Another Surprise Dream Come True
Last week, I had another surprising dream come true. Number 9 on my list of 12 dreams for this year was to have 500 readers on my blog in one month. On the third of every month I get a report from the team that designed and manages my website about how the previous month was.
It tells me things like how many people visited the blog, how many times it was visited (usually a different number than total visitors), what pages were most popular, how they got to my website, etc. Early on, I decided that the metric I would track the most and make my goals off of would be how many people visited the blog. After all, that metric is what counts the most. It doesn’t necessarily matter which post was the most popular in any given month, although it is interesting. What matters is that I get people visiting, and then they come back for more because they see value in what I am doing.
The definition of a successful blog really depends on what your personal goals are. If the goal is to make the big bucks off of a blog, then having 20,000 to 50,000 visitors every day is the marker that I’ve come across most consistently. That’s not really my goal. I would love to make the big bucks one day, and that certainly is my goal, but I have never seen my blog as my primary revenue stream.
I started this as a way to grow my following since I know that is almost a requirement these days in the publishing industry. I started it to develop my skills in sharing and learning information. I started it to do something that would put me one step closer to a dream come true.
So, at the beginning of the year, I set the goal of having 500 visitors in one month. I want to share where I was when I set that goal so you have some context for how big that number felt. The blog launched on April 1, 2023, so we are quickly approaching the first anniversary (I definitely need to figure out a fun way to celebrate). At that time, I had eight months of metrics on the blog.
● April—111
● May— 95
● June— 66
● July— 72
● August— 94
● September— 69
● October— 77
● November— 53
I had seen an average of 79.625 visitors on the blog each month. With a track record of 80 people, I felt like 500 was a shoot for the sky number. And the reality is, it was. Since then, I’ve gotten a few more months of metrics
● December— 62
● January—79
With those two months, my average actually dropped down to 77.8 people each month. Here’s the thing, though. I look at these numbers every month, but I don’t read into them at all. I didn’t worry about a lousy month versus a good month, and writing this post is the first time I’ve actually done the math on my average. I knew that regardless of how good or bad the numbers were, my work wouldn’t change. I would still put out my three posts a week, and I had no timeframe on when I would stop trying.
This is my dream. I will stay in communion with this dream until it comes true, the door closes completely, or I am incapable of working on it anymore. I’m in this for the long haul, and I’ve got at least 15 more years under the current military spouse title. So, I couldn’t let the fact that I was having a low month or that this was going slower than I would have hoped slow me down.
I’ll throw another Big Magic quote at you to explain this point. Elizabeth Gilbert writes, “No way was I going to give up on my work simply because it wasn’t ‘working.’ That wasn’t the point of it. The rewards could not come from the external results.” That was my mindset with this writing. I always had results goals in mind associated with it, but the value of my work would never be based on the results it achieved. It wasn’t about that because I started this thing first and foremost to talk to myself. If the only one I ever helped was me, then I still think that makes a huge difference.
All this demonstrates where I was when I set this goal and for the past few months. That is until I got the email with my numbers for February, which read a whopping 1,136 users! That’s a 1338% increase from my previous month, and it’s still over 1,000 more than my best-ever month.
I’ll be honest; my initial thought was skepticism. I hadn’t done anything differently in February. My Instagram and Facebook accounts gained more followers, but it was the same steady, small-scale growth that I’ve experienced since I started posting consistently about a year ago. So, before I got too excited, I called up the website team and had them investigate. My biggest concern was that this was just a bunch of bots, and I had done something that brought them there. As much as I want numbers, I want real numbers. I am not interested in faking myself out with false success.
After a thorough investigation on their part, they didn’t find anything funky. I just had an excellent month. I get to check a goal off my 2024 list. Open a bottle of wine to celebrate. And then set a new goal. Let’s start aiming for 5,000.
No matter how long it takes me to hit 5,000, I will stay in the game. I’m going to get excited and celebrate because I’ve earned the win. But I am not going to start putting more weight into those numbers. The reality is I can easily get my metric email for next month and have it look the same as it has for the previous ten months. It could easily read 174, which is my new average and a significant drop from February.
I cannot put the worth of my work or place my joy on the numbers in that email. If I stay consistent, one day, that email will show that my goal has been achieved. I will remain consistent until that day comes, and when it does, I will celebrate, set a new goal, and get back to work. The wins are fun, and so is the work of chasing our dreams. It’s better to put my joy in the things I can control. My joy is continuing to show up for you and my dream every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.