Why I Blog: Reflections of My First 3 Months of Happily Blogging

The end of 2019 marks my three months blogging anniversary.

It’s a great time to reflect on why I started this WONDROUS yet onerous journey. I hope that through this reflection as a newly minted blogger, I can provide some fresh insights for my readers and prospective bloggers.

But before we jump into why I blog, let me first share some juicy confessions!

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Confessions of a New Blogger

1. Umm, I never really liked writing UNTIL NOW

A bit embarrassing to admit, but I never enjoyed writing growing up. I succinctly remember the dread I had every time I have to write an essay in my high school AP English class.

But I’ve always loved reading. I love storytelling. I love poems (can you tell?). And I generally love blurting out words but just not in my AP English class!

Instead of writing, my passion lies in numbers and art. So it surprised me when I chose to start a blog! (I’ll tell you why shortly.)

2. I am a slow writer thus I can only slow-cook a post ONCE per week

With limited brain juice, I can only produce one quality content consistently per week. I know the ability to publish more blog posts per week can yield better results in terms of traffic and readership count, but for the life of me I just couldn’t do it without burning myself out (due to Confession #1).

The way I write is that I slow-cook a post. This means that whenever I have a sudden burst of ideas, I’ll quickly write it down or make a note of it on my cell phone. Then when I have full quietness and focus (precious time for moms), I’ll structure the post and develop it. After that, I’ll proofread it several times and ensure SEO “compliance.” Finally, I’ll load the content into WordPress and make it picture perfect. This whole process can take up to 10 hours.

At times I also feel like I’m an undercover writer because I can only write when Baby Boss is not looking or is soundly asleep. She remains my priority. Therefore the “slow cooking” schedule works for me because in addition to writing a blog post, I can also dedicate time throughout the week to perform other tasks that require less concentration – site maintenance, marketing, networking with other bloggers, graphics, learning, and continuous improvement – which are all critical to this blog.

However, this doesn’t mean that I don’t strive to write MORE, I just have to do it at my own pace. My goal is to be able to publish twice a week by the end of 2020. Baby steps.

3. I’m not a UNICORN blogger

I define a ‘unicorn blogger’ to be one who can turn her/his blog into a lucrative business or obtain a sizeable readership in the get-go.

Therefore, a ‘unicorn blog’ is one that exudes rarity, attractiveness, and desirability – basically one that every other blogger wishes to create.

For example, a blog that became an instant success story or lucrative business would have blog titles such as, “How I made $6,000 in my first three months of blogging” or “How I earned $30,000 per month in my first year of blogging.”

A sizable readership would have similar titles such as, “How I got over 10,000 pageviews after two months of blogging” or “How I increased my subscriber counts to 300 per month in less than a year.”

Unfortunately, you won’t find those kinds of exclamation in this blog, not for now at least. (But I think I might have figured out the secret and I’ll share it later!)

Instead, my would-be blog title might go something like this: “How I made $0 in my first three months of blogging but at least I got over 6,000 page views from more than 1,600 unique visitors (of which 10% returns). Victory dance!”

(I had very low expectation when starting out this blog, so any spike in traffic will not seize to surprise me.)

Five Reasons Why I Blog

One crucial thing I told myself when I started this blog is to IGNORE the numbers for the first year – a tough thing to do when I love analyzing figures and trends for fun.

The rationale behind that is because I don’t want to get discouraged by any subpar results and just throw in the towel. The beginning of a blog is an experimental phase so there is no point to get disappointed by setting unrealistic expectations.

So instead, I laid a different set of foundation for which my motivation builds upon. Doing so for me is much more effective than setting up a measuring stick. Here are the reasons why I started this blog:

1. To leave some thoughts behind on the internet and for my daughter

We all have something unique in us that we can contribute. With the advent of the internet, it has become SO MUCH easier to do so.

Blogging is just one of the media channels where I can utilize my finance skills to inspire others to master their own personal finance and become financial independent.

In addition, I wanted to change the dynamics of money discussion at home. For example, growing up, my parents never really taught me anything about personal finance or money management. They were actually pretty bad at it, and so we had always struggled to make ends meet. (But they are great parents and I love them to pieces.)

