I’ve been a blogger for almost six years now. I’ve been blogging through different seasons with different purposes and different directions. I have taken blogging breaks 6 months long (or longer) and I’ve blogged multiple times a day. I’ve blogged for my mom (so she knew I was alive studying abroad), myself (aka creating a diary), my readers (by sharing tips & things I think will benefit you), and I’ve blogged for the blog community (blogging about what I think people want to hear and will increase my pageviews.) I’ve blogged for plenty of wrong reasons & plenty of random reasons but I’ve also blogged with passion & purpose & BIG FAT DREAMS.
If you have followed this blog for any amount of time, I hope you’ve noticed that I am passionate about this space and about the people who come here. I’ve never perfectly utilized this space or always had a plan. I laugh about it too because even when I have a plan, it may not last long. I like to think of this place as a free place – place to try new things and grant grace. A place to learn, soak up new information, and improve. Not embarrassed by the past or the other directions that I have gone, just redefining and moving forward.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. With growth comes changes but also just with life comes changes. Of course this blog doesn’t look like it did in 2010 and that is okay – good even (real great actually 😉 ) but that doesn’t mean all my old posts are trash or that I was wasting my time. It fueled my passion for blogging, it made me learn new skills so that I could grow, and it taught me so much about myself!
Not all advice is the best advice. There are SO many tips on starting a blog, growing a blog, monetizing a blog, and a bazillion other things. I love learning from people who have gone before me and I soak up all the advice, tips, and tricks. Sometimes I even try to do them all – certain that this trick will grow my Instagram, or that type of post will increase pageviews, or this picture will be pinned the most, or this is the exact plan I need to follow if I ever want to make an income blogging. It can make me crazy. Running around literally trying to do it all while stay authentic and true to myself.
I’m realizing that not all advice is the best advice for me. Some things that work for people as they grow their business and brand may not work for me – and that is okay. I hope you know that too. As you read through my Blog Tips I hope you never feel pressured to follow all that advice perfectly, I hope you feel free to experiment and try new things. To give & receive grace. To start over and dream bigger. 2016 is your year. Your year to try new things without the fear of failure. Maybe those new things will be hits or maybe they will be flops, but that is okay – you learn from both. You don’t need to blog perfectly to be liked and respected. Some of that mess & imperfection makes you relatable and trying new things makes you brave.
Learn all the things, soak up the information, but don’t be afraid to do things that may contradict what you’ve read. Be brave and trust what you have to offer. Be okay with little steps and trust falls. You’ve got this!
Love it! Thank you for saying that it’s okay to take breaks, change directions, and do things the way they work for US. It’s so difficult to find the “right” solution because I think success (and/or satisfaction) comes differently to everyone. So glad you’re here because you love what you do…blogging can be so fun, can’t it? 🙂
It totally can. and yes, I think sometimes we get caught in the trap that success has to look a certain way!