If you said this to me a couple of months ago I would’ve looked at you, gobsmacked in disbelief. Hustle less and live more? Definitely not! I used to believe that good things come out of hard work – and in some instances it is true – but I took it all too seriously. I started to compare myself to more “successful” people and thought that I wasn’t good enough. ‘I had a breakdown’ was an understatement as I found myself crying in my sleep because of how ‘unsuccessful’ I was while I was on my second honeymoon in Amsterdam. Yep, on a holiday where things should’ve been super romantic and carefree.
I knew that I needed to change my mind-set about my life and the way I view the hustle as the toxic thing that it really is. Hustling has become an obsession in our society and I got caught up in it all. So here’s how I’m trying to hustle less and live more…
Okay, I fucked up, again. I allowed myself to get down in the dumps because my lil’ blog over here wasn’t get enough attention as I wanted it to. It got so bad that I was stressing myself out and just piling lots of things onto my to-do list, and my searches were filled with stuff like ‘how to grow your blog’ and ‘how to get more pageviews’. It was triggered when someone posted in a group “can you please help me grow my blog because I only get 200-300 pageviews a day?”.
Only.
People are right – comparison is the thief of joy and it stole all of my happiness right then. Gosh, I was so far away from that! What is wrong with my blog? Is it worth even blogging any more? I know I shouldn’t be moaning because people have different measurements of success, but it really got to me. I was lost focus of what I wanted to do because I was feeling so upset that I wasn’t good enough. Again.
That’s until I read ‘The One Thing’ by Gary Keller. I’m not really one for self-help books, but after finding it harder and harder to be multi-passionate, I decided to give this book a go. My mind was blown. My goals were back in focus and my dream future was becoming clearer.
After this I realised that I wasn’t ever going to become a full-time blogger. There were so many signs that I dismissed earlier that suddenly became crystal clear. Firstly, I never really had the time for blog events and attending blogger meet-ups weren’t really my thing unless I knew someone there. Secondly, I was secretly thankful that my inbox wasn’t flooded with sponsored emails. I just couldn’t write a sponsored/gifted post with the same enthusiasm as I would have if it was just a normal outfit post unless I truly believed in them. And thirdly, I couldn’t be bothered to learn about SEO. At the end of the day, I write posts because I wanted to, not to boost my rating or whatever.
What I do know, however, is that I do love blogging but only because it provides me a creative outlook to write down my thoughts. The more I tried to pressure myself to promote my blog and get it in front of people, the more stressed out I was. And that reflected badly on my writing. I even had to take a break from this blog (and this is my first post after said break) because I found myself crying to sleep as I lost sense of purpose. But I don’t really need a reasoning for blogging – doing it because I love it is a good enough reason.
I’m going to take it easy so that I can focus more my ‘One Thing’, which I know to be my art. It’s something that I’ve done my whole life and it’s been in the dark for too long. I want it to grow. I want to be known as a hand-letterer and be damn good at it.
So, I’m happy with just being a hobbyist blogger.
Love,
Lizzie xx
P.S. Are you a hobbyist blogger or do you do it full-time? Or are you somewhat in-between?
It’s a strange concept, isn’t it, the thought of an introverted gyaru? Gyaru are always portrayed as out-going and fun-loving in the media, but I’m so far away from that. It used to get me down quite a lot as I felt that my introverted nature meant that I wasn’t a “real gyaru”, but the older I got the less I cared. I just preferred to be in the comfort of my home with my husband and my cat than out partying, it’s as simple as that.
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.
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