Real Talk: My Highs & Lows of Blogging

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This past week I met my “little, yet big” goal of hitting 1,000 followers on Instagram! Yay! It’s little victories like these that I have to hold on to to survive in this high speed world of fashion blogging! Coincidentally, this past week I was in a major blogging ‘funk’ and wasn’t feeling motivated to create new content, which I know is totally normal in the blogging world.  But here we are!  A new week, with some new, yet honest, content!

Making your online image ‘picture perfect’ is not as easy as it may seem to appear.  As I’ve said before, blogging is hard work and a major time commitment in my life, but with that in anything comes highs and lows. I figured that it was an appropriate time to catch y’all up on some “real talk” regarding some of my highs and lows with blogging so far in my own journey.

The Highs

• The Community: By far, what I have enjoyed the most from blogging is the amazing community of women that are now in my life. Some I have officially met in person and some just online. This was completely unexpected. When there’s a whole world of beautiful, unique women blogging, you’d expect them to be so competitive that they wouldn’t want to help and be unfriendly. Right? At least that’s what I thought. I could not have been more wrong. To be honest, one reason I had waited out on starting a blog in the first place was because I was worried it would be too ‘catty.’ I have been so humbled by every single blogger that I have interacted with in this process. This truly is community over competition and I absolutely love that and am proud to say that I am a part of it.
  • Philippians 2:3 – “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”

• A Good Challenge: I had done a lot of research before hand about all that entails to run a successful blog and although I do felt I was well educated on the subject, I’m still surprised by how much of a challenge it has been. I love challenging myself and putting my thoughts and efforts towards something good, so naturally – blogging has been perfect to get that fix! God definitely had his hand in the timing of this all starting.
  • Psalm 16:3 – “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.”

• An Introvert’s Dream: It may not seem like it, but for those that do not know me well, I am a true introvert until I get to know someone really well. Like really, really well. There have been many obstacles in my life being an introvert along with a mix of anxiety. Some examples of those challenges: rushing for a sorority, making new friends in college, and getting involved in anything new (that’s just a few). Blogging has been such a positive way for me to be able to share more about myself along with what I love doing such as styling. In such a short time, I’ve already seen introverted self flourish in this environment.
  • Matthew 5:16 – “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

The Lows

• The Comparison: This one is obvious, but so real. Although I have absolutely loved this new community of women that I’m surrounded by on the internet, it is now easier than ever to compare myself to them. I’ve caught myself comparing myself to other bloggers from their writing skills all the way to body image.  And I don’t think I’m the only one. I’ve really had to be in prayer about this one because if I’m not being my true self, then what is this all really for? My main hope in blogging from the very start has been to be a light to others in hopes of my followers seeing Christ in me. I also hope that other women see me as someone who is relatable.
  • Galatians 6:4-5 – “But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. ⁵ For each will have to bear his own load.”

• The Distraction: When you are a fashion blogger, you want to post everything exciting you’re doing, all the time, right? Because if it’s not somewhere on Instagram, did it really even happen? I kid with you now, but I catch myself all the time not living in the moment because I want to get that perfect picture of my latte to show all my followers that care soooo much about my latte 🙂 I kid with you again, but seriously, it’s an issue! I’m learning that I need to set boundaries with this so that I am present with the people around me, especially my husband. Sorry, Cody! The blogger world seems to never sleep, so I need to hold my self accountable and turn it all off from time to time.
  • Hebrews 13:5 – “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

• The Instagram Algorithm From H-E-double Hockey Sticks: All my blogger babes know the frustration of this, but for those of you who don’t, I wanted to briefly explain how Instagram works these days. Instagram use to be chronological, but now only shows your posts to about 10% of your followers, which is CRAZY! If your posts gets instant reactions (lots of likes and comments), they will show it to more of your followers. For how hard we work to gain followers organically, it is SO frustrating that only some of y’all are seeing our posts. Want to fix the problem? Go to the profiles of people you want to see and like the past 5 or so photos of theirs. Hopefully then they will start popping up more in your feed! My main platform to market my blog is by using Instagram. Subscribing to my blog and engaging (liking & commenting) on Instagram are both so important to me! I’m so thankful to all of my followers that support me, but it can definitely become frustrating when Instagram picks and chooses what gets shown on certain feeds! I even heard they promote selfies over high quality pictures! Say whaaaaat?!