Website Design looks Bad
This is a a major reason why I personally get unmotivated. When I think my own website sucks in terms of looks, I just don't feel like trying to add contents. It's like - why bother when it looks horrible? And weirdest thing is, we usually change our opinions over time. I've lost count how many times when I first make a design, I really love it, then over time, I gradually don't like it as much and sometimes, it may even end up looking horrible in my eyes. I've no idea how it happens or why, but when that happens, it's time to focus purely on your design. To fix this problem, I believe you need to find a good design you're happy with. If people are using wordpress and such, there are tonnes of good premium layouts out there. Some may be really cheap and others may even be free! Just keep looking. Many of the gaming templates look amazing and can be adjustable to fit your own scheme. For example, I'm currently using Gamefusion template and edited it to become my own.
Rude People - Disagreements and Critiques
This is something else that may be a big reason why people lose motivation. Hopefully, that won't come up often. Occasionally, let's say if you're happily writing and think your work is amazing, and suddenly, some rude asshole comes and says your site should go die in a hole, and immediately, you feel that rage and want to punch the living daylights out of that person!
That was an exaggeration there. But let's say if someone strongly disagreed with you and made you feel stupid, or was just plain rude about something that may have seemed obvious to them but not you. It may make you feel that you're just a crappy writer.
Let me tell you, this may be the hardest thing in the world, but DON'T GIVE UP! How? You may ask - I've lost the motivation, why bother? You can get it back by focusing on how to improve it even more. If the person has a point, try and see where they're coming from. Some critiques may sound immature, but on the long run, they may actually help you become better. It's completely normal for us to start out with mistakes and ideas that may not work with general people, but if we can improve, wouldn't that be better? And by improving, I do not mean change your opinions to fit them! Your opinions and ideas should forever be yours and you shouldn't change because of other people!
One thing I always do is imagine that, okay so we have 1 rude asshole who made a comment but there's still MANY people who read/visit my site and don't comment. How many times have we visited a site we loved, read their stuff thoroughly but didn't leave comments to say how great it was? Perhaps these people are the same. They do love your work and visit it but just don't say anything. It may just be, a rare few who really don't seem to like your work that are actively talking.
Lack of Visitors
If you feel that you're putting all your heart and soul into your Anime Blog and nobody visits (let's say you've installed statcounter to help you know exactly how many visitors you get), this is when I will say, give yourself some time! Don't read your stats for 6 months and see if you improve over a period of time. I use this anaology with losing weight. I think when you're trying to lose weight, you should weigh yourself the same time each day, perhaps not even every day, but once a week, to see if you lost weight. If you weigh yourself at 8am, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 10pm, 12pm (after you drank bottles of water, after you did a shit...) your weight will change. Sometimes, you probably thought you gained a few pounds when it's really because of that darned water. This works the same. Website stats change each day, you may get 300 hits today but 200 tomorrow and 600 the next day. But you should focus more on the overall stats over a period of time, not daily!
It's important to set yourself both short term and long term goals that are achievable (no million views per day blogs). Try and achieve that slowly. Look up information on how to improve blogs. Many websites have very useful information on how you can get more visitors like here and here.
Losing an existing Interest because you Picked Up Another!
This one happens to me all the time. I have so many interests that just shifts back and forward. I also have several websites that I crazily update for a period of time and desert the other ones. Say if you lost interest in blogging because you found a new interest, my suggestion is, don't force it! Do what you can, take it slow and try and find what may help bring your motivations back. Also, make sure you save up plenty of drafts during your hyper blogging mode so you can still slowly release articles during this time. If you are super motivated at one point in time, I do not suggest you hold back the writing. Give it all you've got, write until you can't write, because moments like this is very rare! If you don't use this wisely, you may not feel this way for some time. But writing is writing, don't post them all on your blog at one go! Save them as drafts and/or schedule them over the month so that an even amount of posts are made each day/week.
From my experience, you can't use force to bring a lost interest back, but they always do come back. The more you were once interested in this, may leave you with a 360 turn where you completely lose all motivation. If you have no idea why, or feel it's completely because you're totally obsessed with something else, then just wait it out and don't stress. Also, you can see if it's possible to combine them. Example - Say if you got into a new game and can hardly put it down, see if you can write about what you loved about it or summarize what you can.
Not enough Time!
Nooooo, time is of the essence and there's not enough of it! Not having enough time is painful! I know the feeling, especially when you really want to do it but can't, sometimes motivation vanishes like that. The best thing I can suggest is make time, at least 20 minutes for it each day, and believe me, if you can schedule your day well, you can always find 20 minutes! Also, use your time wisely. If there are times when you're waiting around, traveling or something, have a pen and paper with you to write down ideas. I do an hour of exercise on the treadmill each day and ALWAYS love using this time to think of more ideas. I hate it when I've got an idea and gotta walk downstairs to write it down though, so having paper/pen beside you would help!
Things in Life that May Cause you to Lose Motivation
Things in life often contributes to a loss of motivation, for example - depression, illness, grief, arguments, etc. Those things are unavoidable and I think when things like that happen, it's more important to solve your real life issues than to force motivation back. If something is making you depressed, find out what's the cause behind it. Once you can solve the core problem, you'll find that motivation will come back. I've had times when I've lost complete motivation because someone I love was ill, and that's alright. When that happens, go and focus on life and don't worry about the site. Tell your visitors that you need some time off. Spend time to recover because you need it!
Not enough Ideas for Blogging
You may lose motivation because you've no idea what to blog about. You have rattled your brain trying to come up with unique ideas but still can't. GO READ OTHER BLOGS! Especially blogs with unique content that can give you an ocean of ideas and imagination! Sometimes, just reading something random on someone else's website sparks up a new idea. You can totally look for those as inspiration! You can respond to one of the most, extend it or even make a spin off! Like, think of something new that relates in some ways!
If all things fail, you can always ask a friend for blogging topics! If they can't think of any, then google it up and see what you can find.
Also, get a twitter account and watch lots of Anime related twitter accounts. You can get lots of news/headline and information and may help you get ideas.
Conclusion
My conclusion is that yes, there are so many things that can force take your motivation away from your website you've spent so hard building. When that happens, the important thing is to find out exactly what's causing it. Sometimes, you may not be able to, and that's fine. It's alright to take a little break and come back, I've done that heaps of times. But when you are motivated, it is important to store up as much content you can and not stop releasing them. Whatever you do, keep blogging and do what you love to do!
Image Source: yamaguchihoshiko, theshadowfallen
No comments:
Post a Comment