This year marks my 5th year of blogging! Wow, crazy to look back and to think I made this decision, but after this time, I might have the ultimate guide to blogging success. I must say I’m a bit disappointed in myself, especially because I had much bigger plans and I couldn’t really stick to them. Nonetheless, this was still a lot to take in and learn- a whirlwind!
Needless to say, I wish I had known more or at least inform myself better before embarking on this journey. But step by step I’ve walked into this journey and I plan on having a clearer vision. I hope that by sharing what I have learnt so far, it would be helpful for someone looking for more.
“What have the last 5 years of blogging taught me? And what did I wish someone else had told me back then?”
Motivation comes and goes, but for blogging, consistency is key! There may be days when you don’t feel like writing or you don’t feel inspired, but this is something you will still need to do. Unfortunately, for months on end I relied on my fears and therefore we had no blog posts. Even after I travelled I wasn’t able to post everything that I wanted, since I had no time and no motivation.
For this hobby, you need to commit and pour your soul into it as much as you can! Discipline and willpower are your best friends, and this is something I am still learning to do!
Patience was and still is a strange concept for me. When you are starting your blog, you need to be patient and build your audience, your posts, your images, and also your network. I messed up here… big time… and you know I am honest. I started with the idea that my blog would somehow run itself. During all these years I have learnt that is not the case and a blog is not something that happens over night. You might want to keep this in mind if you’re starting now.
Mindset and perspectives will change… and I know in my case this helped me a lot. Once you start blogging, you must be willing to learn new things and keep yourself up to date regarding the news within your niche. This not only will keep you ahead, but will also help you become a source of inspiration for others. There is always so much more to learn and see.
What I say is that you must stay true to your mission and remember why you started in first place!
The platform, hosting and tools you are choosing when starting your blog do matter! I have done quite a heavy research on this when starting out and based on your needs and plan, you will need to choose wisely the blogging platform. Namely, if you want to incorporate a certain design for your blog, certain ads, plugins, themes and so on, you need to make sure the platform supports all of that and there are no shortcomings attached to it.
Besides all that I have enumerated above, please do keep in mind SEO will need to become your best friend! This is the way traffic will be driven to your blog once anyone makes a search on a particular topic on the almighty internet. Don’t underestimate it, because this will save you even in those days when you don’t feel like showing up. Once you master SEO, you will see how your blog posts will be building themselves slowly!
Blogging is a creative journey, and what I wish for myself for the upcoming years would be to allow myself to be more creative and courageous that I have been up to this point. I feel blogging opened up a self-journey for me and it allowed me to get out of my comfort zone and meet absolutely wonderful people! 
At the same time, I have become more grounded, and I can confirm starting this blog was one of the best decisions of my life, even with all the fears and insecurities. I am sure my personal growth journey will go even further from this point on.
Last but not least, I hope you found this post helpful and it answered some of your questions (if you had any). I will see you soon!
