When I first started blogging, it was (kinda) part of a course I was doing (I am a teacher) Blogging was a way for me to reflect on my teaching ideas and so on. I started off as an educational blogger. I loved it. I loved sharing my teaching ideas, whining about teaching and communicating with other teachers.

As time went by, I wanted to include more topics and talk about my interests, so I started writing about books, my trips, then came makeup (and a whole girlie side of ELT aka English language teaching). My edublog started to become a bit too lifestyle-ish.

That’s when I decided I would start a second blog. This one. A fun blog where I would talk about my hobbies, my thoughts, boast about the things I have. My blog was an ode to my materialism coz I love shopping and talking about it.

I was a happy bunny. All good. I have actually been double-blogging for about a year and a half. Of course, now I blog more here than on my edublog. Let’s move on though, shall we? Now, as if a second blog was not enough, I decided I also wanted to start a YouTube channel and I did.I enjoy making videos. I like the interaction.

And?

Well, I cannot keep up. I have ended up going from writing my thoughts and sharing stuff, to talking mostly about products and that’s not who I am. I mean do not get me wrong folks.

I ❤ shopping

but in order to keep up, I have followed the norm and started just posting about what everyone else publishes. Talking about what everyone else talks about. But blogging, which was my creative outlet, is not my creative outlet anymore. I have been sucked into the:

Get Views

Do SEO

Become Self hosted

Take instagrammable pictures

Promote

Publish

Become a brand

Get a camera/ Be more professional

So, now I have added more stuff on my To Do lists. Now, I gotta learn how to take videos/ photos, edit, import/ export stuff and yada, yada, yada.

And I stopped having fun. I feel a bit overwhelmed and not seeing the results I wanna see. Sure, my numbers have risen. I even got proper blogger mail, but I cannot keep up because I have a job and a life plus I am old. 40.

I have actually started to think that in order to be successful at blogging Youtubing, apart from being 20+, you also need to be unemployed cause, in my mind, there is no way you can be on top of your game if you work full time. Maybe I am inefficient and watch too much TV or something and cannot be as productive as others, or maybe I am comparing myself to other bloggers/ YouTubers (I feel ‘funny’ calling my self a YouTuber, but anyhoo) and

this the comparison, the do this, do that, is not making me happy.

Dunno what I am going to do, but something has to go, or I need to stop taking blogging/ YouTubing so seriously and just take it easy. But these options are not gonna cut it. I mean, I may not be a famous blogger, but I do have readers (especially my edublog) and I don’t want to ‘destroy’ what I built! So, what can I do??

We live in a time were in order to succeed, you got to do more. And then more. And that more doesn’t necessarily have to be good. It may just exist, but it’s out there and it’s more. A time where we are always setting goals, trying to hit a target. Aiming at something, but does that bring joy?

I mean, I get burnout and lack of inspo when you are a workaholic, but burnout as a freakin blogger? C’mon…. Really?? Is this what I want? Hell no!!

So, this is where I am. Trying hard to juggle a million balls. Stressing myself out for no real reason. Chasing the unchasable (is that a word).

Thanks for reading. I am usually more fun… but I do ramble.

I love writing. Always have. This is why I have two blogs and am writing blog posts which do or do not get read. It’s my creative outlet. It’s my hobby. It makes me happy, sometimes sad as well. It allows me to show you who I am. Who I really am. Is that why you write?

Because I am a teacher, I am also very interested in writing styles and I want to take up courses that will help me improve as a blogger/writer.The other day I watched a TED talk by Sinek in my class (I will link the TED talk below) and it talked about inspiring others and why people connect with brands/ people.

He talked abut the golden circle. Imagine three circles. One in the other. The inner circle has the word WHY in it, the next circle has the word HOW, and the outer circle the word WHAT. Now, according to Sinek, people buy a product when you tell them why you make it, then how, and finally, what it is.

Now let’s look at writing. If you try to to transfer that to your writing style, you start with why you are saying something and then you move on to how and what.

Let’s take for example a beauty product, I am trying to connect with my readers by saying why I like lipsticks and this particular X lipstick, how I used it and then the information about the product. The What. You can see an example of this writing style in my Aveda haul or even this post. I started with the why…..

This makes sense to me. As a reader I can connect to the WHY, so why not start with it? Don’t know how long my blog posts will be written in that kind of way, but  am trying it out. What do you think?

If you enjoyed what you read, do subscribe to my blog. We can also connect on social media. Click on the ones you use and connect with me 🙂  Pinterest / Twitter/ Instagram/Google+.

Simon Sinek’s video can be found on YouTube. It is called” Start with the why”

Talk soon!

xxx

Jo