May 7

May 7 Why I Stopped Beating Myself Up Over Being an Inconsistent Blogger

In the age of social media being a profitable hobby, just about anyone can rack up a large enough following to quit their day jobs. For some, it takes a lot of time and effort to gain the attention of such a large audience, which is absolutely okay. Others, however, have it quite easy; it’s as simple as going viral on any social platform, and within a week they’ve amassed over 100k followers. Before they know it, they’re getting sponsorships from tons of different brands, being invited onto national television, and making an actual living from something that was only meant to keep you connected with other people. Admittedly, it seems like the ideal lifestyle … easy money without the slightest bit of blood, sweat, or tears, right?

Well, not exactly. While gaining the followers may be easy, there is still a lot that goes into being an influencer, whether it’s through social media or a personal blog. While I have yet to profit from the content I create for fashionably, DG, I can tell you a thing or two about what all goes into blogging, hence why I vowed to stop beating myself up over being inconsistent.

My initial interest in launching a blog wasn’t driven by profit. To be real, I don’t even recall being aware of terms such as “influencer” and “content creator.” I damn sure didn’t think people made enough money from doing it to call it their full-time job. As a 20-year old sophomore in college, I was obsessed with researching how to become a fashion stylist, almost like I was looking for a step-by-step guide as to how to put my name on the map. It’s obviously not what I found, but I did come across a couple of gems that I felt were great tips on becoming a stylist. One that I seemed to always come across was the importance of having your own website. Now, I’d had the thought of having a fashion blog for years, but that tip is what made me just take the plunge and do it. I’d say 2018 was the year that I learned about the possibility of making a profit from my blog, and it literally sounded like a dream. You’re telling me I can get paid to advertise products and merchandise on my blog and social media … that I get sent for free … AND that I get to keep?! Oh man, forget being a stylist, I need that influencer life and I need it NOW. Since I stayed pretty consistent with creating new content in 2017, and 2018 was overall pretty good, I was feeling pretty confident that 2019 would’ve been the year.

Jokes on me, because it actually ended up being awful.

It was the year that I expanded into lifestyle blogging, yet completely fell off from what I still intended my primary niche to be, which was fashion. There was a period between April and December that I didn’t create ANY fashion-related content, and boy did I hate myself for it. I constantly told myself that I was an undeserving failure. I wouldn’t meet the deadlines that I set for myself to get posts done, so I would get unmotivated and then beat myself up about it. In turn, I’d end up doing absolutely nothing regarding my blog. It was a cycle that just went on and on until I figured out the root of the issue and how I was going to fix it.

Just to sum up my blogging experience, it consists of planning what kind of content I want to create. Once I have the topic, I put my looks together and shoot them. I don’t have a photographer, so I shoot and edit the majority of my photos unless Deion is ever so gracious to offer his assistance. Even then, I still do all of the editing (and of course writing). Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the process of preparing to publish a new post. I’ve always enjoyed writing, so being that the subject matter is something that I’m passionate about is the reason I’ve been doing it for almost four years. I realized, though, that putting so much pressure on myself to be consistent and post new content 2-3 times a week was stripping away my passion. I pride myself in the level of quality my blog has, and for me to keep that up there has to be passion behind it. Once I got that through my head, I stopped feeling so bad all of the time. Surprisingly, my creative juices have been flowing and I’ve had ideas blooming left and right. The beauty of it is that I can decide to bring them to life whenever I feel the time is right.

That realization is what brought me to my final realization, which is that being a full-time blogger isn’t the goal for me. While I still would love to profit from my work, it’s not worth the stress and loss of passion of something that I love doing … especially considering my true dream is to be a stylist. I’m not saying the possibility of making money is impossible just because of my inconsistency, I just know my blog and Instagram will have periods where traffic is super low, meaning I’ll be less likely to gain followers during that time and ultimately lessen my chances of being noticed by brands that are looking for bloggers to collaborate with. I’ve accepted that. I’m super big on focusing on things that I can control, and in this case I control the quality of the content I create. As long as I feel pride in that content then I’m doing just fine.

Now, if your goal is to be a full time blogger and/or influencer, then consistency is essential. If you struggle with it the way that I did then you may want to rethink whether it’s truly what you want to do as far as your career. I truly believe that if you want something bad enough, you’ll put forth the effort to get it, and if the result of that effort is a loss of your passion it may just be a sign 🤷🏾‍♀️.