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Saturday, 11 January 2014

Blogger Burnout and How To Avoid It

Hi Goddesses




Have you ever realised that some of your favourite bloggers no longer blog?  Or maybe they don’t post as much, or they’ve gone on hiatus for a month … and taken 6?



Blogger burnout – or it’s less evil cousins, blogger flu or the blogger blues – can strike at any time.  So what are the symptoms?



No yearning to paint your nails
Too many photos to edit, and no motivation to do so
The words, the words – if only someone would write the post for me!
Lack of ideas for nail art
You’ve been wearing the same mani all week ….



Now, in isolation, none of these are a problem, but if they continue, then they are.  Blogging should be fun and exciting – the minute it starts to feel like work is the time to start worrying.



I’ve been there.  I’ve had the odd day or days where I just couldn’t be arsed, where every polish I looked at seemed dull or uninspiring, or when I just could not bear to edit another bloody photograph.  Some days I find myself wishing for an assistant to do the crappy bits for me lol – not gonna happen though!



So how does your hobby or your passion start to feel like work or a drudge?  Well, most bloggers spend as much time on their blog each week as they do at work.  Most top bloggers are putting somewhere between 20 and 40 hours into their blog – no wonder it feels like work!   But at work, we get holidays, and time off – yet we never do this with our blogs.  Maybe we SHOULD be taking mini breaks every now and then.




So how do you beat the Blogger Blues and avoid Blogger Burn Out?

·         Take a break.  Treat yourself.  Just agree that you will take the rest of the week off, or a whole week, or the month.  I’ve done it, it does make a difference

·         Get back to blogging for fun.  Is the challenge you’re doing sucking your soul out of your ears?  Then stop it, today.  Don’t do it if it’s not fun.

·         Too many polishes to review?  Stop accepting samples.  Turn down new requests.  Buy yourself some time and breathing space.

·         Take a look at your posts – are they too lengthy?  Do they have too many photos?  Can they be trimmed?  If so, do it – then doing 2 posts will take you the time it used to take you to do 1 – result

·         How often are you blogging?  Has blogging taken over your life?  Maybe you’ve set yourself too fast a pace.  Do you NEED to post every day?  Could you post less?  What if you gave yourself Wednesdays off from your blog – how would that make you feel?




The important thing to remember is that you CAN beat the Blogger Blues, but it’s hard to recover from Blogger Burnout.  Knowing the signs and being alert to them helps, but you’ll only avoid Burnout if you take some of the actions above.



A final point – a lot of us in this community are prone to depression, and have turned to nail polish as an outlet, a relaxation, a source of yogic calm.   That means we are MORE prone to Burnout because it’s harder to maintain our equilibrium – so if that’s you, please be alert, and give yourself a break as soon as blogging starts to feel like a chore.