Blogging Elements

Why Being yourself is Bad for Your Blogging Performance

Posted on 08. May, 2010 by Ashwin in Blogging Lessons

“Listen, just be yourself” Haven’t you heard this being thrown at you every now and then? Although I second that opinion and would have told all and sundry to be themselves at various points in my life, I seem to have second thoughts about bloggers “being themselves” especially when blogging. For various reasons, it might not be as great an idea as most people seem to think. Here are the reasons why being yourself could be bad for your blog:

If you don’t have an opinion, don’t blog: I have met many people for the past few years now and I happen to see that some people are just not opinionated. Well, my wife isn’t opinionated at all, for a start. She doesn’t seem to have an opinion on anything; it’s almost as if she is fine with the way the world is and she one of those few people who are completely at peace with themselves and the rest of the world. Well, that’s great. But she would be a terrible blogger. When you blog, you must have an opinion. You got to have the courage to say what you want and not be intimidated by hundreds of negative comments you might get.

Being Stubborn won’t help: While being opinionated is good for a blogger, being stubborn isn’t. If you are stubborn and if you are closed to any kind of input your readers give you, you aren’t going anywhere. You can’t afford to lock yourself in your little world and think that the rest of the world wouldn’t matter – that’s because you never know when you might want to step in there, would you?

If you are being yourself all the time, you wouldn’t change: Change is important; it makes you a different person every day. Change can make opportunities present themselves to you and show you ways to figure out what you want in your life. If you are being yourself all the time, where are you changing? How do you propose to improve yourself if you thought that you were the best? You got to keep your mind open and accept criticism gracefully, learn from your mistakes and move on.

Being yourself won’t let you succeed. Develop the ability to change, be flexible and move faster when you can. Do you?

Are you being yourself?

Tags: Being self, Blogging performance, opinions, Thought leadership