Blogging ain’t easy. Just ask the hundreds of bloggers that quit within the first three months.  You might have lurked around your favorite blogs and thought that you could do it too, so you started your blog.  You’ve now you’ve hit a wall and want to quit.   So what do you do?

Reflect on why you started

Ask yourself, “why did I begin blogging”?  You must have an absolute passion for the idea behind your blog.  It has to be something that you surround yourself with, and wouldn’t mind talking about endlessly.  Because ultimately, if your blog is to make it, that’s exactly what you will do.  If you’re  not motivated enough to talk about your topic all the time, your readers will sense it and they won’t come back.

Reevaluate your expectations

If you had hoped to have 100,000 readers a month within the first year, and did not have an absolutely killer marketing plan, your expectations might be too high.  Lots of great blogs get around 100 visitors a day after they have been blogging for some time.

If you thought that you would make hundreds of dollars each month in  advertising revenue, and you are not, ask your fellow bloggers what they are doing to earn revenue so that you can learn from the best.

Upgrade your knowledge

Increase your knowledge not just in your particular subject area, but on the craft of blogging itself.  Sites like Problogger and John Chow make hundreds of thousands of dollars each year teaching people how to blog professionally.  There is always something to learn.

Take a break

Sometimes you just develop writer’s block.  It happens to the best of us.  Solicit guest posts or articles from your fellow bloggers.  Good bloggers are always willing to cross promote, and you can gain some new readers from sharing your web space with a new writer.

Is it time to quit?

Stuff happens!  Life intervenes, you get busy, you add a new child to your family, you move, or your interest changes.  The best part about being human is the ability to make decisions for yourself.

If after taking a break you decide that blogging is not for you, it’s okay to quit!  We won’t judge you for it.  Just be sure to tell your fellow bloggers and readers good-bye in a post. As bloggers we forget that our readers feel as if they know us, and when you disappear without saying that you are gone, they feel as if you left them standing at the altar.

If you need help, always remember that your fellow bloggers are here to help you.  I hit a major wall and stopped blogging for about a month after receiving a whopping tax bill, but it was with the help of my fellow bloggers that I made it through that time.  We can, and will, do the same for you.  Don’t quit!

Have you ever thought of quitting blogging? How did you get through it?

Sandy runs the blog Yes, I Am Cheap where she is chronicling her methods of getting out of debt and sharing some stories about her tenant from hell in the process.