Wow, this feels odd.
It has literally been over a month since I last posted on here. It feels like I don’t really know how to do this blogging thing anymore.
That’s cool though, it was for good reason that I took some time off and I guess I’m here to give you a little explanation about where I’ve been and why I took the entire of December (and a little bit of January) away from blogging and social media.
December is stressful enough
Really, like do you know of a more stressful month than the lead up to Christmas?
There’s just so much going on, the shops are packed, you have no idea what to buy your family and you really get no time to think about yourself.
Throw in blogging, social media and deadlines on top of that. No thanks.
I took a step back because there was no way that I could juggle all of those without putting an intense pressure on myself to create content that I would be proud of.
I look back at the content I created last Christmas and just cringe at how bad it was and that even included a brand collaboration where I really don’t feel that I did them justice or was up to my usual standards.
I wasn’t going to repeat that this year.
Turning Down Brand Partnerships
There were quite a few times I was approached by brands to work with them over the month and I turned them down. Not because they weren’t a good fit for me and my blog, but because I wouldn’t have been a good fit for them.
As I said above, my content didn’t live up to my standards last year, so I said no and hope that we could partner up later into 2018.
It was the right thing to do and I’m glad that I did.
Taking the break from everything allowed me to spend more time on the things that had to get done, like buying presents and I think that putting all my energy and effort into that allowed me to really give people gifts that they would enjoy rather than resorting to the usual gift voucher for all approach.
It was nice to see people genuinely get excited about what they were opening from me.
My Blog Will Always Be There
Unless there’s a catastrophic failure with my hosting then I was pretty confident that my blog would still be there when I returned and it was. So were my followers who I hoped would stick around through my radio silence. Thanks a lot for still being there.
There was a slight decline in follower numbers, but to be honest the majority of those were spam accounts or follow/unfollows, so no real loss.
It’s now 2018 and my focus is back on creating great content and putting more effort into things again this year.
Things like Youtube, that’s something that I really want to spend time on this year because it’s something that I enjoy and would love to improve my skills. I also would love to start making more money from blogging, whether this blog or on another.
I have visions in my head of the type of content that I want to create, but I know my abilities don’t allow me to. So this year is going to be a learning experience for me.
I actually did a video recently addressing my goals and aspirations for 2018 and discussing what I want to achieve.
So as you can see, taking a break from blogging isn’t a bad thing and if you worry about everyone leaving you and disappearing whilst you’re gone, then don’t.
Your true fans will stick around. That’s a fact.