IN THE PHOTO:
(I love my diary from Danielle La Porte next year will be my third year using it, I love the prompts and feel it makes me super productive. I was bored of boring neon post it notes so picked these super cute ones up from Liberty’s. I love this fountain pen because it has pink ink and secondly because it makes me feel like I’m working hard like back in the day at school!).
In November I had declared that I was going to blog everyday and I did pretty well for about fifteen or sixteen days, then I became so busy with work which meant the blogging took a back seat. So I mushed a few days together for a few posts and then I had to upgrade my hosting plan which meant I couldn’t have access to my blog for a few days, so towards the end of the month until today I took a hiatus from tapping away at the keyboard.
What did I learnt from blogging daily for at least two weeks and also not being able to stick to my word about daily blogging?
Firstly it’s not easy! Bloggers get a bad rep, people seem to think it’s easy sitting behind a computer screen banging out post after post like water coming out of a tap but it really isn’t if you want to produce quality content. Thinking of interesting topics people want to read about is harder than you may think, then you actually have to write about it in a way people will understand not just in shorthand like when we text our mates and then you have to take a half decent image or two to compliment the topic you’ve poured your blood, sweat and tears into (ok that’s a bit dramatic but some posts might be so personal that you have to take it that far!).
On the days I couldn’t blog I’ll be honest I did feel guilty because I had made a promise to myself to write daily and maybe just maybe there was someone out there waiting to read my thoughts who I also let down. Then I also thought in order to “make” it in this new digital world you have to be consistent, just like with anything to see results. But then I thought, I have to be real. If I was busy with my day job for the sake of my mental health I can’t force myself to write and if my site is down I definitely can’t do anything about it but in the meantime I did try to stay consistent and post on Instagram to engage with my peeps.
So what did I learn then? I learnt that I have to have balance, maybe daily blogging is too optimistic when I have a “real” job and other responsibilities but it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try and on the days I can’t, I shouldn’t beat myself up about it because I’m not being lazy I’m just prioritising the most important tasks, if I could write about things I love all day everyday I would in a heartbeat. I also learnt that planning is really important, I’m halfway there with my blog timetable but I need to think further and plan photos a bit better because I know I can produce better quality work with more preparation and time management. Blogging throughout November proved to myself that writing and sharing is something I really really enjoy and it’s a passion I want to work harder at to improve the quality of work I share, so I can look back and be proud of myself rather than cringe at what I’ve added to the world wide web. Lastly I learnt that it’s good to want to achieve loads but not at the expense of your mental health because, if you burn out before you’ve even started the passion will die and you just won’t want to do that thing anymore. It’s ok to say no so you can say yes to things that are more important in that present time.
Even though things may not have gone to plan with daily blogging I am super thankful for my blog and hosting plan being updated, it’s super fast now so that images load quicker. It also gave me the opportunity to take a look at the layout and change a few things about, sometimes we get so busy and forget to have a clean out or makeover to shake things up a bit. Which has made me think about doing this in other areas of my life too, just a little nudge to improve bits and bobs here and there to start off 2018 how I mean to go on as and where I can, without any pressure.
Writing this post has made me realise that even though things didn’t workout as I had planned for them to, they did in-fact actually workout in other ways to improve the way I blog. Which reminds me of the Dr Wayne Dyer quote (which I’ve probably shared a million times before) “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”