Have you ever expressed thanks for having the material comforts that you enjoy?

Have you ever thought of yourself as a beggar?

We are all beggars.

We may live in large, air-conditioned homes with strong roofs and foundations.

We may possess many expensive things.

We may sleep in soft beds in quiet rooms at night.

But we are all beggars.

We beg the sun for warmth.

We beg the earth for food, water, air.

We beg others for friendship and love.

There is nothing that you have that makes you better than anyone else.

Never forget the poor.

For we are all beggars.

If you care, then why not serve your fellow beggars?

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This is part 6 of a 24-part series on good and bad business blogging attributes. Subscribe now to get updates for free. Thank you for supporting Visionary Blogging!

Do you ever lose hope regarding your business blog? Ever worry that business blogging may be wasting your time and money? Terrified of blog failure?

If so, you’re not alone. Many business bloggers experience despair to some degree. I sure have.

Here are some tips on how to develop hope in your professional blogging efforts and boost your blogging success.

What is hope?

Hope is a feeling that you can achieve your goals. It’s waiting with excitement and confidence for the future.

3 Ways Hope Can Help Your Business Blog

1. Business Blog Content – Your personality comes through naturally in your writing. So does your hope (or lack of it). If you’re a hopeful person, your blog will become more interesting and appealing.

2. Business Blog Community Building – The more hope you instill in your blog community of readers, commenters, subscribers and participants, the easier it will be to make that community grow.

3. Business Blog Monetization – People do business with people. And it’s much easier to want to do business with a person who’s positive and full of hope than with one of these.

7 Ways to Develop Hope in Your Business Blogging

1. Hopeful Learning – See Awareness. Approach each blogging day with a positive outlook. Thirst for knowledge and wisdom and resolve to use it to benefit your blog visitors. Set aside a few minutes each day to learn things that will make you feel more hopeful about your blog’s future. Read some good quotations about hope.

2. Hopeful Planning – See Focus and Discernment. Always have something to look forward to. Have a publishing calendar and stick to it. Spend a few minutes per day and/or per week to plan enjoyable and rewarding blog-related activities.

3. Hopeful Social Networking – Every day or week, take a little time to network with other bloggers in an uplifting way. Approach it not like it’s a chore, but like it’s a great opportunity to grow and connect.

4. Hopeful Music – See Imagination. Listen to encouraging music while you’re blogging. Maybe it will help you come up with excellent blog post ideas.

5. Hopeful Humor – Again, see Imagination. Nothin’ like a little laughter to spice up a blog (or its blogger). Get out there and get some laughs in you. Then get back to your blogging with a smile on your face. You’ll work harder.

6. Hopeful Content Promotion – Believe in your ability to promote your awesome blog content. Trust that people will enjoy it and talk about it and want more of it.

7. Hopeful Sales/Marketing – Make sure your calls to action for product/service purchases, or your blog advertising on display, are hope-compatible. Anything monetary ought to involve a touch of hope – that human spark that draws customers like bees to honey. So keep your language positive and confident when asking people to buy from you.

Why I Personally Care About Hope in My Pro Blogging

Visionary Blogging is all about working with hope. Without hope, you may as well blog with your eyes and ears closed. So it is with life.

Halfway through my senior year of high school, I almost gave up on life.

I almost lost hope.

Without good friends, I never would have recovered.

I am here right now because of hope.

What 3 Business Bloggers Say About Hope

Deb Ng: “Hope is watching my son care for nature and all living things and passing on the values passed to me gives me hope for the future.”

Kristen King: “My faith in God’s Kingdom gives me hope. Prayer, personal Bible study, and regular attendance at Christian meetings strengthen it.”

Robert Hruzek: “Hope is the anchor for the soul.” (see Hebrews 6:19)

Thanks to these fine folks for answering my Twitter request for thoughts on hope.

3 Exemplary Hopeful Business Bloggers

1. Terry Starbucker – Mr. Glass Half Full himself.

2. Liz Strauss – Liz is hope.

3. Wendy Piersall – Wendy’s story is amazing.

Watch This Video About Hope

I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope. – Red

You don’t have to consider yourself religious in order to have hope.

