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The post How To Start A Successful Blog And Make Money: Beginner’s Guide appeared first on NotSalmon.

Do you want to know how to start a successful blog? Want to make money from your website? Read on for a beginner’s guide of the basics you should know! I am so happy that I started a blog – […]

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Starting a blog can change your life.

Seriously.

It’s changed my life and I know it’s changed thousands of other’s lives.

When I was working at my previous employer I knew I wanted to start something on my own. I knew that I wanted to build a business and a business that was linked to what I was passionate about.

I didn’t know exactly what that business would look like (and I’m still evolving it greatly as we speak). But I knew I just had to do something.

The Best Advice I Ever Received.

Just quickly, I want to share the best advice I ever received.

I attended a local workshop that was an introduction on how to meditate. The facilitator is a well-known personal development speaker here in Australia and I had previously attended a couple of his other workshops.

I love facilitating workshops and training others and what he was doing was inspirational to me. He had built a million-dollar business by speaking and running workshops on personal development.

Back to the meditation workshop… at the end I went up to him and asked “Hey Ben, I love what you do! I would love to do something similar to what you’re doing. How do I do it?”

I stood there waiting for his answer eagerly like this was going to be the golden words of wisdom that would completely change my life.

He looked at me and said casually “It’s simple. Just get started.”

I was a little confused.

I had already started… I was reading personal development books every day. I was focusing on my goals. I was doing stuff! I had already started!

I remember leaving and thinking to myself how lame that advice was… that’s what any Tom, Dick and Harry would say.

But over the following week I was reflecting on that advice and the more and more I thought about it the more and more it started to hit me.

It really was true.

There aren’t any barriers except the ones that I create for myself.

I just needed to get started.

I needed to start building a platform and building my expertise in an area that I was passionate about and on a topic that I would love to facilitate training on and help others.

So, it was born.

My blog – The Start of Happiness.

And since I got started, my life has changed and continues to change.

I now have 2 online businesses that have started as a blog and I am able to help over 20,000 people from all parts of the world live a more fulfilling, successful life.

It’s pretty amazing.

And it all started to happen because I started a blog.

But there are other benefits too.

Top 10 Benefits of Starting a Blog

Below, I share with you my Top 10 Benefits of Starting a Blog.

1) Clearing Your Mind

Something special happens when you express your thoughts on paper (or through a blog).

All those jumbled thoughts that are running through your head start to become streamlined. You can start to add some structure to your thoughts.

Feeling overwhelmed? Have a million and one ideas running through your head? Or not sure about how to deal with a specific situation?

The art of writing down your thoughts will give you a sense of “cleansing” of the mind.

A blog is a perfect way of doing this and the power of writing and it’s benefits have been proven in numerous psychological studies.

2) You Become Vulnerable

One of the biggest things we fear in life is being vulnerable.

That’s why public speaking is up there with death as one of the biggest fears in life. It makes you vulnerable.

It’s natural for us as humans to do everything we can to protect ourselves, our image and our reputation.

However, one of the most attractive qualities of another human is… wait for it… vulnerability!

When someone is 100% true to themselves and they express 100% who they are, you are attracted to it.

Starting a blog will help you become more vulnerable and put yourself out there more.

Even if no one reads your blog… the fact that it is on the internet and that potentially someone might read it you start to feel that vulnerability.

Vulnerability helps you grow as a person. It’s about being outside of your comfort zone.

3) Creative Expression

Blogs are a great way creatively expressing yourself.

We all need some kind of creative outlet. And the benefits of creative expression are huge.

There are a number of ways you can creatively express yourself through blogging. Obviously, writing is the most visible way. But things like designing your website and or producing videos are further ways you can express yourself creatively.

4) Develop Your Expertise

No matter what you are doing in your life, you can always learn more.

Starting a blog enables you to think about things in greater detail and enables you to structure your thoughts and what you learn (see point 1 above).

By focusing on a particular topic for your blog you will notice that you start to develop a deeper understanding of that topic. You will start exploring other blogs in your niche and you will consciously (and subconsciously) become better and more knowledgeable.

Not only that, but people will start to recognise you as an expert on that topic.

I started my journey by reading personal development books and attending personal development seminars. Now people come to me for advice on productivity, happiness and business… and this is just because I have developed my expertise (and showcased this) through blogging.

5) Develop Productive Habits

This is one of my favourite things about starting a blog.

I’m a nutter for high-performance. I love doing anything and everything possible to help me perform at my best. And blogging is one of those things that will help you develop productive habits.

