Before I started blogging I only ever thought about and read about how great it is. Don’t get me wrong, it is pretty incredible, however there are plenty of downsides that bloggers seem to rarely talk about.

At this point in time I am a full time affiliate marketer/blogger and I honestly love it. It is seriously the best job I have ever had.

With that being said… it is still a job, and like any other job there are some downsides to it.

5 Downsides To Blogging

Success Takes Time

I know the idea of being your own boss, creating your own schedule, and working wherever you want sounds incredible, but it takes time to get to that point.

If you’re anything like how I was in the beginning, you probably have plenty of other obligations right now that make it hard to work on your website.

When I first started my website I worked a full time job that was physically demanding, went to school part time, and had a girlfriend I wanted to spend as much time as possible with.

With all of these other things to do it can take quite a bit of time to start making money from you website.

It took me around 3 months before I even started making money, and a year before I quit my job.

And it honestly only happened that fast because I got some pretty incredible training.

A year of work is nothing compared to the freedom that you earn when you go full time, but it’s hard to make through though.

Easy To Get Discouraged

I want to talk about something I haven’t really talked about before because it’s actually kind of personal.

Well here it goes.

When I first started working on my website, I wanted it to work so bad that I would regularly have panic attacks because I would get worried that it wouldn’t work.

My schedule was pretty crazy at the time, this is how it looked most days.

I would go to work from 7 am to 4, get off work and drive straight to class for about an hour and a half, get home about 6ish, eat, do my homework, then work on my website from 8 to 10 o’clock.

About 2 to 3 months of doing that without seeing any money coming in did a toll on me.

I would randomly freak out and not be able to sleep (even though I was exhausted) because I was worried that I was doing all of my website work for nothing.

Most nights, every fiber in my body wanted to just skip by website, and just go to sleep. Yet whenever I did that I wouldn’t be able to sleep because I knew I was slacking.

Looking back at those days I literally have no idea how I did it, but I am incredibly thankful that I stuck through it.

If I could make it through that then I’m sure you can succeed with your blog as well. I’m sure many of your schedules are worse than mine, but I have faith that you can do it.

Those first 3 to 6 months might be Hell, but you can and will make it out if you just keep going.

You Need To Be Consistent

Have you ever heard of the Law of Averages? Well it strongly applies to blogging.

The more often you write, the more chances you have of getting a post to rank #1 in Google.

The more chances you have at it going viral on Pinterest, or it being shared by someone with a huge following.

You have to just keep working at it, even when you have no will to do it at all. I had those times in the past, and I still continue to have those days now.

It was obviously harder for me to remain consistent when I had an incredibly full schedule, but it is still difficult for me even now that I have tons of time.

It can be easy to procrastinate, or just skip work for an entire day or even week. Especially when you have other things in your life that you want to spend time doing.

I have a 1 year old son right now, and I honestly just want to spend every moment of everyday with him and his mom.

And that is something that I struggle with almost everyday, but luckily I found something that helps.

I simply wake up early, knock out most of my work, and have the rest of the day to spend with them.

Well not exactly…

You’re Always At Work

It may sound like a contradiction, but it is possible to struggle with not working enough and working too much at the same time.

Even though I wake up early and knock out most of my daily work in the morning, there is always more work to do as a blogger.

There’s always comments to answer, social media to deal with, upgrades you want to make on your site. There is always something, and it can be hard to escape that.

For the longest time, I had all of my accounts linked directly to my phone, so anytime anything happened I was immediately notified.

Well once my website started picking up, it started taking up more and more of my attention everyday.

I’m sure some bloggers would recommend you getting notifications, but It just became too much for me.

I learned and am still learning how to properly prioritize my tasks so that I don’t end up spending all of my time focused on my website.

It seriously got to the point where I had my face in my phone a large portion of the day, and was just constantly thinking about my work.

It’s important to think of ways to make your website and business better, but it’s also important to find the balance between work, everyday life, and family time.

Friends and Family

This is something that will vary from person to person, but I’ve found that many people will think you are crazy when you tell them what you are doing.

I honestly only told a couple of my closest friends that I was starting a website in the beginning.

Most of them were supportive, but I could tell that they thought I was crazy and that I would never make any money from it.

Even to this day many of the people I talk about it with don’t seem to understand the potential there is in blogging…but I guess that is their loss.

Let’s go to the day I told my parents I was quitting my job to focus on my website.

At the time I wasn’t making quite as much money as I did at my day job, but I was making enough to know that I could make a lot more with some time.

Luckily my parents are great and were completely supportive, but I could still sense that they thought I was making a mistake.

You will come across supportive people, and you will come across people who think you’re an idiot. Just don’t worry about them because you can just smile at them while they go into their day job.

It’s All Worth It

Although there are plenty of struggles that come along with blogging, it is still leaps and bounds better than the alternative.

I’m not writing this to discourage you from starting your own blog, I am writing this to give you realistic expectations.

If you start your blog thinking you are going to be successful in a couple months, you’re going to be disappointed and possibly give up.

You could be writing for years before you bring in acceptable amounts of money.

I strongly suggest you get the proper training if you want to shorten the amount of time it takes.

If you stick to it, find the right balance of work, and ignore the doubters, you will be able to one day complain to your readers about how hard it is to work at home on your computer.

The Downside Of Blogging – What No One Talks About