Why Blog?

As of January 2019 I set a goal to try and blog more. This has been an epic fail for several reasons and I want to correct this in 2020 so here is the background and hopefully someone can relate.

My blog has been in circulation for a couple of years now and 2017/2018 was by far my most successful years with it and that is because I was consistent. I blogged once a month sometimes more and the engagement and interaction I got with family, friends and even strangers who started to follow me was amazing. I was on a high.

Fast forward to November 2018 I was made redundant which you can read about here. It was a low point for me and I lost my mojo with a lot of things. Whilst I was made redundant from one job I walked straight into another one, a bigger and better one and in the end was very thankful for that. This job has brought about many stresses as its challenging and very demanding. When I got home from the job I just didn’t feel like switching my laptop on and staring at the screen for another two hours writing. The passion for it fizzled out.

As 2019 passed by I really did miss the writing side of the blog. Some people are in to blogging for different reasons but I like sharing what is going on within my lifestyle in the hope that someone can relate through my writing or storytelling as such. This is what was happening in 2018. I wrote a lot of blogs that people could just relate to.

Over the last few months there has been plenty of things going on for both myself and my family but I have been reluctant to share. Sometimes in the past I think I overshared, sometimes I think my kids cant be bothered with photographs but for the most part I just didn’t want to have my phone out and wanted to live in the moment. I still feel like this and as a result I am going to shake my blog up abit this year. Not feature as much of my personal family life as such but still write about living my life if that makes sense…hopefully! Less family/parenting blogger and more Lifestyle blogger because believe it or not there is a difference.

I have a tendency to overthink things in general. I play out scenarios in my head that might not even happen. I think it has come from an anxiety in me brought about by worry. That’s motherhood at its finest I suppose. I was starting to do this with my writing. Doubting myself. Doubting I had anything good to write about. Doubting it was interesting. I then attended a blogging event by Libraries NI hosted by both Christine Watson of Training Matchmaker and Watson Marketing and Tina Calder of Excalibur Press and The Content Club. I had a realisation that night after listening to them speak. I should just be writing my blog because I want to write it and have something to share. If one person reads it fine, if ten read it even better but as long as I am true to myself and enjoy it stop overthinking and get back to work. That is what I am going to do.

This Blog along with social media has brought about so many opportunities for me. I have been invited to great events, written for different business blogs and websites, bonded with complete strangers over something I have written about that they can relate to but most of all it has given me an outlet I never knew I enjoyed until I started; Given me the opportunity to meet so many different people and some that have become great friend; Another chance at a social life where I can be Jillian not just somebody’s mum, don’t get me wrong that’s the best title of all but sometimes its just nice to be you.

So that is my why. Why I love to blog and why I’m going to make a big effort to keep moving forward. The biggest thank you for sticking around and reading I really appreciate it.