You may have noticed, despite early April setting myself a goal of publishing two blogposts a week, I have hardly blogged at all. I have certainly noticed the distance I put between myself and my blog.
Working 8-6 five days a week, posting weekly youtube videos and publish two blog posts a week that I'm happy with is kind of a lot to do. I know, a lot of people work full time and have a far more successful blog than me, but that is somebody else circumstances, not my own. I spent a day shooting blog photographs, I felt excited to share them, I was even bragging about how good they came out! However later that day I ended up with a broken memory card, and the lost all of those photos I'd been so pleased with. I think bad luck must have caught me on the wrong days, as I felt a bigger blow that the loss of a few pictures and videos. It had clearly all been getting too much, I decided I was going to stop blogging because I felt unsuccessful and it felt as though I had been wasting my time. Luckily, I realised if I deleted my blog I might live in regret, so instead, I've been distancing myself from blogging, because I want my blog to remain a happy place for me.
The saying "if you ever feel like giving up, remember why you started" came to mind one night, so I decided to look back through my blog, it surprisingly wasn't as cringe as I'd expected. My first few posts reminded me that this is something I started for myself, it wasn't ever something I did for views, income or samples (not that income and samples are something I get from blogging), but it was because I wanted a creative outlet to talk about things I loved, days I had and products I used - it wasn't until about a year into blogging I became a huge fan of photography, which gave me another aspect of blogging to love.
I think I've been working so hard to try to achieve something with my blog, I failed to see my blog was already achieving it's purpose of giving me that creative outlet, and anything else is a bonus.
Sometimes in the world of social media it can be easy to get caught up in the figures and comparing yourself to others. I found myself resenting blogging because I felt other are so much better at it, and it seemed like a cruel reminder of how I wasn't successful, but since when was it a competition. Now looking in a brighter light, I should be praising other peoples success in the industry, is a reminder of how well people can do, and it should be a push to keep working, not the opposite. We all have a voice, just because somebodies else is being heard, it does mean you have to quieten yours. In other words, there is room for more than a small handful of success bloggers in this world, and remember we all have different motivations for this, and different definitions of success.
A few weeks away from it, and I've felt lost during the evenings and I've found myself planning posts and photographs as I go about my daily life, because even when I try to get away from it, I still love blogging, I love writing, I love photography and I love being able to express my own voice in my little space of the internet, and I have realised that is enough.
I'm not saying having thousands of followers wouldn't be great, because it would, and I'm not saying I wouldn't love to one day make a career of this, because I would - but if that dream were to ever come true, I need to make sure I still have the same love for blogging which I started with, otherwise it wouldn't be the dream come true I'd hope for.
From now on, more blogging for me - less comparison to other. I will be working hard, not to better others, but to better myself, to enjoy myself and to be proud of how I'm spending my time and improve my skills in things I love. In my photography, in my writing, in my blogging.
I have a voice, and this on this little space internet is where I choose to use it. Even if no one is listening, it's good to speak (even if when it's just about lipstick sometimes!)
Working 8-6 five days a week, posting weekly youtube videos and publish two blog posts a week that I'm happy with is kind of a lot to do. I know, a lot of people work full time and have a far more successful blog than me, but that is somebody else circumstances, not my own. I spent a day shooting blog photographs, I felt excited to share them, I was even bragging about how good they came out! However later that day I ended up with a broken memory card, and the lost all of those photos I'd been so pleased with. I think bad luck must have caught me on the wrong days, as I felt a bigger blow that the loss of a few pictures and videos. It had clearly all been getting too much, I decided I was going to stop blogging because I felt unsuccessful and it felt as though I had been wasting my time. Luckily, I realised if I deleted my blog I might live in regret, so instead, I've been distancing myself from blogging, because I want my blog to remain a happy place for me.
The saying "if you ever feel like giving up, remember why you started" came to mind one night, so I decided to look back through my blog, it surprisingly wasn't as cringe as I'd expected. My first few posts reminded me that this is something I started for myself, it wasn't ever something I did for views, income or samples (not that income and samples are something I get from blogging), but it was because I wanted a creative outlet to talk about things I loved, days I had and products I used - it wasn't until about a year into blogging I became a huge fan of photography, which gave me another aspect of blogging to love.
I think I've been working so hard to try to achieve something with my blog, I failed to see my blog was already achieving it's purpose of giving me that creative outlet, and anything else is a bonus.
Sometimes in the world of social media it can be easy to get caught up in the figures and comparing yourself to others. I found myself resenting blogging because I felt other are so much better at it, and it seemed like a cruel reminder of how I wasn't successful, but since when was it a competition. Now looking in a brighter light, I should be praising other peoples success in the industry, is a reminder of how well people can do, and it should be a push to keep working, not the opposite. We all have a voice, just because somebodies else is being heard, it does mean you have to quieten yours. In other words, there is room for more than a small handful of success bloggers in this world, and remember we all have different motivations for this, and different definitions of success.
A few weeks away from it, and I've felt lost during the evenings and I've found myself planning posts and photographs as I go about my daily life, because even when I try to get away from it, I still love blogging, I love writing, I love photography and I love being able to express my own voice in my little space of the internet, and I have realised that is enough.
I'm not saying having thousands of followers wouldn't be great, because it would, and I'm not saying I wouldn't love to one day make a career of this, because I would - but if that dream were to ever come true, I need to make sure I still have the same love for blogging which I started with, otherwise it wouldn't be the dream come true I'd hope for.
From now on, more blogging for me - less comparison to other. I will be working hard, not to better others, but to better myself, to enjoy myself and to be proud of how I'm spending my time and improve my skills in things I love. In my photography, in my writing, in my blogging.
I have a voice, and this on this little space internet is where I choose to use it. Even if no one is listening, it's good to speak (even if when it's just about lipstick sometimes!)
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