I started blogging, approximately, in Spring 2009. But my blog didn't really get kickstarted until the fall of 2009, when I started interning for CollegeFashion.net. That's when I really gained some of my favorite readers, which blogs of their own that I love.
When I sat down to write this blog post, I thought I would just whiz through my history of blogging: I'm someone who has changed my blog a lot throughout my time blogging. I started on Wordpress. Then I switched to Blogger, where I stayed until 2 years ago when I jumped to Squarespace. But ultimately, that's a big boring. If you want the full story, I can certainly tell it--but really, that's about it. I didn't know what I wanted to do and I changed my mind frequently. Who doesn't?
Now that I feel like I'm finally in a good place with my blogging life, I feel like I'm able to look back and see what decisions I made that were right and which were wrong. I want to share a few things I've learned along the way.
I wish I'd never taken an outfit photo.
I loved fashion blogging for a long time, but the truth is, I wish I'd never walked down that road. Ultimately, I think putting my appearance out there for judgement made me too aware of being judged and how I was perceived--and I've been fighting those effects ever since. I don't want to say that fashion blogging made me have body image issues--but it certainly didn't help the issues I already had.
I know this statement will be heartbreaking to my friends I made when I was posting outfits every day. And I guess I should say--I'm glad I took outfit photos when I did. I really enjoyed doing them. But in the end, they made me obsess about myself in a way that wasn't healthy.
I wish I'd switched to a better platform sooner.
I visited my old blog, Ellipsis, the other day and, let me just say--it looks awful in comparison to this blog! Thank goodness I switched. I wish I'd done it sooner.
I wish I'd let go of the things that made me unhappy.
Re: outfit photos, I wish I had just let go. When it stopped being fun, when it started making me look at myself and think, "gross," I wish I had just stopped. Why did I keep torturing myself?
I wish I'd known then what I know now about content marketing.
Really, seriously. I wish I'd been more aware of producing quality content, of writing good blogs, of having good social media. I wish I'd been more careful about what I wrote and how I wrote it. I've recently been reposting articles I wrote on my old blogs and reading some of the things I wrote--I'm just baffled about how I thought that was true! It's so odd to read your past self's thoughts. I'm sure I'll look back at this in 3 years and be like, "shut up, past Michelle."
I wish I'd appreciated the community more.
Sometimes I got really down on blogging and felt excluded from the community. But the fact is, when it comes to blogging, you make your own community, your own circle of friends. You might never be best friends with the "top tier" blogger you love--but you might make some of the best friends you've ever had if you just let go of that.
