The Sixth Stage of Blogging

Have you ever got on a bus or pointed your car in no particular direction and just followed the road to see where it might lead?

You have no maps, no GPS and no inkling of where you might be going, but you don’t care because you are enjoying the ride and the adventure of discovering something new without the hassle of schedules or deadlines.

Sometimes when I’m looking for inspiration I will cruise the blogosphere in the same fashion, either via my newsreader or just following links to see where they might take me.

Well today I was doing just that and I came across a wonderful post by Kent Newsome (who is a valued member of the Bloke’s Network) about the “5 Stages of Blogging“.

Take it from me — you absolutely must read this post. It is beautifully written and something that all of us bloggers can relate. (Similarly Rory is musing the $60 question — “Why Do We Blog“)?

In a nutshell the 5 Stages of Blogging are:

Stage 1: Excitement
Stage 2: Expectation
Stage 3: Frustration
Stage 4: Alienation
Stage 5: Abandonment

So I thought I would add a sixth stage which I call:

Stage 6: The Rebirth

Like I was discussing with Darren Rowse this morning, I’m finding myself at a crossroads again. So many times I’ve ended up in the same position I am right now, where because of serious illness my blogging momentum has been interrupted and I’m having to start all over again.

Throughout my blogging career I’ve come to realize that it all comes down to this:

Forget about how many subscribers you have or don’t have, what your traffic stats tell you, how many comments you get or how much you find in your Adsense account.

At the end of the day either you blog for yourself or you don’t.