Maybe I’m just anal retentive, but I tend to set a lot of goals in my life. For all kinds of things. What I’m going to get done today, how much money I’m going to make this year, what things I want to work on teaching my children, even what important relationships I want to focus on, develop and nurture.

Sound ridiculous? Yes well… read on anyway.

Goal achievement requires a few different steps. It requires motivation or desire. It requires planning. It requires persistence. It requires a metric by which to measure your success. It requires reward.

There’s been a lot going on in the blogging community lately. People going on breaks, people feeling overwhelmed by the efforts of fostering online community, people getting too close, people pissing other people off in real life, people pissing other people off in the online world. People feeling like their priorities are all out of whack. People not really knowing why the hell they do this.

That’s important. Know why the hell you do this.

Some people are doing it with the hopes it will make them money someday.
Some people are doing it because they like the community feeling it fosters.
Some people are doing it because it’s a place to get feedback anonymously about private things you wouldn’t share with real life friends.
Some people are doing it for journaling reasons.

The list goes on ad nausem.

So… why am I writing about this? Because I think many people are confusing the goal with the reward of blogging. There is a subtle difference. And it’s really important to recognize the difference because it can save you a lot of pain. And it really determines how you run your blog, how much time you spend on it, etc.

Here’s some examples

Potential Reward: Book deal on a comedy book about parenting Goal: Write funny stuff to get published. Possible Metric: How many people think I’m funny?

Potential Reward: Close Friendships Goal: Make X number of good friends. Possible Metric: Depends on how you measure “closeness” (note: having the reward and goal be specific, makes determining the metric easier)

Potential Reward: Anonymous Feedback. Goal: Meaningful feedback from people who don’t know you in real life Possible Metric: # of comments from people you care about.

Potential Reward: Personal Growth Goal: Year of entries that explore meaningful daily events. Possible Metric: # of quality enteries

You get the idea. Most plans that are important to you will be more complex then three sentences. Ha.

The goal isn’t “how many people like me”. That’s a metric tied to only some people’s goals. Doesn’t have to be your goal. I see many folks who are getting upset because people are pissed off because they aren’t writing a certain way, they aren’t writing often enough, they aren’t writing about what this person wants to read…

Good leaders prioritize goals. And in online communities you have to recognize that there is an economy of scale. You have to pick the things that are important to you and your blog — against what is important to your overall life. Because as things get bigger, you can’t maintain close relationships with EVERYONE or the ones that are important suffer. (And are relationships a goal for you or a metric?) Leadership requires prioritization. So, you almost have to WANT to experience the growing pains of annoying people and letting the “less important” fall by the wayside. It helps clarify your goal, purpose and mission.

Sometimes you will make mistakes. There will be obstacles. That’s where the other part of the puzzle comes into play. You have to be persistent. You have to recognize that everything is part of a process and you have to commit to the process. Sometimes people you really care about might get hurt, might leave you. But this is how you find out who your real friends really are. (Is friendship part of your formula?)

Sounds simple eh? Relationships never are. And for most people, this is about relationships in one form or another. It all sounds so cold and calculating when most people want it to feel all warm and fuzzy. But sometimes warm and fuzzy feelings aren’t the goal, metric or reward — warm and fuzzy isn’t always part of the blogging formula.

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