will become resilient to attempts by people to exploit your weakness and you will gain the ability to exploit your strengths, and b) you will be able to make future decisions faster and with more confidence since you will be aware of why you have come to such a conclusion.
Blogging crystallizes thoughts and thought processes.
When you set about writing a blog article, your ideas and feelings about the topic in question may not be clearly defined. By the time you have finished your blog post, your thoughts and thought processes will have become clearly defined, crystallized. This is a necessary byproduct of writing about your ideas.
When you set about communicating an idea, in our case through writing, you must do so with a certain level of clarity — otherwise, no one will be able to understand your ideas. Personally, I always try to present an idea as clearly as possible by making my writing, first and foremost, unambiguous and, also, as simple as possible. This maximizes communicability: the effectiveness of getting your idea across.
Since you are forced to present your ideas with clarity, you must refine them. You have to sit and think “how would I express this idea in words?” Through this refinement, your ideas become concrete, crystallized and you gain something important: understanding.
Blogging improves your ability to express yourself.
Blogging is a form of communication and the benefits of being able to effectively communicate should be self-evident. Think about it. What is society based on, if not communication? Imagine living without the ability to effectively express your ideas and emotions. Want to tell that special someone how you feel? I hope you’re able to communicate effectively or it will come out all wrong.
Communication and expression are literally fundamental to every aspect of being human. There are few, if any, skills more valuable than effective communication. Think of all the great men throughout history and consider where they would be without the ability to effectively communicate. Would we even know Einstein’s name if he hadn’t been able to communicate so effectively, to explain mass-energy equivalence in such a way that even a layman can grasp the power of the idea?
When you blog, you are honing your ability to express yourself. You’re practicing. How effectively you manage to communicate in your blog, that’s not super important, unless you plan on becoming mega-popular, but when you’re interviewing for that job you really want, I’ll bet you’ll be glad that you’ve been practicing expressing yourself effectively.
People will enjoy your creation.
It took me a long time to realize this, but people enjoy reading blogs, even blogs about nothing. That’s why blogs are so popular. When you write a blog post, you’re creating something of value, something that people enjoy. That’s really powerful! It’s a good thing to think about now and again. It will help keep you motivated.
Whatever you write, I’m sure people will find it entertaining or informative. When I was 12, I kept a blog just about my daily life and people loved it. They just ate it up. A 12 year-old kid blogging about his day, and they loved it!
Just think about it: you have the power to create something that other people will enjoy.