Congrats – You Joined the 7-Day Self Discovery Writing Challenge!
“The more I write, the more I discover.” – Unknown
Welcome to the Self-Discovery Writing Challenge!
The goal of this challenge is simple: to get you to start writing, so you can explore your ideas, discover your dreams and realize your potential.
The real benefit in participating in the challenge will come from what you learn about yourself through consistent writing and sharing your thoughts, which means that everyone who participates will win. And you’ll win big. That’s the fun part!
Each morning for the next seven days you’ll get a short email with two things (and maybe a little bonus):
1. One technique or tool for building your writing habit
2. One writing prompt to help discover your dream job
They will take 10-20 minutes to implement (depending on how much you decide to write!)
Writing can make all the difference…
Our founder, Scott Dinsmore, believed a blog is hands-down the most powerful passion-discovery and career-transition tool on the planet.
When he considered everything he’d done to learn about himself, build a career and make a difference, nothing was more powerful than his decision to start a blog and adopt a daily writing, reflection and discovery habit. Nothing else even came close.
His first blog led to him finding his life’s work, building a thriving global business, getting invited to give a TEDx talk that’s gotten over 8 million views, launching Live Your Legend Local communities in 150 cities in 48 countries and getting the chance to have a bigger impact with his work than he ever dreamed.
It all started with his routine writing habit, but don’t take our word for it. Check out what two recent participants have had to say:
“You and your work at LYL is what gave me the courage to start a blog in the first place. Since then, I have fallen in love with my subject matter, and figured out what I want to do with the rest of my life!”
– Bethany S.
“The Blog Challenge, for me, was the perfect way to stop dreaming about your passions and finally start making them reality. In my case it was the perfect push: when you stop making plans and start doing, the inertia breaks, you start to learn and grow, get a little better each day, and eventually figure things out. That´s how a year later that blog I created during the challenge turned into a real business and got me invited to give a TEDx Talk!”
– Matías S.
Matias now works full-time on his passion-based business, is seen as an expert in his field and has given talks to audiences of over 1,000 people, including speaking at TEDx – a lifetime dream of his.
But this isn’t even about building a business (that’s just where it led Matias) – it’s about discovering who you are and starting to share it with the world.
It gives us chills to read these experiences…
“Writing has started me on the journey to loving who I am and towards helping others who are sinking in the same seas I’ve survived.”
– Angela Y.
“The most powerful result that I have experienced is that I got my courage back. As I sat down and spoke my truth on paper for the first time, I realized that I have something powerful and magical to share with the world that people need to know. With every article, I kept feeling less and less fear to speak my voice from what I know is true.”
– Itatiaia D.
The scary thing is Scott had put it off for years!
Well, the procrastination ends today. We want to remove every barrier and excuse to get you creating your blog, learning to write and sharing your work.
Each year thousands of LYLers start blogs and become writers during our challenge, and many of them have told us directly that it is the most game-changing thing they did the whole year.
So your highly suggested but not required first step is:
Start a Blog… because Writing Leads to Opportunity.
A blog is simply the easiest way available for publishing ideas on the Internet for others to see. It encourages you to get ideas out of your head and into the world, which then allows you to further develop them and give you a chance to showcase those thoughts as well as your passions and talents to others. And when you do that, interesting things start to happen.
Developing your writing also happens to be one of the best ways for learning how to communicate, process thoughts and ideas, stay accountable to big plans and life changes, build an audience, develop your persuasion skills and to simply become a more interesting citizen of the world.
With today’s tools you can be up and running in literally less than 10 minutes, even if you have ZERO tech experience. And depending on what option you choose, it can be free or cost less than a latte a month. And you’ll love the confidence that comes with knowing you set up your own site on the web. It’s fun
How to Start a Blog (& Publish a Post) in Less than 10 Minutes with Zero Tech Experience
Note: We created this video of instructions below to be intentionally very, very simple to get you up and running with a totally basic WordPress blog so you can start publishing ideas ASAP. There are about a million other decisions you could (and eventually probably will) make regarding your blog or site. Please do not worry about that today. All that matters is getting something published. Don’t worry about how it looks. Today is about creating your sandbox and starting to play a little. Landscaping (and other excuses for being afraid of getting a little dirty) can be addressed later.
For the more advanced folks who already have a blog, this is your next step: The 3 Steps to Growing and Monetizing Your Blog. But if you don’t have a blog yet, just follow the steps below. It will be much quicker and simpler.
