Maybe You’re Just Not Good Enough (But That’s Okay)

It was the late summer of 2016 when I discovered that there was a thriving blogging community on twitter. I had been blogging for around 6 years by then but yet I felt like such a newbie when I began to have a good look at other blogs outside the ones that were already on my reading list. I mean, these were really good blogs. Their content was great, their photos were top notch, and all around they seemed like they really knew what they were talking about. Then I discovered another blog, and then another, and before I knew it I was hooked.

As the years went on I saw an increase in bloggers striving to be noticed through the carefully curated photography and the rise in big blogging events and awards. Blogging changed from being a hobby to being a main source of income, and you could tell. Some had even taken the leap from their office jobs to doing blogging full-time. Blogging finally gained recognition it deserved from the general public.

This ‘blogging fever’ finally reached my blog, and I find myself stressing a lot more about blogging than I had ever done in all of my years of writing. I needed to step up my game, to be different. If I wasn’t different enough then I would just fade away into the background. I needed to be noticed to establish my worth. I needed to change.

So were wishlists good enough anymore? Was writing about my day even interesting? What about where I would just take a picture of my outfit in the mirror? Do people still like selfies?

Sometimes it was for the better – I upped my photography game and my other half and I would start taking photos on a nicer camera and my outfits were also more carefully curated. Hours became lost on weekends because I wanted to make myself look pretty for my blog even though I went straight to bed afterwards most of the time.

Other times I was just a ball of nerves and stress from the desire to be accepted by other bloggers. To be deemed ‘good enough’. To be part of their blogging circles and to gain blogger friends. How I felt everyday was determined by how many pageviews my blog post received and how many retweets I got.

And on top of it all, I had to write good, relatable content. Good content. Good enough. Good content. Good enough. Those words were drummed into my head. I was so focussed on having to write good content that I almost forgot what it was like to just write content.

Well I would say – bollocks to that, I want to have fun again!

Screw having to just write “good content” all of the time! Write all the content you want! Take all of the on-the-go photos you want! You see this post? These photos were taken on a whim because we happened to have a few minutes spare before I had to catch a train to go shopping with my friend. No planning, no hours wasted on styling my hair, just me goofing around and smiling at an old iPhone. And yep our garden is overgrown because it’s winter.

Let’s throw out the overwhelming need to be noticed as a blogger. Throw out the idea that we’re not good bloggers because we don’t take photos on a fancy camera or have the trendiest outfit. I want to throw out this stupid thought in my head that I’m a bad blogger because I don’t live in London and miss out on all of the nice “instagrammable” places to visit. I want to accept myself again with open arms and just go with the flow.

Because maybe I’m just not good enough but that’s okay, at least I’ll be happy with being me.

What do you think? Do you ever feel inadequate as a blogger? How do you overcome that?