Lifestyle || Falling Back In Love With Blogging!

I've been doing this blogging thing for over five years now, and although it has only been a serious hobby in the last 2, it's crazy to see how far I have come from my very first post. Blogging has helped me in so many different ways. On some days blogging was a way for me to escape my life if only for an hour or two, in times that I needed it the most. My blog has seen me through my whole University education from start to finish, as well as capturing many many...many shopping sprees! The last couple of month's have been a little tough for me and as much as I didn't really want to admit to it, I had fallen a little bit out of love with blogging. 

I know that sounds a little dramatic but it's the truth. Being a blogger is a 24/7 job, and like most jobs it can be pretty draining if your feeling uninspired or unmotivated. Since graduating in June 2017, my personal life has been extremely busy. In such a short space of time I have completed 4 internships as well as finding myself a temporary Christmas job that has led into a full time 'temporary' position and applying to as many jobs as I can find in the little free time that I have had. With all that going on, it's left little to no time for me to focus on my hobbies and passions - but most importantly my blog. Don't get me wrong the content I have uploaded since then has been written with all the love and care I normally would have, but I started to get into the rhythm of uploading posts because it was a 'Sunday upload day' rather than because I wanted to. 

Photography

Photography is one of my passions and I enjoy spending the time creating the perfect flat lays and getting the lighting right for product shots, but this was something that was getting rushed and I felt like things were a little sub par to normal. I'm a creative person and like most people, I am my harshest critic and I can be extremely tough on myself when it's just not necessary, plus it added on a lot of pressure at times when it just wasn't needed. This has happened time and time again over the last couple of months where I have set up shoots that I'm not happy with so ended up having a little tantrum and scrapping the images completely. You may have noticed that I haven't actually featured in many of my most recent posts and that's partly to do with the fact my confidence has taken a bit of a dip. Hopefully now I've spoken more openly about my blog with my family I can begin to get them to help me shoot images for posts rather than relying fully on myself - let's just hope and pray they will share my same vision! 

Twitter

I think a lot of my falling out of love with blogging has to do with Twitter. As much as Twitter is probably one of my favourite social media networks, it is also probably one of the worst for my mental health too. I don't see myself as a competitive person, but being on Twitter as much as I have over the last year (running my own account as well as running the GRLPOWR community page), has made me feel a little crappy about my own blog. Why is it that as a human being we have to compare ourselves to others all the time? This is a trait I would really like to have left behind in 2017! I love reading others posts and sharing them on my page, but felt that as much as I was trying to integrate myself within the community, I was still a little bit on the outside.  This is something that only I could change, and I have started doing that over the last couple of weeks by getting more involved with blogger chats again. I have a couple of GRLPOWR hosting slots lined up for the next couple of months too which I always look forward to doing. Recently the blogging community was hit with the whole 'follower bot' situation that really got me thinking about how honest blogging truly is and how much of a numbers game it has become. This is something that can get into your head and it had certainly got into mine which made me think about who I was blogging for. Was I blogging for numbers or for myself?- The latter won that argument! 

2018

So whats next?- I have been making so many plans for 2018 that I'm not ready to share on my blog yet, mainly because a lot of these plans are ideas jotted down in a notebook that will probably never work out or happen, but it's good to have ideas right?! I was at a real low last year and I am determined to make 2018 my best year yet. Blogging is part of that plan and I have so many goals that I have set myself to try, hopefully, to reach it. 

1. Blog 4 times a month.
2. Get outside and take advantage of the outdoors as a backdrop!
3. Write for me.
4. Feel inspired! 

I'm sorry that this post was a little different to the others, but I just felt that it was something I needed to get out in the open in a hope that I'm not the only one who has been feeling this way about blogging. I can't wait to share my new ideas here, and hopefully begin to create the content I have loved to read and loved to make again! 

Until next time,