5 Things I’m Doing to Be a Better Blogger This Year

 

It’s kind of crazy to think that I’m entering year two of being a full-time blogger. My friends and family overwhelmingly supported my decision to pursue this dream, but it was really nervewracking to think that I wasn’t going to have a paycheck every two weeks while I was on this journey. I’ve learned so much about myself and my potential over the last year, and I’m excited to see what I can accomplish in year 2!

Working from home has been odd this past year. I struggled with it at first, because I always had to physically go into an office when I was working from my 9-5. When I first had a wide open day to do whatever I pleased, it was a little bit of a hot mess to be quite honest. I would either end up doing laundry and become distracted in my own apartment, or I would work a 14-hour day because I didn’t have a reason to log off.

Since I work on a desktop, I can no longer bring my computer into a coffee shop to work during the day. However, this year I’m making it a point to leave my apartment if possible and meeting the brands I’m collaborating with in person. I live so close to New York (I’m only 1.5 hours away by train), and it’s quite silly that I didn’t make an effort to go into the city 1-2 times a month to set up meetings with folks. I’m headed up to New York twice this month, and I’m meeting folks in person in Philly tomorrow for a collaboration, and getting out of my house to mingle with people IRL is helping me get my energy and passion back for my brand.

After the holiday season, I felt like I was in a creative rut. In 2016, I had to work with a variety of different photographers to produce content, and in the end, that ended up being a really good thing: the more creatives I had the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with, the stronger my brand was.

In 2017, I met my boyfriend, who happens to be a professional photographer. While he’s a fantastic photographer, it got to the point where I didn’t feel like working with anyone else because I already knew who I wanted to shoot with. I started to notice by the end of the year that I was coming up with the same concepts for shoots, over and over again.

Last week, I headed up to NYC to shoot with Laurel Creative, and immediately afterward I felt amazing. I felt refreshed. Recharged. Ready to conquer my next project. This year, I’m hoping to expand my portfolio and collaborate with more local creatives so I can keep producing fresh, original content.

Listen: it’s good to care. It’s good to put effort into creating good content, to develop new social strategies and to put together the best portfolio possible. However, there’s a lot of crap in the blogging world that you really shouldn’t care about. Oh, that influencer got picked for this opportunity over you? Cool, keep it moving. Is this blogger using bots to cheat on Instagram? It doesn’t affect you.  Did this brand take four weeks to approve your draft? No need to stress. 2018 is the year where I’m not sweating the small stuff because quite frankly, I have better things to do.

I’ve already started to do this, and I feel so much better. Instagram can be really…exhausting. This sounds silly, but every move I make on the platform is super calculated and curated, and it’s also the platform where most brands request ads on. Usually, on a Saturday or Sunday, I’ll take the time to disconnect from the platform: I’m not engaging with any content, answering DMs, or posting new content on my own. I’m either out with friends, sitting and watching a Netflix marathon, or traveling — but not scrolling my life away on IG. I can’t tell you how refreshing this has been!