Falling Out Of Love With Blogging (AGAIN)

Ahh blogging. The reason you've stumbled upon this post is most likely because like me, you've fallen out of love with it. 

For the first year it's all fun and games, excitement, opportunities and new online friends that are quite frankly hilarious. But then you continue through the years and the fun starts to diminish, the excitement lessens and it feels like all those new pals have moved on and done much better than you, leaving you behind in the metaphorical dirt wondering where it all went wrong? 

Yeah. I'm not feeling massively optimistic today so bear with me. 

Back in January I was probably feeling my worst about my blog, I felt deflated and like everything I had done was pointless. I wrote a post about Pressure in the Bloggersphere and felt a sort of cathartic release that allowed me to give myself a kick up the arse and start writing content I enjoyed. 

I starting writing more lifestyle based posts, lists and fun posts that brought me a lot of enjoyment and to my surprise more engagement! I was thrilled, getting 4-5 comments per post seems like nothing to most people but to me it was an amazing achievement and I was delighted. 

But then I started back at uni, and somewhere along the way through my months of hard work and exam revision I lost myself again. I lost that funny person that enjoyed writing posts to make people relate and laugh. I lost the person that joined blogger chats and had started making friends in the community again. I tried to keep up the posts but the more I struggled to fit in the time to write them the more I lost my way and went back to dull review posts that quite frankly everyone gets bored of! 

My engagement dropped significantly, my page views went down and my followers became stagnant. 

I thought once I finished Uni it would come back, I would return to funny Emily who writes lists to make people laugh and create original content. But I didn't. 

Instead, finishing Uni has only made things worse. I have more time to obsess over every minute detail. I spend my days wishing I had the motivation to write and willing a decent post to be written but every time I type up something it just feels forced and unnatural. 

So I've taken some time, had a think about whats holding me back and honestly... it's myself. 

I get so hung up on envy. I wish my blog was more successful, popular, aesthetically pleasing; I wish that bloggers engaged with me more on twitter and that I could form friendships more easily; I wish that my photography was more polished and that my content was more interesting. 

If you're still reading this post and are looking for a point out of it then you may be disappointed as I'm not sure I have a solid point to make. 

I guess what I'm trying to say, is falling out of love with blogging is normal. Feeling overwhelmed by life is normal, and taking a break from it all is normal. But it won't help. 

You can avoid and run away from your problems and feel shit about your blog because of others for as long as you like but it doesn't solve anything. That's what I'm getting my head around at the moment. 

There is no point in being envious over other bloggers, or feeling left behind when you're not doing as well as you thought you would be by now. It doesn't do anything for you other then hold you back. 

SOOO to end on a positive note. Best foot forward an all.  It's time for me to stop comparing and wallowing in a mound of self-pity, instead it's time to get my personality back. To become myself again and not just this bitter shell that sits and feels lonely all day. 

My posts may not be perfectly consistent for the next month as I try to fight my way back to a sense of normality but just know that I'm trying, really really trying. 

If you read all the way to the end then thank you. It is your support that helps me get out of my own hole of self-pity. 

If you're feeling a bit shit at the moment, I hope that my post has in someway helped, even if it's to just remind you that it's okay, it's normal and it's time to give yourself a kick up the arse and get yourself back in the game. You can do it.