The amount of blogs online grows by thousands every day.

There is no way we can read, or even find them all, but we try.

Over the past year, I’ve read hundreds of blog posts (possibly thousands).

There’s some good stuff out there.

In the beginning, I remember reading posts written by seasoned bloggers. I was often in awe. Their posts were so eloquently written. Some intimidated me.

I would ask myself, “Can I ever be that good?”

I marveled at the dozens of comments they had, the massive amount of RSS feed readers, their high page rank, low Alexa rating (lower is better with Alexa), and their archives which were filled with hundreds of blog posts.

In someways I felt pretty “small”. I had zero comments, zero feed readers/subscribers, a 0/10 Google page rank, an Alexa rating that topped 2 million, and my archives were looking pretty pathetic.

My enthusiasm and motivation were quickly becoming depleted.

Finally I realized what was happening.

I had been comparing myself/my blog to longtime bloggers.

To set myself straight, I figuratively slapped myself upside the head.

I stopped visiting so many blogs, and concentrated on my own. I wrote from my heart and quit comparing my blog/myself to others.

It was then that I found my voice.

Lesson 11: We will always find blogs that are better than ours (in one way or the other). If we continually compare our blog/ourself to others, we will never be satisfied. We will always want more, even if we don’t know what more is. In the process of striving for perfection or trying to be like the “big boys/girls”, we often lose our voice.

Sometimes it’s better to stick close to home and play in our own sandbox.

Today’s Assignment

Do you look at other blogs and think, “the grass is greener on the other side”?

Do other blogs intimidate you and make you feel “less than:?

Do you want to be like the big boys/girls? Be popular?

Or have you already learned this lesson and and write from your heart?