Why I Stopped Being A Full Time Blogger

Part of me thought mentioning that I’d stopped blogging as my full-time job on Instagram and briefly in a few blog posts was enough but then the question kept on coming up and I realised maybe the subject did deserve a post explaining why. Last year, things changed a lot for me as I imagine they did for everyone when the pandemic hit and it made me face some uncomfortable truths that I’d been hiding from for a little too long so here is an honest conversation about why blogging full time wasn't for me anymore…

blogging now vs then

I tried to fight for a long time that the blogging world had drastically changed. Of course, there are small pockets of the internet that still feel like that safe online sanctuary that made me start blogging in the first place but it's undeniably different as a whole. Especially in the genre of blogging that I’ve spent so many years in, it now has an extremely heavy focus on luxury goods and that isn’t a world that I'm ever going to be a part of. The relatable element of the bloggers that I once followed has now pretty much disappeared apart from a select few and it's something I desperately miss. I've grown up so much since I began From Roses in 2011, I came into it with an extremely bad relationship with shopping and being seriously unhappy with myself. Ten years later, I'm a completely different person and so much happier for it. Now I spend nearly all my time outside with my husband and dogs taking pictures of the wonderful countryside we are so close to and that is what truly makes my soul happy. I still adore beauty products but it’s not something I give a huge amount of focus to like I once did so writing five or more beauty posts a week isn't something I was ever going to sustain in the long run. I still haven’t quite figured out where I fit in online with the type of content I like to create now as it is so different from what I used to do but I think that is ok. It’s ok not to have a niche and all that matters is that I’m sharing things I love because I want to not because I feel I have to or to keep up with a crazy content schedule. I just want to be able to share a bit of everything from my life, whether that is about skincare or the great new things I’ve found for going on walks in winter.

the nitty gritty of being a full time blogger

I’m never gonna be ok with discussing my income on the internet, nor do I think it’s useful at all in this conversation but money is a big part of blogging if it’s going to be your job and by the end, I wasn’t making anywhere near the amount I needed to in order to cover my bills. Not only was I not making it work financially but it wasn't working for me mentally at all and it was taking too much of a toll on my mental state. Even making the smallest amount of money from my blog still means a huge amount to me, I feel extremely privileged to have made an ok living from something that I was doing for free because I was so, so obsessed with creating blog and Instagram posts. However, I made a lot of mistakes within my time due to having so little faith and confidence within my skills and not knowing enough about what to charge and what legal rights to put onto my work. Those are things that I was only going to learn in time which is ok, it’s easy to look back and regret some of the decisions that I made but it was all part of the bigger picture for me to learn and grow from and I’m grateful for every single opportunity I had. The collaborations I worked on are something I’m immensely proud of but as a smaller blogger, I often felt the way I was treated by some PR companies and agencies was reflected in the number of followers I had. There is a lot of unprofessional practices within the blogging world and very few legal rights for those doing the work which is a huge issue across the board. The amount of anxiety and uncertainty I felt around not only securing jobs was one thing but actually getting paid from them was awful. Constantly needing to chase and ask to be paid for the work I’d completed months before is something I couldn’t mentally do anymore it was having such a negative effect on my life as I was in charge of everything.

an unhealthy relationship with the follower count

I think it’s pretty impossible when your job revolves around social media to not pay attention to your likes and followers count, especially when it comes to any brand work as that’s what the success of the campaign is measured on. It was a constant battle mentally to not let the numbers completely dictate how I felt about what I was doing online and at the end of 2017 my Instagram suddenly starting leaking followers and it’s never been the same again. I have no idea what happened or understand why but I can’t deny how much it affected how I felt about myself and my work. I constantly questioned what was wrong with me and my work for people to unfollow at such a consistent rate. It didn’t matter what I did either, and even when a post did well which give me a little endorphin high it was still constantly niggling away at me why people were unfollowing. Then, of course, there was the constant worry about brands not wanting to work with me if people were unfollowing or if my engagement was suddenly very low as both of those things are very much of my control and despite the rational part of my brain knowing that I still couldn’t shake the quite serious effect it was having on my mental state. I've had to do a lot of work mentally to work out how to use Instagram in somewhat of a healthy manner, which I get may sound ridiculous but it's true. Getting that immediate interaction and validation from strangers online is completely addictive and it's hard to separate that validation from my own value of what I'm doing online.

what I’m doing now

Right now, I’m a creative assistant for small businesses and look after their Instagram and Pinterest accounts and help them create content for their social channels whether that is lifestyle photography or Pinterest graphics I do a little bit of everything. I have three monthly clients who I absolutely adore and truly I’ve never felt so happy with what I’m doing for work, I feel completely valued by the wonderful women I work for and fulfilled and I think that’s all I could ever ask for from my job. As well as those clients I take on lifestyle photography clients and create imagery for them for their socials and websites. This is something I’d like to push a little further as I get to use my degree and I love creating imagery for others as I get to stretch my creativity in other ways. Blogging is something I will always have a special place in my heart for, as without it I wouldn’t be doing the job that I am doing now but I’m really ok that’s it’s not my full-time job anymore. The effect it was having on me as a person truly wasn't something I could have done for much longer and even though it was hard to accept it's been for the best.

From Roses in the future

I’m aware of this post being extremely negative tone but it’s got a positive end, I promise! For the future, I have no solid plans of what I want to do with this internet space but I know I want to get into writing posts again because it is something that I truly enjoy and now my blog is my hobby once again it takes so much pressure off what I'm doing. I took quite a long break this year from creating anything online and it was much longer than I've ever had before but it was very much needed whilst I adjusted to a very different workload and trying to figure out if we were ever going to get married. Now I'm much more adjusted to my client workload and we’re married it gives me so much more time in my schedule and brain for creating things just for myself as that is something I want to try and maintain as much as possible alongside work. I’m very conscious of putting unrealistic expectations on myself so I’m not going to give myself any deadlines and just do what I can whether it’s a blog post or Instagram imagery. In terms of sponsored work, this is something that might still have a place within what I do online if I am fortunate to still receive any offers of paid work from brands that I adore and use anyway but it certainly won't be very frequent I imagine. My biggest goal is just to create around things that make me happy whether that’s my dogs or a foundation that I’ve found, and I hope you’ll be with me for whatever comes next as none of this would have been possible without the incredible support I’ve been given over the years. I'm truly so grateful for the time I had being a full-time blogger, it's an incredible experience to have been able to live and I will never forget everything I did during that season of my life.

Why I Stopped Being A Full Time Blogger