1. Sign up for the most basic website hosting account at Bluehost.
*To make this as easy as possible, see the video Chelsea recorded at the end of this step that walks you through setting up a blog and publishing your first post in under 10 minutes.
We fully endorse Bluehost and we are a proud affiliate partner of theirs (and Live Your Legend readers get a special 20% discount from the public price – discount already included in each of these Bluehost links), and it’s where all our domains live. We’ve tried a lot of hosts in the past, and this is by far the best discount option available based on our personal experience and that of the people we respect online.
They’ve also been a top recommended web host by WordPress since 2005. All you need is the most basic option, which comes with a free domain (website address) of your choosing.
You do not need any of the add-ons or up-sells, unless you want to get Domain WHOIS Privacy, which keeps your personal information from being made public on your site. But any of that can be sorted out later. We want to keep this as simple as possible!
One reason we love Bluehost is because their customer support is awesome. If you’re unsure of what to do, just start up a chat session with their support team and they’ll get your issues sorted out.
Here’s the link to set up your site on Bluehost and get the special LYL 20% off discount.
A few clarifying points:
- This Bluehost setup will run you about the cost of one latte a month. To get the lowest monthly price of $3.95, you will pay for the first couple years in advance. The month-to-month cost is still only the price of about two lattes. It’s a pretty small investment for finally getting traction on what makes you come alive. There are also some totally free options through sites like Blogger or Tumblr, although to be honest, we don’t really recommend those since you have much less control and won’t actually own the website (and we don’t have any personal experience with them). So if you go that route and decide to take your blog and site more seriously in the future, they can be a total pain in the ass to switch to something like the Bluehost option. You will also have a ton more resources and options available through the slightly less than free option we suggest. And you have the added motivation that when you pay for something (no matter how small), you become WAY more committed to getting use out of it than if it were free. That’s no small point. It’s your call, though.
- Due to the increased traffic and complexity of Live Your Legend, we host it on a more robust platform via WP Engine (which we LOVE), but at $99+ per month, that is definitely not the option you need to begin.
Watch this simple video to walk you through every step of the process in under 10 minutes…
Don’t see a video? Click here.
For the rest of the detailed written steps, read below (but the video above should be all you need):
3. Pick your blog name (called a URL or domain name).
This is part of the sign-up process through Bluehost in Step #1. When you sign up for basic hosting, you get a website name for free.
Keep it simple. Don’t hold off just because you can’t come up with some brilliant name. Using your first and last name (or a similar rendition) is fine and might even be better since you might not know the specific niche you want to focus on. You’ll be free to cover whatever topics you choose. Using your name can also allow the site to serve as a simple online resume if nothing else, and it helps with your name’s Google rankings.
4. Set up WordPress on your new site (or better yet, have Bluehost do it for you for free).
Chelsea covers this in the above video, but once you’ve purchased your hosting/domain, you are ready to install WordPress, which will allow you to edit and update your site without needing to do anything technical. Most every blog on the planet from LYL to ZenHabits to The 4-Hour Work Week are all run on WordPress.
Installing/setting up the very basic version of WordPress on a new Bluehost account is a pretty straightforward process. But we’re always a fan of having customer support do it for us. They should be happy to set it up. Just tell them something like, “Hey, I’m excited to get started with my blog. A big reason I chose Bluehost is because I’m not technical, and I heard you guys could get WordPress installed for me super fast. Could you please install WordPress on my new site so I can get started publishing content? Thanks so much!”
If you stall out on any of these steps, be sure to watch the video above. That should clear it all up. And you can always search Google or YouTube for other video tutorials on setting this stuff up, but again, that’s what customer support is there for. They love helping new clients.
5. Write consistently.
Do it daily or weekly. Ideally, make it happen first thing in the morning. Start with one sentence. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, but any time you get an idea that excites you or notice something on your mind, open up your computer and get it out there. Treat this as your online journal of sorts. Write about what fires you up or catches your interest. Developing your writing is a priceless skill, and the refinement of ideas that will result is magical.
If a passion or idea doesn’t have room to breathe, it will die.
6. See what happens.
Our favorite part!
That’s it for now, but the the writing prompts an tips will be sent to your inbox daily!
Thanks for joining us,
– Chelsea Dinsmore, Chief of Community Happiness