Blogging will create discipline in you.

Whether you decide to stick to a regular blog schedule or not, it doesn’t matter. The art of writing and knowing that you have the blog and committing to it being updated will create all-round discipline and this will have positive flow on effects to other areas of your life.

6) Develop Relationships With People You Admire

One of the most amazing things I have experienced since I started my blog is just how easy it is to get in contact with and how willing to help all other bloggers are.

It’s like this great, big, community feel of people making a difference in the world.

But it’s not even just bloggers. Its entrepreneurs. Its speakers. It’s anyone trying to build their brand, expertise or business. It’s anyone trying to better themselves.

When I first started focusing on happiness it was amazingly easy to setup a coffee conversation with Dr Tim Sharp, Australia’s leading happiness guru and a Skype conversation with Alexander Kjerulf, one of the world’s leading happiness experts. This is before I even had any kind of brand or influence. This is just one example of many I’ve had over the last few years.

7) Become a Better Communicator

Now that I have been blogging for some time, I have noticed that I’m much more aware of how I structure my sentences and my language.

This is not just with the written word, but with my spoken word as well.

Writing emails and writing articles has helped me focus on how I can get my teaching point across while also keeping you engaged as a reader.

It’s all about engagement and influencing others and blogging has certainly helped me here.

8) Build a Business

When I first started The Start of Happiness I knew that I wanted to make an income from the blog but I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to go about it.

Four months after starting I added a link to one of my blog posts to another bloggers product (see point 6 above) for a product on making friendships. It was for an ebook that he was selling for $34. Someone purchased his ebook after clicking through from my link and I was paid a 50% commission.

I made $17!

Amazing.

This was just the start. From this point onwards I knew it was possible to make an income from a blog.

Since then, I have grown The Start of Happiness to have 4 streams of income (Launch Your Life Academy, First 1000 Subscribers, Google AdSense and Affiliate Promotions) all while focusing on providing massive value to you as part of my community.

I was also inspired to build a more traditional business and used a blog as the primary driver behind this. I launched Gradrecruit – a graduate recruitment business and this is another area of life that has developed because of starting a blog.

Having a blog will help you start and grow a business, create leads, give you a platform to promote products to and generate an income.

9) Live a More Intentional Life

When you have a blog, you have a sense of purpose.

As you start to put yourself “out-there” more (see vulnerability in point 2 above) you will notice that you start to live more intentional.

You will start to focus on how you can provide more value to those that are reading your blog.

You will start to reflect more on your own life and how you are living and demonstrating the things that you are teaching through your blog.

Ultimately, you will feel more of a sense of accountability and intention for what you are doing with your life.

10) Make a Difference

This is the biggest one for me.

When I’m on my deathbed I want to know that I have put in 110% and made as much of a positive impact in this world as I can.

Having a blog will enable you to reach out to and communicate with people that are interested in what you have to say.

You have knowledge and life experience that can benefit others. You have a fantastic opportunity through blogging to be able to impart your knowledge and experience on others and make a difference in their life, whether you know them or not!

That’s a powerful thing.

3 Quick Steps to Start Your Blog Now

Here are the three things you need to get started with a blog right now.

Step 1: Get a domain name and hosting with Bluehost

The first thing you need is to get a domain name and hosting. You can do this all in one go with Bluehost.

It will take you about 15 minutes to get fully setup with your WordPress blog installed.

Simply goto Bluehost, click on Get Started Now and follow the prompts. Easy!

Step 2: Choose a great-looking theme from Studiopress

To stand out from the millions of other blogs on the internet you want to make sure you have great design.

Studiopress themes run on the Genesis Framework. The framework is simply the “skeleton” or backend of the theme. Why is this useful? The Genesis Framework is widely considered the fastest, most responsive and cleanest code available. It’s second to none and with the sexy themes from Studiopress you will stand out like a rockstar and Google will reward you with higher search rankings. You can purchase a theme and the Genesis Framework together.

Step 3: Get an email service provider – Aweber

To be able to capture email addresses and build a community and make a difference in others lives, you need to have an email marketing program.

Aweber is widely considered the best option for starting out. It’s cheap, it’s easy to use and you can start building an email database in minutes.

I have used Bluehost, Studiopress and Aweber from the very beginning and I still use them today. I’ve never had any issues and they have been instrumental in allowing me to build my online platform.

Over to You

Do you have a blog? If so, what benefits have you experienced?

