Blogging milestones, what are they?

Recently there have been a number of people posting about personal 'milestones' they've achieved with their blogs. Nothing wrong with that at all, or indeed the milestones they've chosen to celebrate, and I applaud them in reaching their own personal goals. In fact, I think it's good to have targets or things that make you feel you're being successful, these things give you the energy and drive to carry on. Let's face it, it's these little things or achievements that keep you going, that push you forward to continue blogging, to do better. We all need those successes. However, I have to be honest and say I don't get the whole 100,000 or 200,000 hits thing. Until very recently I thought 100,000 hits was a pretty average thing to have achieved with a blog. I'm told, reliably it seems, by many people that 100,000 hits for a wargaming blog is a big thing. A very big thing. I'm also told that for someone to do that primarily without talking much about Games Workshop and in particular 40k is even more impressive. That I've also hit this 'milestone' in under 5 months is also seen by some as a big thing. But not to me it's not!

I was told to make a big thing out of it, but to be honest with you it really doesn't 'feel' like that big a deal to me. I was told getting 150 followers was a big deal as well, and don't get me wrong I'm absolutely over the moon that 150+ people have felt that what I do is important or good enough to warrant me clogging up their blogger reading list, or potentially their email inbox. But seriously, I celebrate every new follower the same way, I'm just happy somebody likes my stuff enough to subscribe. However, for me my goals and milestones are genuinely more internal. I'm happy when I read my blogs and they're written the way I want, and my message is clear and communicated effectively. The other day I actually wrote a blog without a single spelling mistake and the grammar wasn't too bad either. To me that was a huge personal milestone, because I'm dyslexic, and I derived more joy from that than I did 100,000 hits. I measure my success on the comments people drop below articles, or by the interesting emails I receive feeding back to me on my blog in general, or specific articles. Am I unusual in this? I mean what do you guys set as your personal targets to keep you going? How do you motivate yourselves? I don't think there are any right or wrong ways, as long as you have some goals I guess, because I do feel they're important. How do you set yourself targets and what are they, and why?

For a statistician, I guess, it's a little weird to actually admit that the numbers don't mean that much to me. But truly honestly they don't. I know only too well that numbers can be bent and twisted to mean anything and nothing all at the same time. I'll explain further, you see people seem to have attributed a timescale to hits ratio as being the important factor, in my case the impressive thing or achievement seems to be 100,000+ hits in 5 months = big deal. However, I think hits per article is more of an accurate comparable measure surely? If I've written 100 articles that have received 1000 hits each as an average surely that is more impressive than having written 1000 articles receiving 100 hits each? Or is it? I'm not too sure to be brutally honest with you, or even if it actually matters that much, but I do think that such 'external' or 'comparable' milestones are troublesome and problematic. Ultimately for me I won't take any personal pleasure from these arbitrary milestones. I will however say thank you to all those who have sent emails to me saying congratulations over it. The fact that you guys have been paying attention to it (more so than me it seems) means more than actually hitting the figure in the first place.

You see, I set myself goals related to content; around my opinion pieces, about making my reviews useful to people, and being entertaining. I mean, I hope I'm entertaining. I also hope I've achieved some of the aims I set out to. I wanted to be a voice for 'alternative gaming systems', even though I hate that bloody phrase, and just typing it brought me out in hives. I also wanted to develop a unique voice, with character and to communicate effectively who I am and what I'm about. Again, hopefully I've achieved some of those goals, but I'm a long way from achieving all of them, I still have my tick list and I've not even crossed off 25% of them yet. My biggest goal though was that I still wanted to be blogging 12 months after starting, and still be enthused about it. I still wanted to have things to say and to contribute to the static noise that is the Internet. That's my first real major milestone, that's the big goal I'm chasing. Thing is I'm not even half way there yet, and as such there won't be much back slapping from me over any targets, perceived or real, that I might pass. Yeah sure, I had a bit of a minor celebration at 100 blogs as that was one of my first 'mini' milestones. The next one though, as I said is roughly 7 months away, and hopefully the journey to get there is going to be fun. Peace out!