In my offline life, I’ve always been someone who is afraid to experiment or take to many risks.   I love familiarity and it has always held me back all my life.  I need to know that I have a guaranteed paycheck each month and that my kids have medical insurance coverage.  That is just how I’ve always been.

When I started blogging in early 2006, I decided that this was not something that will hold me back when I moved online.   I started blogging because I enjoyed doing so, and I’ve always pushed myself to experiment and try new things to see what works and what doesn’t work.  Any time you find success, in addition to the successes, you’re going to find some failure.   I’ve found my share of both, but even in situations where I’ve failed, I have found that I learn a lot from each failed experiment.   The second time I may get it right, or I’ll use what I learned from that experiment in something else I’m working on.

Recently Dosh Dosh wrote an inspirational post titled Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment, which I recommend all bloggers read.  Its pretty short, so it will only take a minute, but it will hopefully get the creative juices flowing a little bit.  I truly believe that in order to be successful, it is important to continually try new things and see what works/what doesn’t work.

Are you actively experimenting on your blog(s)?   Add forums, try a new style, new type of post, add pictures to your posts, etc.?  It is impossible to know what works until you’ve properly experimented.