Have you ever experienced a drop in your enthusiasm, commitment or satisfaction with blogging at any stage? If so, you could suffer from burn out and you may need a break. If not, then you are doing something right and we need to hear from you (=: Or, if you have but it didn’t last, you probably went through something completely normal – The Commitment Curve.
I often try to relate what I learned in my HR life to my role as a blogger. I focused a lot on behaviors in everything: selection, retention, project management, development, etc. It fascinates me to the same behaviors my former companies sought for high potential employees being present in many bloggers whom I respect, and are quite successful. While it is fascinating, I am truly not surprised whatsoever. I think there are behaviors that are present in successful people in general. Different post all together.
During my career, we would talk to new employees about the emotions they may feel after a few months *on the job.* My former manager specialized in HR Development and she brought this idea to our company (and me, personally). We would cover The Commitment Curve with all new employees as they came into the organization. Our goal was to ensure that they understood the emotions they would feel in the months ahead were completely normal. Maybe you have felt them too: disillusionment or disappointment. Possibly questioning yourself “Why did I take this role again??” Yeah, these aren’t *exactly* what people are psyched to hear during the first week at a new job, right? (-:
That information was necessary.
As I share that with you, part of The Commitment Curve is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. Even the most successful, high potential, driven people will go through this. You may not think it will happen, but it is likely to happen to you. Call it a bad day, but being disillusioned over why you are blogging is a thought that will enter your thoughts and fingers, eventually.
It has mine.
So, what does this Commitment Curve tell you? Well, I’m glad you asked. I thought I would share my thoughts on how the various stages of The Commitment Curve applies to bloggers. Since there is a lot to share, I will do a few posts to cover each of the following stages:
- Uninformed Optimism
- Informed Pessimism
- Hopeful Realism
- Informed Optimism
Stay tuned for my overview of the first stage. I’ll share a few things about how I was optimistically uninformed those two years ago I started!
Andrea Deckard is the author of MommySnacks.net. She considers herself an optimist, but she admittedly can be pessimistic. However, she does realize that is part of reality, which obviously makes her a realist. At any rate, she is informed. Or the optimist in her thinks so anyway (=:
Photo Credit: My former fabulous manager, L Hone
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I look forward to reading your upcoming posts!!
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I feel like I can get sucked into the “networking” aspect of blogging and lose sight of my content and relationships. If I am not living and enjoying life, I will not have much to blog about. And that makes blogging seem daunting… a task, a chore. rather than a fun outlet (that happens to make a few pennies here and there)
Thanks for this…
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