I started blogging in 2014 with the intention of using social media to inspire the world. It took me only three blog posts to have my first viral article about how I transformed my life.

I’m going to tell you step-by-step how I became a viral blogger and achieved online success.

Step 1: Begin with no end in mind.

Listen to a friend who tells you to share your message and do it even though you have no idea what the end looks like. Write for a blog no one has ever heard of with a catchy, yet weird title. Become addicted to your craft and see where it leads you.

Act as if you are eight years old again and dream big. Even when it makes no sense, still dream big. A lot of people won’t understand why you’re doing it and that’s okay. What matters is you’re exploring your own ideas and feelings.

“What matters is you’re taking every bit of experience you have and sharing that with everyone”

The self-help books are wrong. You can try everything, but you’ll never predict the future. Your future will always be more beautiful than you could ever predict yourself. Embrace it.

Step 2: Fall flat on your face.

Lose all your material possessions and learn again what it’ like to live with a 2009 Mac computer and nothing else but your clothes. Take a job in a call centre for a company you know nothing about because a homeless friend of yours tells you to.

Eat canned vegetable soup every day that you buy on special once a month from the local supermarket. Learn to be humble as hell again while eating your canned soup and also eat sh*t in the form of your career.

Clock in at 11 am and clock out at 9 pm with only a 45-minute lunch break and some quick 15-minute breaks. Use your old Nokia phone with a numerical keypad (when everyone else has a smartphone) to time your breaks, so you don’t get in trouble with the call centre team leader.

To make things worse, tell your boss’s boss in the call centre that you used to be a successful entrepreneur and have him laugh very loud at you. Go back to your desk and eat some more sh*t.

Step 3: Refuse to do anything else.

Each night when you get home from work, refuse to do anything other than blogging. Resist the temptation to watch videos on YouTube and start writing and formatting articles. Spend hours trying to find the right photo for each piece you write because you care about your audience.

Have people you work with think you’ve lost the plot because you attended a Tony Robbins event.

Spend all the savings you have to buy the ticket to the event and crush your fear of flying at the same time on the way there. Walk on fire, meet a guy from a bank and watch your life change.

Know that personal development is crucial to any pursuit in life including blogging.

Step 4: Never give in to the haters.

As you accumulate a library of content online, watch the haters who are upset at the world find their way to your work.

Watch them take a metaphorical dump in the comment section of your articles.

Take the relevant feedback and delete everything else they say from your mind. Resist the temptation to leave a smart-ass comment, block them or dwell on their ideas. Haters come and haters go. Their problem is with themselves, not with you.

Step 4: Keep going…

After two years, watch not much happen. There will be a few milestones and highs but the vast majority of your work will be ignored or be invisible to most. Keep going.

Despite all the negative thoughts in your head about why you suck at blogging, or have nothing valuable to say, or look ridiculous in professionally shot bio photos, keep going.

Step 5: And some more…

After another year, watch the same nothingness transpire and still keep going. Take a promotion from your dead-end call centre job to another call centre where you can work from home.

“Watch people continue to laugh at you because you went from being an entrepreneur to a call centre operator”

Know that your dead-end job is teaching you valuable sales skills that you’ll later share in articles written about the topic. These sales focused blog posts will eventually go viral later on even though you don’t realize it now.

Even when it seems like no one is listening, keep going – people are listening, by the way.

Step 6: Post on LinkedIn despite the fact it could ruin your career.

Have your boss tell you to try something new. Decide to join LinkedIn even though you’re scared that people you hate from your entrepreneurial days will find you and want to upset you.

Know that posting on social media when you work for a brand name company is risky and do it anyway. Be bold and do the following:

• Use swear words (if that’s how you talk)
• Share embarrassing moments
• Post career stories about people at work that piss you off and risk them finding out

Play Russian Roulette with your career because you know that your vision is bigger than you and your intentions are in the right place.

Use swear words, embarrassing moments and career stories to inspire rather than impress people. Keep posting on LinkedIn daily even though your self-help advice seems out of place on a business networking platform.

Step 7: Overcome mental health issues and talk about it.

At the same time as blogging, overcome mental health issues. Take the plunge and get professional help and make a decision to be the best version of yourself. Try everything from self-talk, books, weird card reading fortune teller imposters, medication and even alcohol to make things better.

Come to the realization that mental illness can only be overcome by getting up close and personal with yourself.

Go through a process of self-discovery. Stop giving a fuck about what people think along the way. You’re sick and you need help. End of story.

Once you end the burden of mental illness, blog about it. Tell people and share your stories. It’s the right thing to do and it will make you authentic to your audience.

Step 8: Follow someone you want to be.

Through blogging, find online mentors who you want to be like. Follow them on their social media channels and consume their content.

Surround yourself with people online who can inspire your own work and creativity. Become obsessed with what your online mentors do.

Step 9: Succeed with something that took 30-minutes to produce.

Come home from work one night, tired, grumpy and with a headache, and write an article about your successful friends. Keep it raw, forget grammar and post it straight away. Assume it’s going to flop and move on.

Wake up the next day and watch the one time you didn’t give a f*ck be your blogging career highlight so far.

“Understand in that moment that imperfection, authenticity and vulnerability are all that matters in blogging”

Step 10: Have a high volume of failed romantic relationships.

Meet a girl, date her for three years and realize she’s not the one. Meet another girl at work and become indoctrinated by religion. Realize who you really are and leave that girl too.

Go on more than fifty Tinder dates in a matter of months even though you’ve never done online dating and might be spotted by your friends and co-workers. Find a short, little cutie that lets you blog and doesn’t bust your chops. Fall in love. Keep blogging.

Step 11: Release anger that’s built up.

Realize you’re pissed off at your dad for a bunch of stuff he didn’t do on purpose and forgive him. See that he’s only trying to set you up for success using the models of the world that you view as out of date.

See his intentions for what they are. Release the anger towards him and keep blogging.

Step 12: Forgive.

When Christmas rolls around, make the decision to forgive your brother for the BS problems he caused you when you were in business together. Have a family dinner with him and your parents and watch them be proud. Go home after dinner and keep blogging.

Step 13: Continue working a career that no longer makes sense.

Realize this fact and then apply the same dating process mentioned earlier to your career. Decide that your next business or job is going to be something closely aligned with your passion.

Open up LinkedIn one day and have the owner of the business you’ve always wanted to work for message you asking for a phone call. Spend 15-minutes on the phone with him and have goosebumps all over your body.

Have a second phone call with him and experience the same thing again. Have him tell you he’s flying over to come and see you and allow you access to the very people that inspired you to blog in the first place.

Step 14: Narrow down your platforms.

Delete low performing social media channels and force yourself to focus on two from now on.

“Despite the career highlights, don’t get all cocky and keep blogging through the high’s, just like you did the lows”

Step 15: Never give up.

After four and a bit years and doing everything you can to make yourself a better person, make one final decision: never give up.

Moral of the story: Being a viral blogger is about more than just blogging.

Through all of the struggles, your blogging career will eventually happen once you find out who you are and the value that you bring to the world.

Life experience only makes your blogging better and there’s a story in almost everything that happens to you.

Remember the following from now on:

• Be proud of the struggles
• Never fall for the delusion of overnight success
• Focus, succeed and focus again
• Keep blogging and make it a habit
• Don’t ignore everything else that surrounds your blogging like your health and family

If you want to be a viral blogger, then understand it’s about more than just blogging, feature photos, secret blogging hacks, morning habits, influencers and social media.

Being a viral blogger starts with you.

If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net