If you’ve been blogging for at least a year, at some point you’ve found yourself in a creative rut. Sometimes you just need a quick break, but other times you might be so overwhelmed that you wonder why you’re even doing it. My advice? Push through and keep going. While life can be busy and blogging consistently is a lot harder than what most people think that is, this is par for the course and so worth it in the end if you continue on.
Typically when bloggers find themselves stuck in a creative rut, there are a handful of reasons that they all share, and I’ve found that when they make a few simple changes, they break free from their creative rut and get back to blogging. If you’ve found yourself in a creative rut lately, follow these 3 tips to help you get your creative juices flowing again.
Take a break from social voyeurism
Basically, chill out on spending so much time on social media. Yes, it’s fun and easy to scroll when you’re passing time in between work or errands, but absorbing so much content may be inspiring but unconsciously paralyzing you. If you are a content creator/influencer/blogger (whatever you want to call yourself at this point), you will find yourself wishing that you could emulate what other larger accounts are doing vs actually taking the time out to create content for your blog’s audience, which totally defeats your purpose. You want to pay attention to what’s going on with your industry peers, but you should also work to remain focused on serving your actual audience. Be inspired, but not so much that you never work on your own blog.
Forget about the numbers
I know I know, numbers don’t lie and everyone wants to grow their audience, but you have to remember: if you’re not serving the audience you have NOW, how will you be able to serve the larger audience that you wish to have? Rome wasn’t built in a day (and neither was your readership or social following), so stop being so focused on getting your numbers up. Instead, get focused on sharing content that your current audience loves and engages with (which will in turn lead to more people finding you and *gasp* growth). Growth is still possible at a slower rate, and tbh, it allows you to experiment with what you share until you’re able to find your blogging groove. Enjoy the journey of content creating vs. trying to rush it.
Live your life
You mean actually get out of your house and off your phone and do something fun? Yes! Get out and live. your. life. Let me tell you, there are a lot of bloggers creating content that is really boring nowadays because they don’t really share anything outside of an outfit post or something related to shopping/consumption. If you live for shopping and truly enjoy sharing about everything you find then godspeed, but if it’s just a small fraction of what you do, then push yourself to do (and share) beyond that. Some of the top fashion bloggers that I follow do their outfit posts, blogger mail, and shopping hauls regularly, but they also give their audience a peak into their everyday life: hanging with family + friends, books they’re reading, delicious dinners, workout sessions, and even just general errands and wandering around their city. They’re bloggers, but they still live their lives. They’ve mastered how to make the mundane seem interesting, so people love to see what they do outside of the posts that they share about clothes. They live life and bring their audience along with them vs. trying to only do things that are staged or considered popular. If you do the same, you’ll find yourself being able to do the same.
In addition to these tips, take some time out to revisit your WHY (why did you start blogging in the first place), review your blog’s categories to see if it’s time to branch out or scale back with your topics, and remember that blogging takes work, but it should also be fun.
This post was right on time. Thank you for being so willing to share.
Thanks for reading Desiree! I’m glad it helped. 🙂