Are you thinking of starting a blog? If so, what is the main reason you want to start a blog?

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

BB

P.S. Next week I’m opening the doors to my First 1000 Subscribers course. This will give you the proven blueprint to skyrocketing your subscribers. Stay tuned!

The post 10 Ways Blogging Will Change Your Life appeared first on The Start of Happiness.

We live in a world full of information. Every day we are showered with hundreds of messages and ideas about a variety of issues, coming from our computers, our TVs, our phones, street advertising, or the people we talk to.

Unfortunately, many of these messages are not exactly accurate, and buying into them can be highly detrimental to us. This is where critical thinking skills come in, as a set of skills that enables us to correctly and logically asses the ideas we are exposed to, develop our own opinions and make decisions.

Not only that critical thinking skills help us possess accurate ideas, but by doing so, they also permit us to develop powerful arguments and counterarguments in our discussions with others, thus making us much more persuasive. They’re both a mental and a communication asset.

I’ve started working on developing my own critical thinking skills more than 15 years ago, back in high-school, when I joined my school’s debate club. Later I began training others in debate and critical thinking, and still later I added critical thinking enhancement as part of my communication coaching services.

Drawing from these experiences, I wanna share with you 3 powerful strategies to improve your critical thinking skills, make better decisions and be more persuasive. Here they are:

1. Question Conventional Assumptions More Often

Our minds are highly predisposed to just absorb the ideas they get exposed to, without judging their truthfulness first. Especially ideas we hear a lot. They are, in a way, like sponges for any type of information. And while this has benefits, it also goes often against critical thinking.

So a very effective way to improve your critical thinking skills is to put some effort every day into deliberately stopping when you hear or read and idea, and asking yourself (and, if suitable, your interlocutor too): “What’s the evidence that this idea is true?” In other words, you don’t just accept the idea as true, you ask for reasons to accept it.

If convincing evidence is presented, you accept the idea and move on. If not, it’s worth maintaining some doubt towards that idea.

As you practice this, your minds gradually gets used to it and it becomes a habit. You build into your thinking a natural tendency to regularly question ideas, a healthy dose of skepticism.

2. Gain a Good Understanding of Logical Fallacies

Logical fallacies are tendencies to misjudge information, reason incorrectly, and reach false conclusions.

For instance, overgeneralization is a common logical fallacy, which consists in the tendency to jump too quickly to a general conclusion from a small number of sample cases. For example, you meet two lawyers who are arrogant, and you conclude that all lawyers are arrogant.

Although we like to think of ourselves as rational people, the truth is that all of us frequently fall prey to fallacies. However, by learning about the kind of logical fallacies that exist and working to identify them in our own thinking, as well as in the thinking of others, we get better at spotting them, and we increase our critical thinking abilities.

There is lots of information online about logical fallacies. I also talk about them often in my free newsletter, which I suggest you join. The better you understand fallacies, the easier it is to spot them and protect yourself from them.

3. Learn About Topics from Multiple Perspectives

When we learn about a topic, it’s common to learn about it from only one source, which has a particular view on that topic, although many other views exist, some of which are at least as credible, if not more.

The problem is that if you only know one theory about something, in the absence of alternative theories, it will often seem believable even if it’s severely flawed. Knowledge-deficient minds are often credulous minds.

This is why it’s good to learn various theories about any topic and acquaint yourself with an array of perspectives on it. It makes you wiser and it trains your critical thinking skills.

For example, if you live in a very religious Christian environment and you learn that we are the descendants of Adam and Eve, that explanation sort of makes sense if you don’t know any other explanation. But if you also learn about the theory of evolution by natural selection and the evidence to support it, you have a competing explanation that’s likely to make you question the previous one.

This in itself is an invitation to research some more and think some more about this issue, which develops both your knowledge and your critical thinking on the issue. It can be frustrating to come to doubt an idea you’re used to holding, but it pays off in the end.

As you practice questioning conventional assumptions, you gain a good understanding of logical fallacies and you learn about topics from multiple perspectives, the entire way you see things changes. It’s like you’ve been looking at the world through a dirty window until then, and now the window gets cleaned and the image becomes much clearer.

With strong critical thinking skills, you are apt to distinguish good ideas from bad ones, make wise choice in life, communicate in a persuasive manner and have a real impact on the world.

For more advice from me on how to improve your critical thinking skills, as well as your communication skills, I encourage you to get onboard my free social success newsletter. The content I publish in it is always top-notch.