Grant Baldwin’s Blog

I was talking with some friends the other day and we started discussing why people blog. A few of us in the group blog fairly regularly and a few others hadn’t ever really messed with it. So I started thinking through why I blog. Here are a couple of thoughts I came up with:

• I think blogging provides some degree of intrinsic value. It’s a daily discipline that I do to stay consistent.
• Blogging helps me to pay attention more to what is going on around me. So often because of our busy lives, we miss what is going on around us but if I want to have something of substance to blog about, I have to be aware of the world around me.
• Sometimes if I’m personally thinking something through or kicking something around, blogging is an outlet to help me process that.
• I like to think that maybe, just maybe, my writings will help/encourage/challenge/inspire others in their own lives. Hopefully I give you something to think about and chew on…
• In a sense, I’m also creating a diary, a “man journal” of my life. To think that my kids and maybe even grandkids could come back someday and read some of this is a cool thought…
• It is a good way to update family/friends on what is going on in my life. Things such as snakes that I kill or what time zone I’m in this week…
• I like the networking aspect of having a blog. I meet other people who have read my blog or come across it and don’t think it is a complete waste!
• Hopefully each time I write something, my writing is getting better. I’m working on a book right now and hope to write more books in the future and blogging is a good opportunity to hone your skills, or lack thereof.
• My mom reads it.

Part of the reason it’s important to answer this question, not just about blogging, but for anything you do, is so that you continue to evaluate why do you what you do. Isn’t it true how you may start doing something but then 6 months later, you’re not really sure why you started doing it in the first place? Or maybe you’ve been doing something the same way for years and you’re convinced you can’t change it because “you’ve always done it that.”

Think through your average day, week, month, whatever, and ask yourself if there are things you’re doing that maybe you should reevaluate the value of…