It became so straining sometimes to live on a tight budget that I vowed to manage my finances better when I grow up. Now that I graduated with a few degrees (Bachelor’s in Finance and an MBA) plus having worked in the finance sector for over ten years, I gained quite some extensive knowledge with managing finances – both corporate and personal.

As a mom, I knew it’s important to teach my daughter personal finance skills someday. Since most schools don’t offer any curriculum on money management subjects, it’s then up to the parents to do it. Unfortunately, many parents are still reluctant to talk about money at home because it’s one of those ‘mushy subjects.’

Because society tends to label money as good or evil, we attach it with great sentiments. I want to change that view by teaching my daughter that money is merely a TOOL and it’s best to use it with a rational mind than an emotional one.

Starting this blog is just a small step I take to change this dynamic by sharing my financial knowledge and money concept online. This will also form the basis for teaching my daughter on how to better manage her own personal finance in the future.

2. To improve and perfect my craft

They say the best way to really know if one has mastered a topic is to teach it effectively. Therefore my ability to teach and inform about financial topics on this blog will not only validate what I know, but it’ll also help me improve and perfect my craft.

In this blog, I intend to produce well-researched articles pertaining to personal finance topics such as budgeting, investing, saving, and reaching financial independence among other things.

This will not only provide value-added resources to my readers, I’ll also expand my knowledge along the way. Plus, with the commitment to write regularly, I’m sure my writing will improve overtime.

3. To make an impact

Whenever I see headlines such as “Retirement Crisis” or “Most Americans Are Working Into Old Age,” it always baffles me.

Actually, it’s more like a swirl of fascination sprinkled with all shades of dismay. I just couldn’t believe how many people either cannot manage or mismanage their finances. Even our government fails to balance the budget.

I believe to truly live a wealthy life is to live amongst a wealthy society. Can you imaging the cost of having a large population who cannot afford retirement? It’s certainly going to add unnecessary cost to our community as a whole – think higher crime rate, increased health risk, and declining quality of life.

Certainly there’s a whole variety of finance blogs, news outlets, and programs to educate the general population. But if that’s so then why do we have such gloomy statistics about retirement and savings rate?

Perhaps adding one more blog to the internet won’t hurt. If there is just something I can do (however small) to help another person to avoid “retirement crisis,” then I’ll feel pretty great about this contribution.

4. To experiment with business ideas and ventures

Today, we are in the mist of the fourth industrial revolution where artificial intelligence can rapidly replace jobs – including mine as a Financial Manager.

Just like we won’t be able to predict the next recession, we also can’t foresee when a job will be eliminated. But that doesn’t mean I should sit around and wait for it to happen. In fact, the previous two companies I worked for have either outsourced the entire finance department to a lower salary country or cut off some of the teams completely.

This means that our jobs are constantly being threatened by the advance of technology. But hey! When one door closes, another opens!

We now live in an unprecedented time where an individual can become a shop owner through setting up an Etsy account, a teen with a phone and a laptop can craft a career via Youtube, and a blogger can build a business by unlocking the potential of content creation – all in the comfort of one’s own home!

Today, our technology has brought tremendous opportunities for creative individuals. Since the uniqueness in one’s creativity cannot be outsourced, this brings new possibility for those who want to embrace them.

For the longest time, I had just been putting my head down and work a 9-5 job because it was stable and it yielded a steady cash flow. But as I see layoffs happening left and right around me, I can’t shake the feeling that my job is not really as stable as it might seem.

If I have to take a bet on my own career, I might as well carve one out myself while I’m still young and can afford to fail. That’s why I started this blog – to discover the possibility of starting a new business venture.

It’s not going to be easy as the chance of failure is exceptionally high. There are 500 million blogs out there after all! Standing out and getting notice at the beginning will be a challenge.

But luckily (or unluckily) I grew up in hard knock environments where the only way to survive is to keep going, so naturally I developed a strong resilience of a tardigrade (a.k.a. water bear). Side note: If you look this up, you’ll find that tardigrades are fascinating creatures!

