Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Hey, blog peeps! Long time no see! It’s been…oh, about five months now, right? Yikes. 

Where have I been, you might be wondering? If I’m going to answer honestly, I’ve been off feeling terribly uninspire–which is a bit ironic because back in October I wrote about what to do when you’re not feeling inspired. Cue awkward laugh track.

However, I think there’s a big difference between taking a step away to develop new content for something you enjoy and what was happening with me. Which, if I’m honest, was realizing I didn’t love what I was doing.

When the Well Runs Dry

It’s really difficult for me to talk about this. I’m still fighting feelings of “failure”, but I feel it’s important to share this so that other bloggers who may be feeling the same can know that they are not alone.

I spent about 75% of last year working hard at being a social media/marketing blogger. Being in social media was something I had been striving to get into professionally (in the traditional 9-5 job sense) but hadn’t been considered for. So I took it upon myself to make it happen for myself. 

I wrote blog posts, I put together and hosted an online interview series, and I created webinars and video series about making social media graphics.

But even though this was something I thought I would love, I constantly felt drained and hard-pressed to come up with content. Things that I thought would come easily were a massive struggle, and I often found myself creating what I felt to be haphazard content because I felt I needed to be doing it, not because I wanted to.

By the time I made it to October, I was frustrated and burnt out. I wasn’t working under conducive creative conditions, not for something that was supposed to be a passion project. When I realized that I had run my own creative well dry, I knew it was time to take a step back and re-evaluate what I wanted to do on this site/blog.

The Realization

There’s nothing scarier than realizing something you had put so much mental, physical, and financial energy into isn’t what you thought it was going to be. I felt and still feel like I “failed”.

It took spending a few weeks away, finding a part-time job, and doing some brainstorming for me to have two very important realizations:

1. I like writing, just not what I’m writing right now.

2. I need to figure out what I do want to write about.

I hadn’t really failed. I just needed to change direction. And here’s the kicker: changing directions is okay. In fact, it’s even par for the course, something most content creators go through at some point or another. 

Heck, even Casey Neistat, who built his entire platform on extremely popular vlogs, let go of the format because it wasn’t pushing his creative buttons anymore. And if Casey Neistat can do it, then so can I. And so can you.

What’s Next

So here’s the scary part. I don’t really know what’s next. I know that I want to write, and I know I want to keep this site. So what do you write when you don’t know what to write about? Whatever you want.

If you want to write about fashion, cool. If you want to write about marketing tips, that’s cool too. If you want to make playlists based on fictional characters from your favorite TV shows, go for it. That’s what blogging is all about.

Right now I want to write about the things that light me up. Things like authenticity, confidence, and self-worth. I also want to write about music, and occasionally about style, and how all of these things come together. The possibilities are endless, and I’m open to wherever my writing muse takes me.

I hope you join me on this journey. Because it’s going to be a good one. Because the best adventures start with no real destination in mind and the intent to have fun.

I'll be seeing you all next week with some (proper) exciting new content!