Happy Third Birthday, lamiki!

Two weeks ago, my blog turned three. And I celebrated the occasion with a tweet and a Facebook post and intentions to publish the post that I’m writing right now. And here we are.

In the first year, I published 55 blogs. In the second year, 59 blogs. And in the third year. I published 30 blog posts. And yet, the third year was one of the best years in my blog’s history because of two separate, but connected events – speaking at WordCamp Seattle and WordCamp Portland.

I started this blog to find my voice and have a place to write. But it quickly turned into a hub around connecting with people. From random conversations with people I meet on Twitter to coffee shop dates with bloggers I admire, or three-degrees of separation that turn into job offers, most of the people I have met over the past three years have been connected to this blog and the doors that it has opened to me. And for all of the specific and vague connections I have made over the past three years, I am grateful.

My blog’s third year started off with more momentum, posts, and excitement than I could imagine. But after the second speaking event at the end of summer, everything went into a quiet hiatus. I still wrote and published blogs, but things slowed way down over here as I focused my creative energy into a new fulltime job I started in September. But when I look at the past year as a whole and ignore my goal of publishing more posts than I had in the previous year, my blog’s third year was a momentous one.

And to commemorate its birthday, here’s a little roundup of lessons learned, best posts, and the random ways that people find my blog.

The Three Most Important Lessons I’ve learned in Three Years of Blogging

1. You never have enough time to blog as you want to. I laughed when putting together my slides about blogging every day because I knew someone would ask, “How do you find the time to blog?” and the answer I prepared the following answer: you just do.  For whatever reason, this fall I really understood what it meant to not have enough time to do anything other than go to work, eat, and barely get enough sleep to be energized to tackle the next day. I’ve had fulltime jobs before, but the one I started was different and I could not (still cannot) explain why. And while, for the first time in my life, I’m happy going through the motions and just being that person who goes to work and comes home, the writer inside of me is aching to write more. And the only way to satisfy her is to steal that time from somewhere else and, sit down, shut up, and pound the keyboard until words appear.

2. The post you pour your heart and soul into writing will never resonate with readers as much as the one you write and publish in the moment. There is a time and a place for epic blog posts that you spend hours researching, writing, editing, and perfecting. And while it feels good to write those essays, when it comes to blogs and writing content that people (you) care about, are posts that are written in an hour’s notice based on the ideas that you’ve been chewing on over the past few days. Stop thinking. Start writing.

3. Numbers alone don’t measure success. I’ve been struggling to write this recap and feel good about my third year of blogging because I haven’t been blogging lately. I didn’t blog every day in November. And I didn’t post at all in December. But when I think about all the people I have met and the opportunities I have had because of the work I have put into my blog since the beginning, it has been a damn successful year. 

My Third Year of Blogging

Since launching this blog, I have published 144 posts, received 893 comments, and there have been 44,947 views to my site. I have received four job offers because of the work I have done on this blog (and in social media). And I have booked two solo speaking events and one guest lecture at a university. And people still aren’t sure how to pronounce lamiki.

Milestone Posts from the Archives

• First blog post: Fear is a Four Letter Word
• NaBloPoMo 2010 recap: What I Learned: When Creativity Flows, Don’t Turn Off the Faucet
• First birthday post: First Not the End: Lamiki Turns One!
• NaBloPoMo 2011 recap: NaBloPoMo Goals and Milestones
• Second birthday post: Happy Second Blogiversary, lamiki!

Most Popular Blog Posts this Year

• Flat Stanley Gets Mailed to Seattle
• In Observance of Date Night
• Nobody Tells This to Beginners (and Other Developments)
• Sunday Serial: Defending Disney Princesses
• How to Blog Every Day: Slides and Resources from WordCamp Portland 

Posts I’m Most Proud of Writing

• A Writer’s Love Letter to Other Writers
• What Happens After You Speak at a Conference
• How to Blog Every Day (including the video of my talk and the deck)
• How to Promote Your Blog Without Losing Your Soul (video of my talk, resources, and slides)
• What Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein Have to do with Success

Posts I had the Most Fun Writing

• A Social Media Nightmare (a collaboration with my talented husband for my own birthday)
• When do you become a local Seattleite?
• How to Increase Traffic to Your Blog by Using Ryan Gosling 

Top Search Terms

• hipster love
• flat stanley letter
• ryan gosling crossfit
• disney princesses facebook
• procrastination flowchart

Most Interesting Search Terms

• proof of pregnancy letter (again, I have no idea what this means)
• if disney princesses had Facebook
• egg roll meme (anyone care to shine light on this one?)
• procrastination algorithm
• memories destroy us
• born to be wild woman
• a man will always have what he cant have quote

What’s coming this year?

More writing. As I already declared, this is the year that I will write more. I struggled to write this blog post and not be upset for the fact that I haven’t blogged much over the past few months, even though I know what I’ve been doing with my time. But as a perfectionist, I always want more.

If you’ve been here since the beginning, thank you. If you’re new here, welcome, and thank you for reading. The best part about having a personal blog is that it can (and will) grow with the writer. The purpose that this blog filled when it first launched has changed. And the purpose that it’s going to fill in the near future is still to be determined. Either way, it’s going to be a fun ride.

Happy third birthday, lamiki! Now, where’s my cake?

Photo via craftapalooza