In addition, the startup cost is exceptionally low for starting a small business online comparing to other traditional businesses, so why not give it a try? The only loss I might incur is the loss of my time. But if I write for my daughter, then the effort will never be truly wasted.

Related: Building a Side Income via Blogging from Home

5. To become financial independent

Financial independence (FI) is more of a journey than a goal. One can reach FI by calculating her/his financial target, but this target is constantly moving.

Now that I have a daughter, my FI target has undeniably edged higher because I want to provide more for my Baby Bear. Some of the things I wish for her to have are options to live in a better neighborhood (than the ones I grew up in), to attend private school or change school if needed, and to participate in activities that she finds interest in (including expensive hobbies like ice skating or skiing).

In addition, my dream is to watch her grow and I can’t do that if I have to constantly trade time for money. Therefore, starting a blog presents an interesting proposition for developing a new stream of income online.

Who knows, maybe this blog might just be that ticket to help me reach financial independence? And if not, it would at least document my journey – I know I’ll get there someday!

In any case, the goal of this blog is to explore new investment and entrepreneurship opportunities, embrace successes and failures, and document the entire process along the way. Not only do I seek to inform (and occasionally entertain) about financial topics, I also want to show you what can be done to increase your net worth and become financial independent at your own pace.

Lessons Learned as a New Blogger (A Preview)

So far running this little blog has given me a lot of joy as it keeps my brain active. Plus I’m in too deep. I already paid for three years of web hosting and I’m gaining momentum, so I can’t stop now.

In just three short months, I have already made TREMENDOUS progress despite having very little clue of what I’m doing. For starters, my knowledge about the blogosphere has gone from 0 to hero (okay, maybe 30?), I’ve made bunch of blogger friends, and I published a total of 16 blog posts (including this one)! Wowzers, right?!

I want to share everything that I learned about blogging (especially when it’s still fresh in my head), so that it can help a prospective blogger by providing new perspectives and blindsides.

We often hear success stories from established bloggers, but what about those failures, trials and tribulations of a young blog? I think it might be just as insightful to learn the struggles and to experience the learning curve of a blog right from the beginning!

So for next year, I planned to document all of the hits and misses of this blog in a quarterly update fashion (i.e. every three months starting in January 2020).

For the first quarterly update, I’ll be covering the five main lessons learned in the first few months of blogging. Here’s a preview:

1. Fare-thee-well! Thou hast a new boss and its name is SEO
2. Thou shall manage thy blog like a business and promote thy blog post like a product (the secret to become a UNICORN blogger)
3. Don’t be fool! Setting up a blog is NOT just a few clicks away!
4. The upfront (and hidden) costs thou should expect to start a lucrative blogging business (and how to do so legally)
5. All about MARKETING: Digital marketing, affiliate marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, and the ’80/20 marketing rule.’

A main takeaway that I learned way before starting this blog is that self-hosting is a must if you want to take your blog to the next level. This is a standard practice as it would allow you to OWN your internet space, domain and contents rather than storing your hard work in a free platform.

Another important takeaway is that blogging, like investing, is a long-term game. You don’t NEED to have a high IQ to become a successful investor – just a mild intelligence with a rock solid temperament will do. Likewise, you don’t need to be the best writer to be a successful blogger. It hinges more on one’s stamina, consistency, and an infallible faith in one’s ability to make things happen.

With the aid of the fourth industrial revolution, blogging has become a powerful avenue to transform any passion into a career or business venture. (Marie Kondo, anyone?)

This blog aims to explore those transformations by uncovering ways to build new passive (or side) incomes. If you want to join this journey, stay tuned for new article every Monday with occasional bonus guest posts.

Please don’t forget to SHARE, comment, subscribe and support me on Facebook by smashing that like button (or just gently click).

I wish you all the best and see you next year!

What are some of the success or failure stories you heard about blogging? If you’re a blogger, what motivated you to start a blog? If you’re not a blogger, do you plan to become one or do you think it’s a waste of time?

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