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What is 2,477?

That is the all-time most views for the blog, which happened in 2020. I was close to topping it last year in 2022 but fell short at 2,254 views.

My blogging goal for 2023 is to exceed these numbers. The plan (the CRAZY plan) so far to meet this goal is to post twice a week, or 104 posts in the year. This was 26 more posts than in 2020, when I wrote 78, and more seats than in 2021 and 2022. One thing to note about the 2020 stats is that I posted 28 times with a total of 841 views because I wanted to. I will not repeat that because I worked part-time then, and this was before I had Long Covid.

Ah… I regret making this decision to post twice a week… That’s a total of 104 posts in a year.

My goal for 2023 is to exceed 2,477 views.

For new bloggers, it is wise to ignore the views each post gets and the overall views your page receives. This is because it is more important to focus on discovering and polishing your writing routine, discovering how many posts you can publish that are high quality and stand out from other blogs, mastering the art of writing and blog writing, learning about and increasing mastery of SEO, and patience because it takes time to build an audience. Of course, if your blogging goal is to use it as a journal or post whatever for whomever, this doesn’t apply. That is okay too.

I’m the type of person that likes stats and feedback. Math is not a strength, and I was all right at it in school. I like stats and analytics because of the book Moneyball by author Michael Lewis. I got into this book right when the Seattle Mariners baseball team was a few years into its playoff slump, and this book led me to Sabermetrics which Bill James pioneered before Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane was introduced to the concept to become a successful baseball team with a small budget.

(The movie adaptation is solid and I would recommend watching it. If you are interested, I would recommend reading the book and watching the movie, as both are excellent for their formats.)

When I started blogging a couple of years ago, I naturally started the same process of figuring out how to be successful with the information I had available to me with the resources I had at the time, which weren’t much. I was at rock bottom emotionally, recently laid off, and barely hanging on with unemployment, the pandemic started, and everything shut down. I didn’t feel safe seeing friends or family. While I was living with my mother, she had her own struggles then to face, so I had to learn to support myself and learn how to heal on my own at the darkest time in my life.

Thankfully I gave therapy one more shot and was assigned an excellent therapist who was part of a wonderful mental health organization called Sound Mental Health.

For me, blogging is multiple things. I use it to track my life, journal publically, grow as a writer, and challenge myself. It is a way to hold myself accountable and prove that I can do better and deserve better. I like blogging because it’s a perpetual goal to write. Being an excellent writer is one part of it. In this world, to stand out, you have to acquire skills in multiple areas. If I want to be an author, showrunner, or professional writer, I need to view writing and my brand as a small business.

Naturally, as I change, I want the blog to change and grow. Therefore, I like the traffic to my blog posts to increase and the blog traffic to grow.

Blogging and this website are something that I have complete autonomy over. Its success or lack of it is tied to how much time and effort I put into it.

Blogging/writing makes me feel alive.

I feel I best express myself through writing. I think it’s the one way I can impact the world.

Blogging feels better than being an anonymous message board person. People read and react to your comments, but it’s not the same as coming up with an idea for a long piece, writing it, editing it, and posting it online for everyone worldwide to see. It feels good when people follow you and connect with what you wrote. It feels good to build something that is yours.

At times it makes me crazy because I’m pressed for time. I need to write before work because I’ll be too exhausted to write after work. Bloggers need day jobs like most creative people. Sometimes I do have the energy and clarity of mind, but… I have no idea what to write. And the only way to get it done is to grind the post out one word at a time until you discover inspiration.

No more excuses, Reilly

One day the pandemic will end, and I won’t have to be afraid of catching a deadly strain of covid. Maybe this will be in a year from now. Once China recovers from this current covid wave, the world will feel safe. There is the threat of the XBB strain here in the US, but thankfully I live in a city and state with a high vaccination rate. As long as I avoid packed places, continue to wear a mask, stay up to date with vaccine boosters, and avoid conservative political dominant areas of Washington state (because the vaccine rate is lower here and every other conservative dominant county of the US), I’ll be safe. All that and avoid socializing in big groups in winter in closed spaces. All I can do at this point is protect my health. Safety is different from excuses.

This year will be the one where I finally heal from trauma. Make this the year where you grow up. Make this the year you finally follow through on things you said you wanted.

3/104 posts done for 2023. As of the time of this post at 719am, 123 views have been achieved toward the year goal of 2477+.

Thank you for reading! I hope that you enjoyed this post! Have you set a goal for 2023? If so tell me what it is in the comments below!

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New Posts for 2023 will be on Mondays and Thursday mornings, before noon, Pacific Standard Time.

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