Today I am launching one of the latest features of my blog, that is sure to quickly become one of the most popular. You may have noticed on the SOB homepage a box titled ‘Free Blog Reviews’, well the funny thing is, that I put that over a week ago however I got zero entries – seemed like no one was interested in getting their blog reviewed for FREE (what is going on there?).

I decided to take my new feature to the StandOutBlogger family and sent an email to my list (scroll up to subscribe) letting them know about the offer -  and got 11 entries (not bad for the first one!)

However there can be only one lucky blogger each week so if that wasn’t you then head over to the “Free Blog Review” page and put your entry in for next week!

This weeks Stand Out Blog is:

BloggingElements.com

Mike, the owner of BloggingElements.com captured my attention with just one short sentence.

If you are not willing to be criticized you probably are not willing to do what it takes to be great.

As soon as I read this I knew Mike was serious about creating a ‘stand out’ blog, and helping bloggers achieve that is the goal of StandOutBlogger.com. So without anything further, let’s take a deep look at BloggingElements.com and if you as readers have anything to add at the end, Mike would love to hear your comments! read this entry »

It was Friday yesterday and my wife and I decided to have a date night. We went to a nice restaurant and then visited the local cinema to watch ‘Fame’. My wife is very interested in acting and dancing, so she was really excited to see the movie. I had never seen the old movie or the stage show, so I wasn’t sure what to expect – I was pleasantly surprised.

I get very intrigued and involved in movies that have characters that face real life situations where the issues that they are dealing with can be related back to our own lives – and Fame is definitely one of those movies. Being about a performing arts school, all of the students had to face the struggle inside themselves between long term success and instant fame.

I just wanted to share a few thoughts that I had during the movie.

Success Is Built On Structure And Discipline

As I watched those who took the easy road, fighting the authority figures who tried to guide them otherwise, I saw glimpses of myself. They believed that they knew better than their teachers. In one of the scenes we see a pianist who is very talented, showing no enthusiasm  while practicing his drills, complains to his teacher about how they should be focusing on expanding their creative talents – not doing boring drills. His teacher,  Kelsey Grammer (From Frasier) replies to him saying, “practice and structure doesn’t hinder creativity, it unlocks it.”

This really opened my mind as a blogger. I was always the type of blogger that blogs as I’m inspired – much like the pianist who just wanted to be creative. However, if we are not structured and disciplined, we may fluke our way to 15 minutes of fame – but we will not achieve long term success.

Sometimes We Are Chasing Someone Else’s Dream

Another character who is also a brilliant pianist, we learn that although she was definitely amazing on the piano, the only reason she was playing piano was because it was all her dad would let her do. He was so focused on her becoming a classical pianist, that he was stopping her from exploring her other talents. Although she had been diciplined and structured with her practice, there was no passion because she wasn’t chasing her dreams – but instead living out her farthers dream for her. What this did was stop her from realising her amazing singing talent.

Are you chasing someone elses dream and not your own?

Success Is Doing What You Love And Living Out Your Full Potential

I know I probably shouldn’t argue with a Dictionary, but this is what they say is the definition of success:

the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like. – Dictionary.com

I don’t know about you but I think this definition is very distorted and to the most part – wrong. You don’t have to be wealthy to be successful – ask Mother Teresa. And you don’t have to have a position to be successful – ask the mother who has raised her children without a father. And honours, that may be success to a degree, but there are many successful people who never get any honours – just look in the eyes of an african orphan that works to feed her younger siblings while finishing school and tell me she isn’t a success.

That is why I believe that success has been grossly distorted in modern culture into what is really just fame. You see, I believe that success is doing what you love and living your life to your full potential. When you are living out what you were made to do – that is what I call a success.

Pursue Success In Blogging

Now let’s bring it back to blogging. Success isn’t just having a blog is that is visited by a million visitors a month. I mean, it is success if that is your goal. But if you are blogging with structure and discipline, chasing your dream (by following your passion), and doing it to your full potential then you are successful!

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to signup for my free ’7Days to successful blogging’ e-course!

I planned on making this another list post, rattling off 5 or 10 things that could be stopping your blog from growing and succeeding. But the one thing I found, as I started trying to list all the different things that could be hindering our blogging, is that they all come back to one thing. I know you are not going to like this answer, because once you realise that this is the only thing stopping your blogging from stepping up to a whole new level – you will have no excuse.

If you hadn’t already guessed, the only thing that you can blame lack of blogging success on is YOU.

It All Comes Back To You

We can try and blame other people. We can try and blame outside forces, but when you look back on it they are always just excuses that we make to cover faults and failures in ourselves. Failures like:

• We Give Up To Easily

How often have we seen bloggers rise from out of nowhere, having the potential of becoming very successful bloggers, only to find that six months later their blog is abandoned and destined for a much to early death. I don’t know about you, but I have done this with a few of my blogs. Ones with a whole lot of potential but as soon as I hit an obstacle – I would give up. We are so busy looking for easy success that we fail to realise that true success takes time and effort – otherwise everyone would be successful!

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