But you do need to have faith in order to have hope.

Ya gotta have a twinkle of hope, a flicker, at least. Let it grow into a flame.

You need to believe that somehow, things can get better. That somehow, you can get better.

That somehow, your professional blog can get better.

And make things better for others.

Thank you for visiting and for adding to my hope for this blog. I hope that this article helps you succeed as a professional blogger.

What helps you develop hope as a blogger? Got any advice to share?

photo credit: Unhindered by Talent

photo credit: *L*u*z*a*

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Related Articles

1. How to Develop Faith (Business Blog Ally #2)
2. Visionary Blogging Ally #1: Courage
3. How to Overcome Business Blogging Despair

Previously you learned how to overcome fear, an enemy to blogging with vision. Now let’s talk about fear’s opposite, courage – what it is, why it matters to business blog success and how to increase your courage as a professional blogger.

What is courage?

Courage is a quality that enables you to face scary things without fear. It’s fearlessness. It’s the power to be honest about your circumstances and skills. It’s doing what you need to do despite opposition.

Why is courage an important ally to business blogging?

Let’s face it: Blogging is hard. Sure, blogs make publishing and conversation easy. But their easiness only makes them harder to leverage. If anyone can do it, how do you stand out from the crowd?

Plus, when you blog, you stick your company’s reputation out like a chicken’s neck under the knife of the public eye. You risk damaging your brand, alienating your clientele … and wasting your time and money.

That’s why courage is one of the most important virtues you can cultivate as a blogger (and, for that matter, as a professional).

What does courage have to do with visionary blogging?

Everything. In order to be a visionary blogger, you’ve got to have a strong sense of purpose for your blog. You also need the determination to follow through with your blogging plans. Diligence, the fifth element of the Visionary Blogging method, dies on the vine without courage. And when that happens, the blog’s key metrics for success tend to shrither (that’s shrivel and wither) as well.

How can you strengthen your courage as a business blogger?

Great question. Here are 5 tips to increase your blogging courage:

1. Learn about your blogging fears. You might not even know you have them, but once you track ‘em down, you can think about how to overcome ‘em. (See Awareness.)

2. Carefully set lofty goals. If you’re not aiming for the mountaintop, it could be that you need to muster up some extra guts. (See Focus.)

3. Decide to bounce back from blogging failure. No need to wallow. Up and at ‘em. We all make mistakes. (Betcha I’ve made more than you when it comes to blogs.)

4. Start each blogging day with a miniature pep rally. You might just make or break your blogging success in the first 15 minutes of each day at the blog grind. Do you start by gazing nervously at your traffic stats, or do you begin with a spin?

5. Give another blogger courage. Leave a comment on another blog. Send a friendly advice-filled email. Make a phone call. Just do it to make someone else feel stronger. And you’ll naturally feel a boost of Vitamin C (Courage, that is) yourself.

I’m sure you can come up with other ways. Perhaps there’s a tactic you’ve used successfully to expand your blogging courage. I’d love it if you left a comment below letting us know your thoughts.

I just want to take a moment here to thank you, the Visionary Blogging reader, for giving me courage to make a business out of helping people use blogs more effectively. Thanks for being here. It encourages me to no end. I hope to encourage you as well as we move forward together.

As Paul McCartney croons, “Many times I’ve been alone, and many times I’ve cried … anyway, you’ll never know the many ways I’ve tried.” Courage means facing that long and winding road with your gaze fixed in front of you, no matter what obstacles stand in your way.

Blogging can be scary. But you can be a courageous business blogger. And, if you like, I can help you do it.

Stay tuned for my next post on a particularly nasty enemy to visionary blogging.

photo credit: CarbonNYC

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Related Articles

1. How to Develop Faith (Business Blog Ally #2)
2. Business Blog Ally #3: How to Develop Hope
3. 24-Part Series: Visionary Blogging Allies and Enemies