This summer, I officially reached my threshold.
I ran three businesses, started a new one, managed people, ran an Airbnb, hosted a reunion of all my college friends and their families, and had my boyfriend and his children living with me for five weeks.
It was so exhausting I stopped blogging entirely. For the first time in over ten years.
This blog has been weekly since September of 2007. For two years it was a DAILY BLOG!
I blogged through my father’s death, my divorce, and other various changes that were good and bad. The blog was my thing I committed to.
Until I didn’t.
So what happened when I stopped blogging for six months? Let’s take a look.
My traffic went down, but my business went up.
So revenue is up over last year in the business… but our blog traffic looks like it’s tanked about 20% or so.
I tell people all the time that a blog gives Google something to regularly index and something to share on social media, email, and other kinds of online marketing. So I was expecting traffic to go down and it seems to have taken the biggest hit in both search and social media (both down about 10% from the previous year).
Now if I am spending more time on billable work and less time on blogging, that’s overall good… but I think I could definitely do a better job of balancing.
I need an editor and not writing was me avoiding the editing process.
One of the things I miss the most about Kassie (who worked with me for 4.5 years) is that she edited me in exactly the way I wanted to be edited. Not just grammar but also style. I honestly need someone to tell me when I sound negative or maybe could use an example for a point I’m trying to make.
I have ten blog drafts and none published and as I type this one, I realize it’s because I want, and likely need, an editor. So I just wrote to the best person I think could do this.
I was blocked.
One thing about writing is you need something to write about. And when you are too stressed out, trying to think of something while looking at a blinking cursor feels impossible.
For awhile, I was worried I had nothing more to say.
Turns out when I took a moment to breathe and think, I suddenly had lots of ideas. I just needed to manage my health (including my stress) so I could get there.
I kept thinking the first blog ‘back’ had to be epic.
Yeah, no pressure or anything, right?
Turns out the first blog back after a long hiatus just has to be written. So here I am, back after six months, having lost some traffic and momentum but gained some perspective.
Happy 2019 and whatever you are getting back to, whether it’s blogging or something else. Because we all have things worth picking back up again.