I know this title sounds a bit batty at first.
But most bloggers harbor some fear regarding being completely honest with their readers.
Why?
Being fully honest, transparent and totally clear on your thinking, feeling and experiences scares the heck out of most bloggers. Most bloggers feel terrified to admit failures, doubts and fears for fear of looking like a fraud, not credible and unfollow-worthy. Other bloggers fear poking holes in their perfectly crafted, flawless, spotless online image.
But if you fear being honest with your readers you lack both the rock solid credibility and peace of mind to rocket to the top of your niche. Readers cannot connect en masse with a perfect online persona because humans have problems and cannot relate to bloggers without problems. I connect with successful bloggers who have failed horribly and share it because I have sat in that boat. I do not trust bloggers who never share their failures because I know they are lying, or, choose to cover the truth.
Try this dramatic exercise on for size to assess how much you fear – or do not fear – being honest with your readers.
Being Honest About Emotionally-Charged Experiences
I recently wrote about how my mom's terminal illness and mother-in-law's death both had a profound effect on my blogging career, allowing me to suffer, to feel pain, to grieve and to clear deep fears which accelerated my blogging growth. My post was raw, genuine, transparent and yes, publishing the post made me feel vulnerable. One part of me feared being honest about the experience for a number of reasons. I feared depressing people, focusing on the past, or even triggering people who have not addressed grief suppressed after losing one or both parents.
But I wrote and published the post to test where I was at with being honest about both experiences and how each helped to mold me as a blogger.
Moving in a different direction, I also published a few posts about my experience with Sasquatch in the forests of New York state in the USA. I definitely feared being honest in this regard because I feared being:
- laughed at
- criticized
- mocked
- labeled as crazy
because most people believe Sasquatch – aka Bigfoot – is not real, a myth, or a joke. I knew Sasquatch was real before my encounter based on honest reports from trustworthy people but:
- hearing what sounded like a 500 pound silverback gorilla grunt in a remote forest (my wife Kelli heard it too)
- hearing wood knocks behind the tree line 30 yards away (Sasquatch do this to communicate)
in a forest with no human being within a 3-5 mile radius gave me the courage to overcome my fear so I could be honest with my readers and other honest folks terrified to share their experiences with the people of the forest.
Once you delve into deep, pulsating fears about being honest, the lesser fears associated with being honest feel like small potatoes. As a matter of fact, you will be completely honest, trustworthy and credible throughout your entire blogging campaign after you honestly share experiences stirring up your deepest fears. I've always been transparent on my blog but now I can share my wins-losses, successes-failures, fears and loves seamlessly, with no hesitation, because I was truthful with my readers concerning these 2 highly uncomfortable experiences for me to write about.
I suggest you share honest experiences triggering your deepest fears to get clear and comfortable with telling your readers your truth without feeling scared to do it.
eBook
Being honest tends to stir up some critics here and there.
How do you deal with these folks?
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