Hi friends, how are you doing? This Friday my blog will be exactly 6 months old! I’m already on my halfway mark and I wanted to celebrate it by sharing a few tips with you that I’ve learned along the way and that have helped me over the years. Yes years. Friday may be Words by Wildflower’s half birthday but there have been others. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that this isn’t my first blog, it’s more like my fifth or sixth. And although my previous ones failed pretty badly, they paved the way for me to do much better with my current blog and I couldn’t be happier for all the mistakes I made. So these are my six tips from my six months of blogging;

1. It’s okay to take rest from blogging when you feel like quitting. A lot of the time before I decided I was going to quit blogging, I always felt overwhelmed, frustrated and hopeless. It felt like anything I did wasn’t bringing me any closer to my blogging dreams and I was just wasting my time. I changed my theme so many times that I lost count and deleted so many posts that I wasn’t happy with. I now see that all that anxiety and frustration could have easily been dealt with had I given myself a break. Instead of quitting blogging completely, I could have just dedicated a specific amount of time to take care of myself and have a break from writing. There was no need for me to quit and start all over again because all I needed was to pause everything and take a break.

2. It’s okay to ask for help/advice from people who inspire you. Something I did a lot in the beginning of my journey was reaching out to people who inspired me. It didn’t matter whether they were, a blogger, an Instagram influencer, a photographer, I wanted advice from them all. Most of them would help me and I’m so glad I got over the fear of rejection (incase any of them decided not to respond to me). If you admire someone in the creative world I say gain some courage and reach out to your favorite people and ask them for advice. They may not respond to you very quickly but most of the time they do actually respond, you just have to be patient. And don’t be afraid, you never know what might happen after.

3. It’s okay to be your own cheerleader and support system. Is blogging your own little secret? Do the people closest to you know about it or have you told them yet? I’ll be honest and say since I changed my blog name only one person in my personal life knows about it. I’m not yet ready to reveal it to my loved ones although I know they would support me all the way. At the moment (and most of the time) I have been my own cheerleader. I don’t depend on anyone to cheer me on this journey because it’s my own journey. The voice that matters most to me is my own because that is what drives me to keep on writing, creating and sharing. Think about it. If you didn’t cheer yourself on you would have zero drive to do the things you love. It’s for that reason that each time I hit publish I always say to myself “I’m so proud of you” or “your doing such a great job.”

4. It’s okay to delete everything and start over. I know this one sounds a bit extreme but I would have never gotten to where I am had I not erased all my mistakes and started over. In past blogs, I have written about food, music, fashion, poetry etc And although at the time they seemed like the right choice of topics for me to write about, as I got to know myself better and what I was trying to achieve I realized it was all wrong. I could have kept everything in my archives as a means of storing old (and failed) memories but I like starting again if I feel like I can do something much better the second time around. Keeping my old blog and topics would have been a distraction to my new and better journey which is why I advocate for starting all over if you think you’ve been doing it all wrong and can create something more valuable.

5. It’s okay to find inspiration on Pinterest. Pinterest really is the google of the creative world. If your stuck or lack inspiration and don’t have a Pinterest account I would highly recommend you start one now. There is inspiration for literally anything out their. You can find ideas about which topics to write about, how to write, social media tips, money management, health, fitness, food, the list goes on. I personally use it to create vision boards because their’s an abundance of pretty and inspiring pictures you can find that will help you focus on your personal goals. As for blogging, if your always looking for topics or don’t know what to write about I would say Pinterest will be very useful to you. With pins like “100+ blog topic ideas” who can possibly run out of ideas to write about?

6. It’s okay to be kind to trolls. Wanting and wishing for engagement on your blog is a double-edged sword. On the bright side you have plenty of people who love, support and care about what you write about and totally support you but on the other hand you will encounter people who want to discredit or provoke you in some way. I am learning to be kind to everyone and part of that has taught me how to respond to trolls. I don’t know about you but holding on to bad feelings like anger or spite feels so poisonous to me! I don’t want to be upset just because someone is mean to me, I want to be nice to them because you never know what is happening to them in their life. They could be going through something rough. So be prepared for both good and bad comments if you want engagement and interaction with your readers.

Final thoughts.

Sometimes when we start building a good thing it feels like everything is going to be easy and we won’t come across any hurdles. I started blogging 6 years ago and boy have there been a lot of hurdles! But despite all that I went through to get to this point I wouldn’t  change a thing because I learned a lot and I’m reaping the rewards today. If you’re having any trouble on your creative journey I would  say, don’t waste any time worrying about it because things will and do get better. That is the mentality I have when things get tough because I know my journey will improve if I am patient, poised and consistent. To end my post I have a few questions to ask you? Do you ever feel like quitting sometimes? What are you most currently frustrated about? Do you mind sharing your answers with me and my readers? Please feel free your thoughts are always welcome here. Thank you so much for reading and see you in my next post!