I should really start with a happy 2018? I don’t feel like that would be appropriate though, as we are now fully into the third month of the new year, but this is my first blog post since! Oh I do lack at keeping up with blogging don’t I? Well that would be me, as I’m now seven years into blogging… seven years you ask?!
Ok, so I wanna talk about this because I’ve been slapping myself silly for being so inconsistent with my blog, and if my experience helps anyone else who is on the fence about blogging, and it pushes them to just go for it, then I’m gonna talk about it!
This blog started back in 2011 as ‘The Golden Monkey’, now if any of you are still following me from back then, then I totally salute you for putting up with my m.i.a. situations, a huge high-five to you and thank you for being such supportive reader!! Apologies for such eye-watering bad photos and the weirdest outfit combo’s too!
So 2011, it had been 2 years since I had graduated, yep I did Fashion Design at University, and after, I continued to make my own collections in my bedroom, which I had turned into a half sewing room with the help of my dad. Whilst getting myself out there as a designer and researching into trends and streetstyle for my designs, I came across the absolutely coolest Lily Melrose www.llymlrs.com and was totally stunned, she had a blog where she posted every single day showing what she was wearing, I instantly wanted to know and see more! I ended up going back to her blog every single day and from there I came across Sammi aka Beautycrush at that time www.samanthamariaofficial.com .
I was completely sold at this point, that this is so so cool and I want to do this too! If you are a follower from back then, then you might remember I started off taking photo’s in my bedroom on a Sony Cyber Shot camera, such a basic little thing. The photos where hideous I must say!! Hot pink bright walls and I used to crimp my hair – I dunno what on earth I was thinking – at the time I thought it was so cool… Anyhow, I started posting everyday and I absolutely loved it! Following other blogs, networking and making online friends was such a positive feeling and it made me feel so happy and good about myself.
Now baring in mind that back then, there wasn’t thattt many people doing this, and that’s where my problems started. I’ve been the type to ALWAYS put importance on ‘peoples opinions’ and in my opinion, thinking about this can be a good thing and a bad thing, it’s good when it’s constructive criticism and self improvement in a positive way, but when it comes to un-helpfulness, negativity and not being open minded, it’s a nightmare. I always felt, people are just not gonna get what the blogging world is about, because back then it wasn’t as known as it is now. Putting pictures of yourself on the internet and chatting about it – would just sound weird to people…
Nevertheless, I carried on posting, I even started working with brands and collaborating. To some extent, this technically made my brain think ‘this is ok, and people shouldn’t find it weird because if brands are willing to work with me then it’s like a ‘job’ – which to society is ‘normal’ having a ‘job’ is ‘normal’ right? I kept those kinds of thoughts and all the positivity I was getting from my blog to carry on, but I had slowly started to post a lot more less, maybe once every two weeks, sometimes I’ve had times when I didn’t post for months, and that’s purely because of having those thoughts coming back, that people are just not gonna get me, when friends and family ask, ‘so what are you doing now?’ and I say ‘oh I blog and post on my personal style, they’ll either 80% won’t get it, or 20% think I’m just vain. I ended up having patches of designing and making collections again, but I missed blogging so much so I still posted those once in a month episodes…
I am by no means blaming or putting ‘society’ to fault for my lack of consistency, this is my personal journey of being too concerned of ‘what if they think this or that’…
Which brings me on to today; I’ve been more of a Instgrammer the past year or maybe more. Even though my account was made back in 2014 I had the same thoughts as blogging going on in my head, so I’ve only been posting consistently the past year. The amount of positivity on my account is insane, you guys make me realise every single day that I should’ve just carried on back in 2011 what I enjoyed SO SO much because that’s all that matters. ‘Society’ now is on the Blogging and Instagram world, and we’re at a stage where it’s so saturated. Now I look back, I think to myself, what on earth was I so concerned about, if someone doesn’t get what you do, they don’t, that doesn’t mean you don’t do what you enjoy, at the end of the day we are all different, and we weren’t put on this earth to be robots and do the exact same thing. The world is evolving everyday, what might seem a little odd today, maybe perfectly normal in the next couple of years….
On this note, I wanna say to anyone reading this post who has thought about starting a blog and are unsure for ANY reason, whether you think it’s too late to start a blog cause there’s so many out there? No, there’s space for everyone because we’re all different and you need to bring your personality to the community, whatever it may be, IF YOU ENJOY IT, and if it’s what YOU want to do, then JUST DO IT! Don’t think about whatever the ‘what if’s’ may be and not do it, because you’ll be slapping yourself this time in a few years when your doing something that’s not making you 100% as happy…
thanks so much for this post! this is exactly why I’m a bit inconsistent and Al’so why I don’t tell certain friends and family. good to know I’m not the only one.
Its taken me 7 years to realise that being too worried about others opinions is just wasting time and your personal journey. Don’t put your energy in all that thinking, instead use it to focus on doing what makes you happy and do it 😀 x
thanks so much for this post! this is exactly why I’m a bit inconsistent and Al’so why I don’t tell certain friends and family. good to know I’m not the only one.