The Blogger Recognition Awards

First of all, a huge thank you to Chic and Polished for nominating me for the Blogger Recognition Award! If you don’t already follow her, I think you should go and check her blog out!

Blogger Recognition Award Rules

1. Write a post explaining why you started blogging along with a few tips.
2. Nominate some of your fellow bloggers.
3. Comment on their blogs to let them know you’ve nominated them.

Why I Started Blogging

I started blogging because of my current situation in my career. I’ve been working for four years since graduating from university. In the last year, I’ve started feeling really unhappy about work, to the point where I wasn’t sure if I had chosen the wrong field entirely. You could probably call it a quarter-life crisis of sorts. Although I did all of the right things to move up the corporate ladder, my career wasn’t progressing the way I wanted it to, and it was seriously demotivating. On top of that, my bad mood was bleeding into my personal life – I didn’t really feel motivated to do anything. My SO suggested I start a blog to talk about the things I love, so that I would have something creative to focus my energy on during my downtime. Blogging was something I had always thought about doing, but I had never really taken the thought seriously. This time, I thought, “Why the heck not? I have nothing to lose.” And here we are today 🙂

A Few Tips

Seeing as how I’m brand spanking new to blogging (this is literally my second blog post), I feel that I am in no position to give any advice! However, I do have some thoughts on blogging that I will try my hardest to stick to, and I would like to share these ideas.

1. Treat blogging like a hobby, not a popularity contest. Just like anything in life, it’s going to take time to be successful at something. It’s unrealistic to think that a new blog is going to have hundreds of followers right off the bat. The most important thing is, don’t blog because you want to gain followers. Blog because you enjoy doing it, and because you are passionate about the things you write about. If you love what you are doing, your passion will shine through, and your blog will gain followers naturally.
2. Stay organized! This includes planning your blog posts ahead of time, making a schedule for yourself, and ensuring that you stay on this schedule. Honestly, I haven’t quite worked this one out myself, but I am hoping to get myself into a routine in the next month. Most of us probably would be pretty sporadic with our blog posts if we didn’t give ourselves a deadline, because let’s be honest, which is easier – writing a blog post, or binge-watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix? but if I know that I promised to put out a blog post on a certain day, then I will get it done!
3. Network! This was something I was taught in business school, and I think it applies to the blogging world as well. You cannot have a successful blog if you never leave your lonely little island, and focus solely on your own blog. Visit other blogs that talk about the subjects you’re interested in; leave insightful comments that get conversations going. You will make new friends and receive support from others in the community. Even though I’m still new at blogging, I can already tell that there are people out there who are kind souls, and are hugely supportive of other bloggers!
4. Put your best effort into your blog posts. It’s better to put out one or two high-quality, well thought out blog posts per week, rather than churning out daily blogs that are done sloppily (Of course, I don’t mean that there aren’t daily bloggers who still manage to have great blog posts, because there are many – and kudos to them for maintaining high-quality work with such a busy schedule!) Take the time to take good pictures, as well as putting meaning behind your writing and editing your work. Even though blogging is a hobby for most, a lot of hard work and pride should still go into any blog!

Nominate Some of Your Fellow Bloggers

Still accumulating some new WordPress friends 🙂 I nominate:

With All My Affection

stashmatters

Luring Lacquer

Can’t wait to hear your advice!