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Life is made up two different things: events and processes. A post on Seth Godin’s blog he talked about it.

An event takes a short time to occur, 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 week, 1 month or even 1 year. A process takes a longer time frame, 5 years, 20 years, 50 years or even a lifetime.

An event is for the short haul, a process is for the long haul.

A beautiful story in “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” a book by Robert Kiyosaki, will help explain this further.

There was a village that had a water problem. They villagers called a meeting to solve their problem and decided to give 2 contractors the contract of supplying water to the village.

The first contractor quickly ran out and bought 2 buckets and started hauling and supplying water from the stream to the villagers.

The second contractor was no where to be found.

The first contractor started making some money almost immediately. The villagers had complains about dirt in the water so he bought a filter. He later employed his sons to help in the work.

All this while, the second contractor was nowhere.

The first contractor toiled and worked very hard till one day the second contractor appeared.

All he had on him was a paper. The paper was a document that carried an agreement signed by his company, some investors and a construction firm.

While he was away, he founded a company, employed a president, got investors and contracted a construction company to build a standard water supply system for the village.

The water system would supply cleaner water at a cheaper rate, all year round to the people in the village.

He didn’t have to carry any bucket like the first contractor.

The only money he made was a few cent for every bucket fetched.

To cut the story short, the first contractor ran out of business while the second contractor travelled the world, enjoying the success he got from following a proven process.

What Does This Have To Do With Blogging?

Well, a lot.

Firstly, success in blogging or in anything at all, is a process. It takes time.

A lot of bloggers are like the first contractor, the wake up, set up a blog, slap Adsense ads on it and start making cents.

Well, there is nothing wrong with that, only that they neglect the things to be done in making their blogs successful in the long haul. They forget the necessary and important processes that will lead to blogging success.

The second contractor went through the pain of writing a business plan, building a company, hiring people and getting investors to support the water project.

He took his time to build his success. He followed a process. A time wasting process maybe, but it was worth it at the end.

So What Are The Processes That Lead To Blogging Success?

There are so many processes and things you must learn and do to succeed as a blogger. Frankly, I believe you know or have heard about the different things already. What you may have not been told or remember is that all these things are processes not events.

They take time to learn, to perfect and to succeed in.

Here are a few that you know already.

1. Content production and writing
2. Search engine optimization
3. Traffic generation
4. Product development and launch
5. Guest posting
6. Online networking
7. Social media marketing
8. Linkbuilding

And many more.

All of these things take time to do and perfect. They are more of processes than events.

Writing a single blog post could be seen as an event, but writing 100 great posts on your blog that will get people coming back to your blog is surely a process. It doesn’t happen in one day.

You don’t wake up one day and become a top blogger; even Darren Rowse followed and still follows a process.

You don’t just start a new blog and make $10 000 in 2 days. Making money with blogs is also a process.

The bottom line is, there are so many things to learn and do to become a successful blogger but these things are all processes and will take time.

So, be like the second contractor. Invest your time, continue in the process and build on every step made in every process.

Blogging is hard work. It can easily take up to a year or two before your blog starts taking off, if it ever does. I’m not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic, because there are a lot of people out there that believe they can jump in, start writing and the money will start pouring in.

But when you mix passion with blogging savvy, the results can be amazing. Before I started my blog, I decided to join a blogging course. I have always been big on finding a mentor, someone who has done what I want to do and then learning everything I can from them.

If you are passionate about what you’re doing and have the determination to work hard, the internet is full of excellent blogging courses that will help take your blog from zero to hero. With all that said, let’s look at how you can find your passion:

1. The Elimination Method

The elimination method is extremely simple. You start by writing down every topic you’re interested in, you then compare each topic to each other one by one and eliminate anything that you do not like.

Say you like cats, dogs and parrots, just to keep it simple. Let’s start with cats. Compare cats to dogs, do you think you’re more passionate about dogs? If yes, then you discard cats and compare dogs to the rest. We only have dogs and parrots left, so whichever one you’re more passionate about, wins.

2. The Money Question

What would you do if money didn’t exist? Would you write about dogs? If you never had to worry about food, clothing and a place to live, you would have no choice but to do things you enjoy, because there would be no reason to do anything else.

This is a simple, yet powerful question. Really think about what you would want to do if money didn’t exist on the planet. There are no 9-5 jobs. Everyone is doing what they love. What would you be doing in this scenario?

3. Your Feelings

Most of us have been taught to ignore our feelings from a very early age, but the truth is that feelings act as signposts for if you’re heading in the right direction. If you’re working a 9-5 job that you hate, you will feel bad and it will only get worse with time.

