Why I started blogging...

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year and have been enjoying 2019 so far. I ended up leaving this post until now because I took a bit of a break from blogging to relax for a while, but I'm back and looking forward to what the year has to offer and I am ready to grow my blog and push out as much content as possible this year.

I started up my blog in 2016 and it has grown and changed so much since then. I had been thinking about starting it for a while then and felt it would be something new for me to try out ,and I immediately enjoyed it. In the beginning I did not think through or have a plan of when I should post content ,or what I should post , and I also never planned my posts out/drafted them. I think that was one of my biggest downfalls when I just started blogging because it meant that I barely posted on my blog (I would post every couple of months or so) and I would take all day to create a post because I did not plan out everything I wanted to discuss or have a structure set out in my mind of how I wanted the post laid out. I also started out on a website that I was not entirely pleased with because of the layout of my blog pages (it was confusing) and when I would try to view my blog so many advertisements would pop up, I also wasn't able to make my blog look exactly how I wanted it to look (you could only use set layouts and colours). I decided in 2017 to change my website to Wix and I have been loving it ever since. Wix is super easy to use, you can create any type of website you would like for free, you can make it look exactly how you want it to look and no advertisements pop up on my posts. If you are thinking of creating or starting up a blog, I suggest trying Wix out because I have suggested it to other people who have blogs and they prefer it over anything else. Obviously not all of the features on Wix are free, but it doesn't limit you as much as other sites that I have tried. I have also started taking my blogging more seriously over the past two years and have been making sure I plan them out and make sure I know exactly how I want my post to turn out, which means it does not take me all day to push out a post, it only takes me an hour or two. Last year I created an Instagram page for my blog to advertise it more, share more detailed updates and create a system where I could collect feedback from my followers about what content I should post and how often I should post. This has helped me a lot in deciding how to run my blog properly and with structure.

The main reason I decided to start blogging was to have a place to start sharing my interests, passions, opinions, ideas through my writing in a way of expressing my creative side. I feel it is a place where I feel comfortable to express myself and share things with people who read my blog. I enjoy creating content for my blog because it lets me channel that creativity and also teaches me more about certain things I never knew how to do before, as well as knowing how to create a website and run it efficiently.

Blogging is not for everyone and I will admit it is something that takes up a fair bit of time (especially when you are new to it and still learning), but once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier to create content that you feel people want to look at as well as creating it quickly. I feel like now that I have been doing this for a while I find it easier to come up with ideas on what to post and I also occasionally do a poll on my Instagram to see if that is what people want to see and decide based on the feedback. I feel that having a blog is a good way to keep my mind busy, because even if I am not physically sitting down and typing out a post, I am drafting the post and writing down all my ideas in a book, or taking the photos for my post and uploading them. Blogging would be something I would be really happy with doing as a full-time career if I could, and that is why I try to work on it as much as possible in my spare time. If my blog was to ever become super successful, and I was able to make it my career one day it would mean the world to me. I already feel proud when I see that one or two people have viewed my posts or when I have friends telling me that they read my blog. When you start out, you have to keep in mind that maybe for a while people might not read your blog or look at it and it will feel like you are doing it for nothing but in the long run it will begin to pay off, especially if you share your blog on your social media and put it out there for people to see and it is something that requires patience and effort.