I've been spending my evenings and weekends blogging for a long time now, I'll often opt for a Saturday night home alone in order to spend time typing away on a new blog post. However, despite the time and work I put into my blog, it's rare I gain followers - and I see other gain a following at a faster rate. For a while, this left me with a feeling of 'what am I doing wrong? Am I not as good as others?' but after putting some kinda sad thought into it, I realised that comparing myself to others isn't actually doing myself or my blog any favours, if anything, I'm just feeling crap and disheartened - and nobody wants that, especially if it's somewhat self-inflicted.

 I'm trying my best to accept that my blog will not be a fast growing blog, with a huge following in a matter of months, and there is no way I'll ever be sent on those blogger trips which are #instagoal #lifegoals. My blog has a very organic following, and I needed to take some time to remember I actually quite like that. It's something I'm proud of, it reminds me I'm here typing for me, and nobody else, if anyone else is reading it's a bonus. I don't necessarily need to shove my blog post in others faces saying 'read me read me', of course occasionally I will, if I'm proud of my work sometimes I want to shout about it, and sometimes I want to quietly smile to myself.

When I scroll down bloglovin' I see so many blog titles which are something along the lines of "grow your followers" "how to be a better blogger" "Improve your blog" "Blogging tips" "How to be a successful blogger" ... Sometimes I'll give these blog posts a read, usually a bit of a skim, because although they're enjoyable and sometimes useful, they're all a bit the same.  The problem I find, is there are so many bloggers putting they're tips and advice on blogging out there it's all a bit overwhelming. I mean, this stuff can be really useful especially to those starting out, but there so much of it, that whole area just feels a bit noisy.

With so many version of how to be a success blogger to read, it baffles me that these posts rarely ask, what makes a successful blogger? Surely we all define success differently and aspire to different things from our blogs. The reason I think the blogging world is great is because there is room for everyone, there are so many different voices to be heard, yet despite this we seem to think that to be a 'successful' blogger we must follow a few rules which usually consist of sticking to a schedule (which I usually try and fail to do - I'm holding hope on this one though), Uploading often (which I usually do), having great photos (I'm mainly happy with all the photos on my blog, and have a great love of photography which has grown from having a blog), having a good writing style (I like my writing style, I feel most like 'me' when I write, and I'm constantly trying to improve to writing), Check for typos (I'm the queen of typos, and that's life), alongside this promote on every social media possible - TweetDeck is usually recommended (I'm not a fan of TweetDeck - even though we've written the tweets it feels a little robot like to me. You can always tell a scheduled tweet), and have a white background, or holiday themed insta (never going to happen - at the moment my Instagram is colourful and very 'me'... can that count as theme?).

So, I sort of manage a few of the 'rules' were told to follow, but not all, because it's just not me. I am the messiest person ever, a clean white background on my Instagram would not reflect a dash of my personality. Also, how are these things going to make me a successful blogger? There's not doubt they'll probably grow my following which would be lovely, I'm not going to lie, I'd have a little smile on my face watching those numbers climb, but if we all followed the same blogging rules, we'd all become pretty similar. Yes, I would love a high following, but because people having loved to read the content I loved to create, which reflect who I am, but not because I was shouting at them on twitter and my posts are as immaculate as my overly themed Instagram.

Something to be me feels a lot more genuine about my slow growing following. I feel I am becoming more confident and aware of my own writing style and the content I want to create, without te pressure of sticking to the reason my thousands of followers clicked the button in the first place.
At the moment I am enjoying blogging more than ever, and I think that's because I feel I am more comfortable to write about what I really want to write about, and I feel a lot more true to myself on my blog. Although there are many things which have made me feel  a surge of 'should I really post this' as I hit the publish button, I've also felt the relief and honest in the writing which I think is important. I know I write a lot of on here which would make me cringe if I knew my friends and family were reading, I think honesty in writing is very special and sometimes it's important to be a little raw. So gladly I'll give over thousands of followers and sponsored post for my place to reflect and therapeutic, disturbing honest writing. Of course, I will still splash in my fashion and beauty, because those loves of mine are forever strong. But there is an exception that for my blog to feel completely me, I won't be getting #fan tweets coming in anytime soon, but that's okay.

It's very important to stay true to yourself. This is meant in no way offensively to the immaculate fast growing blogs, I think that's really great for others, I just know it's not me.