Pursue What Really Matters

Note from Kimanzi: I am out of the country speaking at WordCamp Sydney in Sydney, Australia (yeah!). While I’m away I’ve asked several bloggers to guest post in my place, enjoy! This is a guest post by Jim Woods who is a writer, coach, dreamer and chocolate chip cookie addict in Nashville, TN. You can read more of his posts at his blog here or find him on Twitter. If you would like to guest post on this blog, email a post to kimanzi@talesofwork.com

I was completely obsessed.

I checked my web traffic probably six times a day, maybe more. It was even worse if I did a guest post.

Usually, the traffic was going up. Very, very slowly, but it was going up.

Then one day after writing a guest post for another blog, my traffic dramatically dropped. My heart sank. My eyes teared up. I was pouring my soul into this work and no one cared. It made me bitter. Cynical. Angry. Hurt. All of the above.

I was ready to give up.

So much for having a career as writer.

Then I spoke to a friend I respected who had been blogging for years. She told me something very important that made me realize I had it all wrong.

“It’s not remotely about traffic. It’s about relationships. Who cares what the traffic was. You need to care about each person as a person, not a statistic.”

Thanks to that great advice, now I view web statistics as one small piece of the puzzle. I try to only view my traffic on a month by month basis. Day by day is too extreme and I know I can’t help but obsess over it.

I now gauge my success as a writer by the quality of relationships I have. Knowing that I can contact friends all over the world to talk about writing, life, or just to receive some encouragement means more than millions of page views from total strangers.

I challenge you to focus more on relationships. Relationships are what REALLY matters.

How can you improve the quality of relationships you have with others?

P.S. Dan Black will be moderating the comments while I’m away, thank you Dan!