When I told others about my blog and YouTube videos, I liked to mention that I didn’t plan on becoming popular. All I cared about was that I could help at least one person. Kind of a cliché goal, but whatever.
It reminded me of the impact I could make. It made me feel okay when less than ten people read my blog post. I’m still helping, I would tell myself. I’m still doing good, I would say.
One day, I published a new blog post and shared its link on Instagram and Facebook. The next day I checked the stats.
Not a single view.
Not a single visitor.
No one viewed my blog.
Not a family member, not a friend, not even my husband at the time. It hurt. What could I say to make myself feel like my blog had a purpose? The people who were closest to me didn’t even bother to sneak a peek at it.
Can you guess what I did?
If you’ve read my blogs before, you probably guessed right: I cried. It wasn’t one of my puffy eyes, swollen cheeks type of cries. Only a few tears dripped down. The defeat quieted my emotional expression.
Maybe I couldn’t write well and that’s why no one viewed it. Maybe the topics I chose were tired and boring. Maybe people were too busy for something so insignificant.
That hurt, but there was one pain I couldn’t stop thinking about: not a single family member or friend had read my blog. My mom hadn’t looked at it, and my dad struggled with technology, so I couldn’t count on him ever seeing anything. Neither of my sisters had read it. People I thought were my best friends didn’t even give me the most basic support.
What had I done wrong? When I saw influencers and authors who had made it, I saw people with a support group backing them up. I saw friends commenting on their posts, liking their content. Yet, out of the hundreds that had seen the link to my blog post, not one had clicked it.
Prepare yourself for another cliché: it crushed me.
Once the sadness began to settle, I tried to think about it in different perspectives. I didn’t want to give up my blog, but I wasn’t fulfilling my purpose of helping at least one person.
Then a blog post title came to mind. “Do It for the None.”
So other people didn’t read my blog. But I enjoyed writing it. I learned from it. I became better because of it.
The one person I could help was myself. It might sound selfish, but I started to accept that was okay. I mattered too, right? The fact that I benefited from my blog mattered.
So, I did something for myself. I chose to continue posting with no expectations except that I would benefit from writing and expressing myself, from learning more about the world and sharing what I learned.
Don’t be fooled. This perspective did not come to me quickly, but when it came, a lot of pressure disappeared.
Well, over a year later, my blog is doing the best it has ever done. Who knows how long it will continue. Hah! I’m not sure if anyone will even read this blog post. It’s not my best headline.
If they don’t, that’s okay. Right now, I’m doing my best to take care of myself. I kind of suck at it, but at least this is me not sucking at it, for a little bit.
Read MRC 