Today is our fourth birthday and we’re proudly looking back at all we’ve accomplished in the last four years. There have been so many ups and downs and we’ve learned a lot. Today, we’re sharing four lessons we’ve learned in the last four years. They’ve helped us with the blog and we’re sure they’ll help you too!
Lesson One: Nothing good comes easy
Four years ago when I first had the idea to start Silly Fish, I was convinced it would be an overnight success. Social Media is an absolute liar when it tells you that you can make mega bucks from a blog in ‘X’ amount of months. Sure, some people do – but for the majority of us, blogging is more of a passion project than a goldmine. Four years in, we’ve had a lot of setbacks and a huge amount of what I originally set out to accomplish has still not happened. I even had to press pause on the blog for a good chunk of time because I simply didn’t have the resource to dedicate to it. But throughout the four years we’ve had clients who have come back every year. We’ve had readers who waited patiently for our return when things went quiet. So many times I wanted to throw in the towel, but I’m so glad I didn’t! With time and dedication, anything is possible. Which leads me on to the next of our four lessons…
Lesson Two: Be Patient and Realistic
As I explained above, blogs are usually not an overnight success. No matter how great your ideas are, these things often take time. Being patient and believing in my idea hasn’t always been easy. I’ve had to continually reassess our targets and set more realistic deadlines to achieve everything we’re aiming for.
More importantly, I’ve had to be more realistic with myself. I can’t create three new resources and write four new blog posts and share on social media and write client scripts and attend meetings and teach classes. Sometimes, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. It’s not always easy to be patient with yourself, but in order to be successful it’s important to set realistic targets and understand when you need to press pause on one thing so you can focus on something else. Being patient with myself has been one of the most difficult but most important lessons to learn.
Lesson Three: Ask For Help
The best thing we ever did was open the blog up to contributors. Allowing more teachers to share their ideas on the website helped to free up a huge amount of my time to focus on many of the other aspects of the business.
Not only did this help to share the load, but it also meant that we were able to get even more ideas and even more perspectives. It’s so important to draw on the experiences of different teachers to give more complete advice to those in need. It helped to improve our website overall while also giving other teachers a platform to share their ideas without having to worry about all the administrative burdens of running a blog.
Lesson Four: Celebrate the Little Wins
It can be so easy to look at all the things you haven’t done yet and feel deflated. It’s important to really celebrate those little wins when they happen to help you find perspective. Sometimes it’s a nice comment or review. Sometimes it’s hitting a new target for monthly views. Every now and then it’s getting a new client. Every little victory adds up to a huge amount of success. It’s been humbling to look back on all the work that has taken place over the last four years and to really take stock of where we are and how far we’ve come.
The future is looking even brighter! Watch this space.
