Overcoming the Personality Ethic in Blogging
Posted by Moses on Sep 19, 2007
In my article Celebrating Character, I explored Stephen Covey’s concepts of Character and Personality Ethic. In summary, Character Ethic is the belief that success is based on the strength on one’s character. In contrary the Personality Ethic is the belief that success is determined by establishing the appearance and attitudes of success without putting in the effort for personal growth and character development.
As usual, I examined my own life and tried to see how I either consciously or unconsciously applied the Personality Ethic to my life. Much to my dismay, I found that my some of my actions were influenced by elements of the Personality Ethic. For example, throughout my academic career I relied on my intelligence to “get by” with above average grades, however had I put in the hard work necessary to truly excel, I believe that I could have had a brighter career. I can remember that at the time I would be honestly disappointed in my grades and myself for not achieving better grades and the status that came with it. I wanted to short-cut the process and not put in the effort to truly succeed.
Unfortunately, indulging in the Personality Ethic in one aspect of your life can allow it to spread to other areas. I now know that some of my lack of success as an entrepreneur is do to attempting to create the illusion of success without putting in the work necessary to truly succeed. One of my greatest weaknesses is being consistent, it’s not a question of being lazy, but rather of being immature enough to allow myself to be distracted by other activities instead of being focused. As a result, I have above average success as defined by the world with my above average paying job, but little success in other areas.
Blogging is an area in which you can allow the Personality Ethic to take hold and limit your success. What do I mean? If you are a blogger and exhibit the following behaviors, you might be following the Personality Ethic in your blogging;
- Constantly checking your stats (money earned, number of visitors)
- Expecting instant traffic because you just released your masterpiece
- Inconsistent writing
At one time or another nearly every blogger has exhibited these and similar behaviors and their is little harm in that. The danger occurs only when these types of behaviors become habits.
The “success without work” mentality that is fundamental to the Personality Ethic can harm others, but does the most harm to the person practicing the behaviors and habits instilled by the Personality Ethic. You can experience great external success by relying on the Personality Ethic, but because it relies on manipulation and control to portray an contrived image to the world, you will find yourself feeling empty and emotionally exhausted.
As bloggers, we are especially prone to engage in the behaviors endorsed by the Personality Ethic. Many bloggers inherently want the approval of others if for no other reason than to increase the traffic of their site. This could lead them to hiding much of who they are and what they truly believe in order to increase their appeal and level of acceptance.
However, there are plenty of bloggers that make the conscious choice to embrace the Character Ethic and achieve real success. Steve Pavlina is an example of a blogger that has chosen the Character Ethic as the path to success only after exploring the Personality Ethic earlier in his life. I too have chosen the Character Ethic to guide all aspects of my life. I hope you will too.
Tags: blogger, blogging, Character Ethic, habits, personal development, Personality Ethic, Stephen Covey
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Taking Your Blog to the Next Level
Posted by Moses on Jul 8, 2007
I know that I have been conspicuously absent this weekend especially for those looking for a post that focuses on personal development and Christianity. I have a good excuse. 
I’ve spent most of the weekend marketing Three Sticks. My regular readers know that I’ve changed the title of this blog over the past week going from Three Sticks — Empowering, Teaching, Healing to Three Sticks — Personal Development for Christians. Although, I’m not entirely satisfied by the title, because I don’t want to push away non-Christians, I am going to leave it for the foreseeable future until I come up with a title that makes the Christian and Personal Development themes of this blog readily evident.
Approximately, 1 week ago, I wrote an article entitled, Overcoming a Performance Plateau, which focused on my feeling like my performance had leveled off and how I planned to address it. When I spent more time examining my feelings, I realized that part of the reason I felt that way was due to the consistent stats I saw from Three Sticks. Unfortunately, those number are not where I want them to be and like any other blogger I need to increase the readership of my blog. The central issue has been marketing. Although, I have made some efforts to make Three Sticks popular see my article 20 Steps to Increase the Ranking of Your Blog 10X, I knew it was time to kick it up a level and really increase my reach.
I have come up with the following plan to take Three Sticks to the next level. The plan is broken into goals which are supported by objectives that in turn are supported by activities. The goals are measurable and provide a direction for the objectives and activities. The objectives are concrete requirements that increase the likelihood of meeting a specific goal, but also translate into specific activities. The activities are the actions that I will undertake to meet the objectives.
Goals:
- Increase the revenue generated by Three Sticks
Increase the traffic to Three Sticks
Increase the number of people that I help
Objectives:
- Increase the number of links to Three Sticks
- Increase the number of RSS subscriptions to Three Sticks
- Increase the relevance of Three Sticks for Personal Development and Christianity in such engines
Activities
- Increase the number of articles I publish in a month — I need to give readers a reason to come and visit the site every day
- Increase the number of search engines, RSS feed aggregators and directories that include Three Sticks
- Make the title more relevant
- Submit articles to blog carnivals every week
- Review the SEO for Three Sticks to make sure that I am using the appropriate HTML in the appropriate places
- Increase the number of high-quality comments and trackbacks I leave on other sites
Over the past 2 weeks, I have tackled each of these activities. I spent this past weekend submitting Three Sticks to the search engines, directories and RSS feed aggregators listed at the following sites:
- Ari Paparo Dot Com’s Big List of Blog Search Engines
- Fagan Finder Blogs and RSS Search Engines
- Blog Search Engine’s Where To Submit Your RSS
- Add URL.nu A Great List of Free SEO Friendly Directories
I have made it through the first 3 links and 100 of 985 directories listed at Add URL for a total of approximately 250 directories. Over the next month I will complete the Add Url.nu list.
I believe that consistent attention to these activities over the next several months will make my goals into reality. I have included the links to the directory listings for others to use.
Tags: blog directories, blog search engines, blogging, directories, feed aggregator, performance, RSS, RSS feed, search engines, SEO, site news, Three Sticks
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