Yesterday I was asked what I blog about, it is always a question that makes me pause… I honestly don’t know exactly how to put my blog into a niche. My response was it ‘evolves‘, what it was when I began was my voice, my reflections and my truth, and it still is those exact things, yet as I have evolved, grown, faced my fears and grown more comfortable in my own skin, what I write about has changed and my blog reflects those changes.
I have been told many times that to be a ‘successful blogger’ is to find a niche and slot in, hmm, well that is not working out so well for me. Success is defined on many levels and when I am told that a successful blog is based on earning money, or a living, well I am not successful. I have the upmost respect for the women and men earning their living through their blogs, but as a personal choice it wasn’t for me.
When I first started success for me was just being brave enough to hit publish! Then I honestly was blown away that anyone read it, as my following grew I was given job opportunities, I wrote for other websites, I traveled and took photographs and wrote posts in exchange for holidays for my family. It was quite a rush and the kids loved knowing mummy’s writing was what was giving them wonderful holidays, but something didn’t sit right with me. Although I was writing the truth of what I was experiencing, I felt locked into who I was as a writer.
So I stopped blogging for money, or for goods, and went back to day one where I wrote because I needed to. I needed to write for my soul, I needed to write in order to breathe. Writing is part of me, ask anyone who has a passion, a deep desire and I know they would understand what I mean, I have to write. Sure there are days I don’t feel like it, days where my anxiety is so severe that I feel like getting out of bed is a huge win! Sometimes weeks go by and I just haven’t picked up a pen, or my laptop and then I am hit with that wave of passion and I can not stop writing.
My blog is simply what it is called, it is a reflection of my thoughts, my feelings, a reflection from me. Success for me is doing something that I am passionate about, I would do it even if no one read it, but what makes my blog such a wonderful experience is you! It is my readers, it is the emails, or messages through instagram that tell me that something I wrote resonated with you. It is when you tell me I helped you through a tough day, or inspired you to speak up about mental illness, when you tell me you wore a bikini in Hawaii because I helped you build your confidence. I write for me, but you are who continues to inspire me!
I know that showing up here I can not guarantee you what my next post will be about, but I can promise you it will be real.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you feel inspired today to do something that fills your soul with joy, love, Kylie xx
Photo credit LUM3N via Pexels
2 comments
i have done restaurant reviews for a free meal, but it never felt right. you do feel compelled to be kinder when you’re getting a freebie, and it may not be honest. so i haven’t done any ‘paid’ ones for a while. Hope your year is going well. cheers sherry
I’ve been through this recently too. I got to a point where I made good money from my blog, but I fell out of love with it. Because my motivation to blog had always been about telling our stories, and making people laugh. It’s hard to do that for money, and the writing is more difficult to come up with. I’m just coming back to my love of it and it’s so good to remember why I wrote in the first place. I’m just a little bit sad that I missed a good few years of telling our story for the kids to read when they’re older.
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