When blogging is hard to do...
After writing that title ^ I sat here for a good ten minutes unsure of what to say next. I'll probably sit here for another ten after finishing this sentence and do the same thing. I have numerous half written posts in my draft folder and I can't seem to finish any of them, because at the moment - blogging is hard to do.
It's not just a case of writer's block, although that does play a part and I'm sure this is something that we can ALL relate to - whether we write for a living or not. Sometimes its just hard to find a way. Good old Motivation has taken a long walk in a vast desert and lost its bearings. Ever elusive miss Energy has done her usual disappearing act and Colonel Clarity has clearly trod on his own specs. I don't know if I've lost my 'why', my 'who for', or if I'm just finding it too tedious setting up my laptop in order to write, only to get interrupted after 20 mins that I just can't fully immerse myself into the task at hand ... just in case I forget to feed my child lunch, or leave the house in time for preschool pick up. Clearly Mrs Multi-tasker has taken a long walk off a short pier as well. Farewell my marbles - you shall be next!
In all seriousness though, like with many a thing, the only way to get over the drought and get back into something is to start. Just do it. Any of it. Which is sort of the point of this blog post. By the time I finish writing this post, my feelings about my achievement levels will have increased. My ability to write will increase and hopefully I'll be able to crack on with the other tasks at hand...providing I allow myself to publish a post like this.
It definitely used to be easier to blog when I first started though. When the only thing that I really had to do was write. When I didn't compare myself to others (comparison is the thief of joy, and yet so many of us simply cannot help it!) I didn't think about SEO, I didn't add meta descriptions, I didn't know about alt tags, I didn't rename and save my images before uploading them. I didn't edit and resize them. I'd share mainly on Twitter and I didn't even start using Instagram until I'd been blogging for over a year! I'd lost my original Facebook group and had to start it all over again. Pinterest felt like it didn't exist and I didn't really use YouTube properly. I just used to comment on lots of other blogs and build up a community feeling that way and Twitter was my friend because everyone seemed to interact well. Things have changed SO much since I started.
In some ways it is nice that things are different, but in other ways it makes it hard to just write and press publish. I feel like everything has to be perfect. I feel like I am competing with some amazing and inspiring bloggers and forever comparing myself. It's hard to put it out there if it isn't quite right, especially if you have very high standards of your own work - like I do! The better I get at doing things, the better I feel like I have to be.
So, instead of thinking about what everyone else is doing, I'm going to look back at what I've managed to achieve in the last couple of years and use THAT as my motivation to keep going:
- In the last month I've managed to increase my monthly unique views on Pinterest from 1k to 49.5k - my aim for the end of this month is to reach 50k manually
- I've finally got to just over 1k followers on Facebook
- One of my YouTube videos has almost 200k views
- I've found the confidence to start doing some Insta stories after avoiding being in front of the camera again for AGES
- I've worked with some lovely brands on sponsored posts recently and I have another in the pipeline.
- I've done all of this whilst looking after 2 children and fitting my blogging into the one nap Charlotte has whilst Arthur is at preschool.
I think I'm finally ready to get started on my list of things to do now!
(and just like that, Charlotte woke up! lol)
PS: Whilst writing this post, Donna from What the Redhead Said posted in our blogging group saying, " You know how people always say comparison is the thief of joy? Well, instead of comparing yourself to other people, why not compare yourself, in a blogging capacity, to where you were when you started, a year ago, 6 months ago and see how far you've come?" - I'll take that as a sign, wouldn't you??
Sarah x
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