Two of my new favorite bloggers Matt and Sean both recently posted about starting a blog to improve your life. Sean writes about it as one step to take to improve your life and Matt agrees that blogging is the one thing you can do to change your life.  It might sound strange to the people who don’t understand the opportunities blogging can open up for you, but for me it makes perfect sense.  My blogs have changed my life and made it immensely better. 

BLOGS TAKE YOU PLACES

The funny thing about blogs is that they take you places.  Sean’s took him from Portland to Thailand.  Matt’s took him from Nashville to a new life and job in Chicago.  Mine has taken me from Memphis to Vermont to New Zealand.  Because of our blogs we connected with the right people who helped us make these moves and plans possible. Blogging can take you places if you are open to the possibilities that will grow out of your blogging.

BLOGS GIVE YOU SUPPORT

No matter what you want to do – be it become location independent, lose 50 pounds, pick up a new hobby or start a whole new career, there is a community of people online who have already done it or are doing it now.  Getting online and starting your own blog gives you a chance to connect with these people.  When I started trying to lose weight I didn’t have the support I needed in my life so I started blogging.  Now I have a great weight loss support community that helps me in my journey to be healthier.  Blogging is one of the fastest ways to connect with like-minded people.

BLOGS GIVE YOU DIRECTION

Many of us bloggers started blogging without any direction.  We have found our paths or at least a good directional wind in life because we started writing and putting ourselves out there.  In some ways I’ve done this already and now with this blog I’m trying to do it again.  I’ve not been writing here long (and I still can’t decide on a blog name) but I’m beginning to see how I’m drawn to travel, lifestyle design, and business related blogs and blogging.  The more I blog here the more I will be able to clarify what it is I want to be writing about and what I want to be doing with my life.  Blogging can help you figure out what you want to do with your life.

START BLOGGING NOW

I agree with Sean and Matt that a blog can and will help you achieve your goals, no matter what they are.  I also believe a blog can help you define new goals and explore new experiences.  No matter what you want to do we all seem to agree that a blog can help you.

If you aren’t a blogger yet, I suggest you start a blog on anything that interests you.  Start writing and find out what a blog can do for you.  

Today I spent the morning hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and then walking through Gatlinburg, TN.  This afternoon was made for resting and I decided to randomly surf the web/blogosphere with no intentions.  This is something I rarely do as I always have a purpose when I’m online.  The results were very disappointing.

I love how bloggers and “social media gurus” talk about building “personal brand” by one of two ways.  They either lay out a list of how-to items to make your super special personal brand stronger or they say the basic line: Just be yourself! Either way it seems that people don’t listen or have meltdowns trying to carry out the advice.  Everyone out there copies the original bloggers and no one says anything new.  Everyone wants to build a personal brand for themselves but is afraid to do anything different or unique.

There are very few original voices and ideas online.  Everything else is just a less exciting copy of that original version.  It is quite disappointing.

I understand how it happens.  When you want to blog but have no ideas about what to write or who you are or what your super special personal brand should be, it just seems easier to search the fanciest blogs and then do what they are doing.  Clearly their ideas are working.  People like them and read what they say.  If you just do the same thing you will get the same results.  Right?  Right?  That must be what people think.

Matt Cheuvront, one of the few good bloggers I recently found out there, wrote a guest post about personal branding and questioned whether we (20 somethings) are too young to worry about it. His best point: “There is NO right or wrong in the personal branding world. Your personal brand is YOU – whatever that means, for better or worse, you are who you are and once you embrace that and run with it, everything else will fall into place.”

Ah.  Be YOU.  Be who YOU really are.  Run with it.  Don’t try to build a personal brand around what you think you should be or someone you think you should act like.  That doesn’t just go for young people but for anyone.

Why spend your time being fake hoping someone will notice and like the fake version of yourself?  Seems like a fruitless endeavor to me.

First, stop trying to be someone you aren’t.  Second, don’t take other people’s advice on how to be authentic.  If you need someone to tell you how to be yourself then YOU AREN’T BEING YOURSELF. Being authentic and real comes from inside.  It’s just who you are.  No matter what the subject I’d rather read about it from someone who is being themself rather than trying to be something or someone they are not.

Perhaps it is just me, but I don’t understand why we all seem to need someone to tell us how to be who we are.  Unless we are all trying to be the same?  Oh, is that the goal?   I sure hope it isn’t.

Sometimes I wonder if I share too much online.  There is a kind of anonymity to anything I post that frees me to be bolder about things.  I know other people will see it, but I don’t feel like they will really be seeing me.  Even in personal posts or videos, I feel like it is just me and my computer.  The fact that I can’t imagine the audience allows me to post things other people wouldn’t.

I’ve still not decided if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  It might be both.

My friend Ryan calls himself web shy.  He barely has a facebook and while I could imagine him being a great blogger he is fearful of blogs and most social media.  We are complete opposites.  I live on the web.  It’s where I keep my photos, my memories, my thoughts.   It’s where I get my news, watch my favorite shows, meet new people.  I spend more time connected to the web than is probably good for me and couldn’t imagine my life without all the tools it offers me.

Apparently a third of Web users under 25 (me, me!) claim they don’t care about their “digital tattoo” (personal info posted online that is easily found) and the items they post online, says Symantec.  They found that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed had uploaded personal photographs, while 79 percent had at least part of their address online and nearly half had their mobile phone numbers online.

Personal photos? Check. Address?  Well, I currently live where I work, so check.  Mobile phone number? Check.

So many of us digital natives have created online databanks of personal information about ourselves.  We’ve been on social networking sites for years.  We’ve blogged.  We’ve uploaded photos.  It’s just part of our lives.

However, quite a few surveyed were concerned about the negative impact their online imprint would have on their reputation and many wished they could erase things online.  No one wants to end up getting fired via facebook or because of their blog.  While we want to share and feel comfortable doing so, it seems many of us forget about the audience that does in fact exist.  We forget that their could be negative consequences to sharing online.

Personally, I am not unhappy with anything that is online under my name.  I do share a lot online and some of it very personal, but nothing is inappropriate.  I’ve found communities of like-minded people that I could not have found elsewhere.  I’ve also been smart enough to think about what I’m posting and doing before I’ve done it (always asking, would I be cool if my mom saw this?).  For me there has not yet been a negative side to sharing my life with the interwebs.

What about you?  Is there anything online you wish you could erase?  Do you think you share too much personal information online?