why i started to hate blogging

When I started the blog it was super organic. I loved being creative with style, I loved experimenting with photography, and most of all I loved shopping. It felt like such a natural fit for a new mom to create a hobby or maybe even a job where I could make my own hours, hustle as hard that was feasible for my life, and involve my new little bundle of joy in the process.

As I found myself diving deeper in the world of social media and blogging, I began sizing up others and wondering how to make my images better, my content more engaging, etc, etc. This was so great on some levels because it pushed me to be more creative and to work harder on the blog. It allowed me to break fear barriers and reach out to brands, photographers, and other influencers, which I would have never been able to do before.

But at some point that began to change. At some point it became less and less about making myself a better writer and creator and more about the notoriety. It became more about the followers and less about the process of building a brand that I loved. I began constant negative self talk: Why am I not growing? Why do people think my content is worth a second glance? This market is too saturated and I am I just white noise…

I started to resent all the reasons why I started the blog in the first place. I started to hate writing, thinking no one was listening. I started to hate creating images, because I told myself I wasn’t a model and that I was not creating value for anyone. I started to get anxiety when I would post because I wasn’t loving anything I was putting out.

That all changed a few weeks ago… I made a decision that if I wanted to create value to my community, if I wanted to create things that I was in LOVE with, and if I wanted to start loving to write again, then I was going to have to actively change things.

I decided if I was going to change things, I would have to start working with other like minded individuals. If I wanted to portray more of my creative side and my personality in my images, I would need to collaborate with someone who could challenge me creatively.

I had always loved how fun and carefree Suzy Shattuck was and loved her personality that oozed from her feed. I then reached out to her husband who does the majority of her pics. I told him what specifically I was looking for, we scheduled a time to shoot, and he sourced some super fun locations to shoot (which was awesome because normally I would be doing that).

After the shoot was done, I new I had made the right decision. I say this because I knew the images were coming out amazingly,  I was being pushed creatively (meaning people where staring and looking at me like I was a fucking lunatic), and most importantly I was having a blast doing it all.

I remember this is why I started the blog in the first place. F-U-N. This F word was something I had been missing all along, fucking FUN. I was having a blast creating these images and wasn’t counting the minutes until I was done with the shoot. I was doing what I loved doing and wanted keep shooting through the LA darkness (which is what we actually did… we shot in the dark and even those images were epic).

Creating new and exciting content has now triggered a domino effect to creating more posts that are about me, my life, and the things that I had learned along the way. My goal is no longer to write what I think I should write, but to story tell my life lessons, share shit I love, and create an intentional community around it all.

I could now begin a new chapter in my blogging book. My focus would now be having fun, defocusing on the numbers, and re-learning my passion. I was now truly excited…