How long have you been blogging for? I would say four years. That's almost as long as I have been running this website, which has been a blog in some form or other the majority of the time. But to be a touch more honest and accurate, it's more likely to be four months in total.
Writing demands thought, which involves mental energy. Blogging demands creative thought, which must be maintained in order to keep the blog 'alive'. And this takes a lot of effort and motivation to consistently be making posts on an every-couple-of-days basis. Put that alongside writing to yourself on a simple computer screen and it's not too difficult to understand why many bloggers, like me, seem to make completely sporadic posts which are sourced from only spurts of motivation and creative thinking. And boredom. Sometimes I steal a slice of inspiration from another website or blog and try and encapsulate that here on oziz. I continue on my quest to achieve the success and popularity others have experienced however, after a while I lose interest - something else in life picks up or I get tired of the effort required; what's the point, what am I gaining in blogging?
If I had something better and more productive to do right now, I would not be writing this entry. The reason I am making this post is because I have been motivated by this group writing project on 'blog goals'. The motivation is gaining a link on problogger, and having not much better to do (despite examinations starting the end of this week). Similarly, my past blogging bursts of creative energy can be attributed to other incentives which I perceive to benefit oziz and my satisfaction, such as ranking in Google for certain themes I write about. Alternatively discovering sources to write up about gives me the motivation to make a blog. Recently I dugg up this site which is community news website. At other times (seemingly during the gloomy winter season) I just want to get something out of my head and onto a computer screen. Writing does help to clear up your thoughts. However, this can conflict with my readers' interests who are looking to read something mildly interesting. Post-Christmas life is more than dull. I apologise now for that crap.
Anyway, to the topic - blogging goals. Setting goals is a very good method of acheiving and forcing some sort of motivation out of you. I tried this technique recently in developing a revision timetable where my days were divided into segments each of which had a topic to revise. Following a timetable gave my structure to my revision and it is had to ignore due to the guilt trip I imposed on myself if I didn't stick to it. Needless to say, I don't actually use the one I made because it didn't fit my method of learning. There were too many topics in a day, so I adapted it a little but the time slots are still in my head.
I think this is a bit off-topic again. My main goal for blogging is really to acheive self-satisfaction which I measure on the number of visitors I get to parts, and all, of my website. It's difficult to explain, it's like a game. If I blog then I know that's more content stored on my website which is another topic to be indexed in Google (and other websites). This bit is my goal really - seeing my daily visitor number grow. It must be weird to read, but I guess it's related to that self-satisfaction motive.
At the end of the day, I don't really gain much from blogging except enjoying the excitement of watching the unique hits to my website develop and noting how people get here. Blogging is sometimes personal venture which helps to clarifies thoughts and at other times a drive for success. But most of the time it's because I just have nothing better to do.