The Dead Poets Society Guide To Creative Blogging For Success

Are you overwhelmed and confused with so many blogs about blogging doling out tips, tricks and advices for new bloggers and wannabe probloggers day in and day out?

It’s even more confusing and depressing when you fail, even after trying out their advices and tips on your blogs – whether you are trying to create digg-worthy posts, trying to involve your audience through polls, gifts for comments, free downloads for subscription, guest posting on a couple of blogs in your niche, submitting your blogs to blog directories, hosting blog carnivals, etc…well, you get the picture. Believe me it’s depressing, I have been there.

The Dead Poets Society is a 1989 film which tells the story of an English teacher (John Keating played by Robin Williams) at the prestigious Welton prep school, which is based on four principles – tradition, honor, discipline and excellence. Mr Keating inspires his students to change their lives of conformity. The movie is all about the awakening of the individual and that authority must always be just a guide in the process.

How To Break Free From The Bond Of Conformity And Be Different

Carpe diem (Latin for seize the day):

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a flying, and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.”

On the first day of the English class Mr Keating imparts the importance of the present to his students. Think about men before us, men who lived and died. Their only legacy seems to be one advice – carpe diem. Make the most of your life today, for you and I are just foods for worms tomorrow, he says. Like it or not we all die. Our days are numbered.

If blogging is where your heart is, then make the most of your present in blogging. Don’t waste your time in reading and following what the authorities in blogging are saying or writing. The only thing you will gain by that exercise is mediocrity or at best the curse of being common, for hundreds of equally misguided bloggers like you will be learning from the same blogging authority and practicing the same blogging techniques. And, that brings us to our second point.

Find your own Voice:

“Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Don’t be resigned to that. Break out!”

We must constantly look at things in a different way. Just when you think you know something, get something, deliberately try to see it in a different light. We must constantly try to improve and push the boundaries. Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way. Even though it may seem silly or wrong, you must try! Now, when you read, don’t just consider what the author thinks. Consider what you think.

The problem is, the moment you imitate someone else you just gave away your creative self to being a duplicate. Successful people do not become successful by conforming. They consciously try to be different. They rebel against the accepted social norms. They create their own paths to glory. They try new things or ways to achieve their goals. In short, they take creative and challenging approaches to their goals. They chose to take the unbeaten path.

You cannot be the successful Problogger or Copyblogger. You can only be the successful you. You have to find your own success.

Immerse yourself in what you do, to find your self:

Todd out of self-consciousness fails to complete a creative writing assignment and is taken through an uncharacteristic self-expression realizing the creative potential he truly possesses.

Mr Keating is aware that Todd has it in him a creative but timid mind. He is always shy and scared to express himself and be the ridicule of his classmates. So, he forced Todd to express himself and confirms what he always suspects, that Todd indeed has the potential but was always too shy and self-conscious to even try.

Have you locked yourself in your own mind’s closet, afraid people will not take your seriously enough or scared you might become a joke. Let go of this low self-esteem. Immerse yourself in your blogging. Blog, blog and blog more. You will eventually “get it”. Practice makes one perfect, right?

In conclusion, the common theme running through these points above is this – define your own individual success. In the blogging world (especially in the make money online world), success is more often than not , wrongly defined by how much money the blogger earns. Blogging is more, as Mr Keating said, like a powerful play and it will go on that you may contribute a verse.

What will your verse be?

Related posts:

1. One Blogging Tip Probloggers Did Not Tell You
2. 6 Reasons Why Bloggers Need Perfect Grammar for Success
3. Why Successful Bloggers Have Blogging Buddies (and So Should You)