3 Things I Wish I Knew Before Blogging

Going into college, I actually wanted to be a journalist. Shocking, right? I even did a summer program at Brown University where I focused on writing stories for news reports. Writing has always been my passion, especially since a young age (not saying I’m spectacular at it) but I’ve always been told that I write the way I speak. That, to me, is the highest compliment. It adds a bit more genuineness to my blog which I aim for. Fun fact: I loved reading fictional thriller novels back in the day (I still do – Cassandra Clare is my all time favorite author) and I used to actually create my own short stories in my journal. They weren’t amazing, but I liked adding witty banter between the main characters and go overboard with the descriptive synonyms.

Thus, this blog was eventually born and I realized that it’s not something that I could just let simmer. If I really wanted to put effort into it, I would have to figure out how to balance it with my daily life. And man, has it been a challenge. Starting off, I thought – “Oh! I could just create a website and start writing my thoughts, add pretty pictures, and hit publish.” Reality check. It’s actually 100x more complicated than that. Here are a few things I wish I knew before I started my blog.

1. Consistency (& Content) is King!

When you have a full time job and you also want to sleep, eat, sometimes work out (pa-HA!), and have an actual social life, you don’t really have time for much else. So when I started this blog, I underestimated the amount of time blogging would require. Hint: it’s a lot more than you think. I had to teach myself how to live in this whole world of WordPress and integrate different plugins (no idea what a plugin even was). Sometimes things wouldn’t work which would lead to frustrated fits. On top of that, it’s important to post at least once a week so as to be consistent. Each post also has to be relevant because of course, content is still king. 

After a long work day, creativity sparks are dimming and sleep is overcoming. That’s when you have to power through and remember the purpose of your passion project. This results in long nights or sporadic creative bursts in the middle of your work day where you jot down a couple notes for a future post. Deadlines are also super important. Because this is a side hustle and something I WANT to genuinely do, nobody is going to discipline me for not posting something. It’s not like college where you would get a bad grade. This is where the internal motivation plays a part and you have to really push yourself without making it seem like a chore.   

2. Impostor Syndrome – we meet again!

Basically, Impostor’s syndrome is where one doubts his or her ability in a certain role. To me, some days I feel like “oh, who is even going to read what I write or actually take my recommendation, especially when there are a thousand other people they could listen to.” To overcome this, I tend to talk to some of my friends who are always so supportive and so encouraging. They always remind me of things I’ve said in the past about what I wanted to do with this blog and that ignites the spark within me once again to keep pursuing this side hustle. I also venture over to Pinterest where I read some of my saved inspirational quotes which I also find helpful. 

Check out this post: Inspirational Quotes to help Spark Creativity

3. Honey, Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a successful blog!

This has been one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned. As a very impatient person, waiting around for a certain number of page views, followers, likes etc. is the worst idea ever. Early on, I gave up on that and just focused on posting things I was passionate about. Slowly but surely, things have fallen into place and most importantly, I feel as if I’ve found my voice. I know what I want to talk about, I know how I want to talk about it, and people actually read it and send me messages about my content. That honestly is mind-blowing to me. Am I making an impact with my posts about 401Ks and skincare products? APPARENTLY. Here’s a little secret: I LOVE IT. That to me is success.

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