6 Brutal Truths About Blogging

As I’ve been approaching to this time of the year, I can’t shake the feeling of nostalgia. It reminds me about my first years of book blogging and what I’ve done and who I become to this day. As I looked back, I wanted to write about what I learned along the journey, let’s walk down this memory lane with me, shall we?

Talking about what you’re passionate about

If you’re looking for a good reason to start a blog, find what subject you’re most hyped and passionate to talk about. I always imagined what would I talk to someone for hours and hours? That’s how books and food come along. Because somewhere in the entire world, someone may also read that same book and eat that same food. Blogging is a platform to share your thoughts to the world.

Discovering myself

I will always be grateful for blogging. Throughout all my posts, hours of design, editing to share my thoughts, I also found myself along the way. I learned a lot about what I like, my limits, what I can tolerate, etc. It builds up the confidence, reminding me the purpose and the value of my goals and ambitions. When you’re ready to share a part of your story to the world, you are not ashamed anymore of your mistakes and vulnerabilities, you have something to offer, the wisdom of experiences.

(c) Trang – Bookidote

The Community

Book blogging as well as food blogging taught me that the most loyal communities can be formed online. I will never forget your comments and tremendous support. Even if I’m doing a terrible job at answering them and reciprocating the comments nowadays, know that you guys are always in my heart. You contributed to my life, when no one was around to discuss about books, when no one was reading about my rantings, you guys were there. Miles away maybe, but you were there.

To be honest, I’m at a place of my life right now where I grow so much more offline that I find it hard to review as religiously as before. But, it doesn’t mean I stopped. I’m simply taking everything at own rhythm. I want to come back when I have something very dear or meaningful things to say.

Being consistent

What comes with blogging and social media, is that your followers will expect you to create content and always post, post, post that it’s difficult to keep up with being consistent. It’s hard but it’s possible. 4 years of Bookidote and 6 years of being an Instagrammer taught me that much. So many things will happen in your life that you simply CANNOT always post here and there. But you will manage, you will learn the twists and turns and make it work. It will come, be patient.

The I-don’t-want-to-blog phase

It goes with consistency, it’s that down and demotivation feeling you hit one day. It may be the exhaustion, lack of time that builds up into laziness and doubts. Those feelings are the worst things because I know how blogging genuinely makes me happy but I forget sometimes I don’t want to write book reviews and that’s okay. You will pass by a similar phase, and when you do know that it’s understandable and to take all the time you need to rest and recharge.

The Envy

Like in many fields, there will always be someone who will be envious of your success. It’s even more obvious in the blogging and social media community. Numbers are so important, the metrics and the stats are all over your feed. It’s hard to ignore. Every time I share my big wins, I can feel the sense of doubts and insecurities in other bloggers’ and influencer’s words. It sucks because the supportive words are not genuine. My advice is this, try to not compare yourself and empathize. Try to see from the other person’s perspective. Maybe they blogged longer than you thought, they took more time to finish a project, a milestone, you don’t know what that person is going through their lives.

(c) Trang – Bookidote

P.S: I’m coming back slowly to blogging! Missed you guys, will update soon with a post right after my sister’s wedding but here are some pictures with me and my Mom 😉 she’s doing better now, cancer free, thank you for your support ❤