Whenever you’re doing something you love, you’ll feel happy, content and at peace. Time just seems to fly by. This is how feelings were meant to be used. It takes some practice. It is easy to misinterpret your feelings, which is why many people think they are passionate about making money, which is basically a feeling rooted in fear.

4. Taking Action

If you’re not quite sure what you’re passion is, the best way to find out is to just start somewhere. You can sit there and analyze what it might be, but you will never get anywhere. It’s okay if you start a blog and find out that it isn’t what you like.

Mistakes are there to teach you. If you want things to be perfect before you start, you will never start. Believe me, I’ve been there and when I started feeling okay about making mistakes, my life became so much easier.

5. Feedback

Once you’ve been blogging for a few months, you’ll start to find your voice and start getting some traffic (if you chose a good niche). You will have a bunch of data that will tell you if you’re heading in the right direction.

Comments, e-mails, bounce rates and the average time people spend on your website. All of these factors vary from blog to blog, which is why it can get difficult and why a mentor can be so helpful. The main point I want to get across in this article is that without your passion, you will not have the fuel to keep going for the months or even years when nothing seems to be happening.

Despite having already quit my job, I recently attended a “escape the rat-race” type workshop for people who were looking to start their own businesses. My main reason for going was to see the process that people teach in order to help others successfully transition out of the cubicle and into their own company.

After all, I had completely stumbled onto my current path so didn’t have a solid blueprint for the process. One thing that really struck me throughout the discussions was that every single person agreed with this: you must make your business feel like home to someone. It doesn’t have to be everyone, but it should be someone.

I started to think of this analogy in terms of blogging and within a few minutes, I was already flooded with ideas on how to make your blog feel more homely to your audience. Now, I’m going to share them with you.

Pick a Focused Topic (The Right Address)

If you pick a focused topic on your blog, the vast majority of your blog posts will apply to everybody. In other words, every time they read new content of yours, visitors will be thinking “Yep, I have the right address.” They’ll know they’re in the right place because that’s exactly what they want to read.

A few blogs do break this mould with one of the most notable being Steve Pavlina. He blogs on the topic of Personal Development but covers so many different aspects of that niche. One week he might write about dating products and the next he’ll cover religion. I can’t help but think only a tiny percentage of his readers get to read what directly interests them on a regular basis.

The more you can give your readers exactly what they’re looking for, the better the chance they’ll feel like they’re in the right place.

Keep a Consistent Post Schedule (Familiarity)

One thing I admittedly struggle with is keeping a regular posting schedule. Some weeks I might post four times and others I might not post at all. My blogging very much operates around my personal life and I know that’s not good. In fact, the only thing constant about my post schedule right now is inconsistency.

However, I’m working to change that because I know how important the aspect of familiarity can be for your blog. I know that Darren has said a few times how if he does not post on a day (which he usually always does) then he will get floods of emails asking if he is OK or anything has happened to him. His readers are often waiting for new content to be posted because they generally know when that happens.

Remember that a (surprisingly) large portion of your readers will not use RSS or Twitter to get your articles. Instead, they’ll go the ‘old fashioned’ route and regularly return to your site manually to see if you have updated. This is especially true in the non-technical niche’s out there, so try to keep to a regular schedule.

Be Authentic (Comfort)

Authenticity online can be described in many ways, but I simply like to think of it as bringing as many natural human components you would use offline, into the online world. To me, that’s what all the advice boils down to. Authenticity brings comfort to your readers because trying to be (or act like) someone else is not only difficult an act for you to keep up but difficult for your readers to relate to.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who is trying really hard to impress you? Within a few minutes you instantly know how much money they have or how attractive their partner is? If you haven’t, then I have. And when it happens, it just feels…yuck. That’s the only way I can describe it, it just feels unnatural.

I have found the best results blogging when I talk to my readers like they are real people and I don’t try to bring an enhanced version of my offline self, online. If I’m comfortable sharing my failures and mistakes in life and lessons that I’ve learned, I find that people can really relate to what I’m saying and connect with the words. The more you can engage your readers, the more comfortable they will be around your site.

Interact in the Comments (Community)

I honestly feel like one of the few bloggers who tries to respond to as many of the blog comments I receive as possible. I do this not only to thank people for taking the time to check out my website, but I know that whenever I leave a comment on other websites, I really appreciate it when the author takes time out to respond to me.

I actually have to hand it to Daniel here because he is one of the few big bloggers I see regularly responding to reader questions, either as blog posts or comment replies. You may want to install a email subscription plugin so that blog commenters can also be notified when you reply to them directly. This step is so simple, and while it might take up 30 minutes of your time each day, I believe it is totally worth it.