Why Blogging Makes You More Professional

Professional blogging as a mean for personal growth

Forget about money and fame that (sometimes) come with being a professional blogger.
Even if the only 2 people who are reading your blog are your parents – you are doing something good for yourself and here’s why:

In education theories there is a thing called the Learning Pyramid (see image below). It divides the way you learn something into passive and active methods. The closer you are to the base of the pyramid, the more active you get and the learning effect is higher and more memorable.
Teaching others is at the bottom of the pyramid and for a good reason. It’s the most active way to learn.

The way I see it, being a professional blogger is exactly like trying to teach the world something – your point of view, your latest theory, a trend review, mentoring tips or even just sharing an insight you have.

The process you go through from conceiving the post idea to the finished article holds so many benefits to it. I’m fairly new to professional blogging but I’ve already noticed a change in myself – both a professional and a personal one.

The Professional Benefits

In order to articulate an idea or explain something, you have to first organise your thoughts and find the best examples and words to describe it. This process makes a lot of cognitive connections between what you already know and what you have experienced. It forces you to consider this connection between the theoretical aspects of what you know and the practical experience you had with it.

 “While we teach, we learn,” said the Roman philosopher Seneca.

By tracing your own learning journey and reflecting on it you are making it a more accessible and memorable piece of knowledge inside your head. It is now more structured and solidified and definitely more organised than before.

Which brings me to the next point – When you are writing things in a structured way, you start to realize you are following processes you didn’t even know you have in place. In some cases you actually create new processes based on what you wrote. Isn’t it an amazing outcome?

The effect of writing professional blog articles is so big that you can find yourself thinking about the blog you would write before you even start your work on a specific project/experiment/strategy etc. (I call it the pre-reflective effect). It’s interesting to see how those tasks turn out to be much more organized and structured, just because of this mental exercise you are automatically running in your head. On top of it, since you really want this post to be about a success story, you work even harder to get the job done right!

The Personal Benefits

When you are writing a blog article you are usually looking for inspiration, examples, images and things that other people wrote on that matter, in order to make your point clearer or stronger.
This research process is broadening your horizons whether you like it or not.

You also realise you do know a thing or two about what you do. There’s no better way to boost your confidence than understanding you ARE a professional in your industry.

Another benefit is that you get to meet new people and hear their opinions, engage in discussions, improve your communication skills and grow your personal brand.

To be a professional blogger or not to be, that is the question…

Yes – being a professional blogger is hard and god knows it’s time consuming. It’s definitely not for everyone.

BUT

Not only you are doing your business a favour by creating content for its inbound marketing strategy, you are actually making a change in yourself – and it’s worth every minute you spend on it.

What do you think? comment below or tweet me your thoughts @yifi

Image source: gtbank.com