Why Blog If You Aren’t Making Money or Have a Ton of Followers?

Why even have a blog? Why not just post long captions on Instagram? First, off, fight me. Having a long caption on IG is not blogging. If you think blogging is writing, you are wrong. Blogging is one word to encompass the many skills it takes. Some of those skills? SEO, coding, photography, writing, editing, social media planning, etc. So why do all of those things when you could just post a photo on social and get wayyyy more engagement than having people click over to a website?

Why Blog?

It’s Career Building

I’ve shared this with you before, but I would not have my current job if it weren’t for this blog. You can read that story here. While I have other talents, because I took blogging seriously, for a very long time, I had a portfolio my future bosses could look at and see how I worked. Although my job has changed in the four years I’ve worked at ADT, I’ve taken the skills I’ve learned from blogging to every single role.

It’s Healing

I’ve always been open on this blog. About break-ups, job loss and the hardest of all, calling off an engagement and wedding. I’ve never been what you might call a “fluff” blog. My content doesn’t fit into a box. Yes, it’s style-based, but is it? The way I write is purely from the heart. I don’t craft a story around what I’m wearing. I craft a story and then have fashionable visuals that compliment it. This isn’t what the mainstream reader wants. You have to sit down a little bit to read my content.

So much of what you read is often the last step of my healing process. Releasing it into the wild. In a way, it doesn’t feel final until I hit that “publish” button.

The Connections

Not only has blogging given me some incredible relationships, it’s helped maintain them. I remember my friend Jessica telling me, shortly after the birth of her first child, she looked forward to reading my blog posts so she felt like she could keep up with my life. Or something like that, that was the gist. We all go through highs and lows of friendships. Blogging has been a great way for me to be able to share what is on my heart and mind without having 15 heavy conversations a day. In no way does a blog post take the place of a conversation, but it is helpful to get to know a friend through them, even if you think you know everything.

It’s for You

There is no one that dictates to me what this space is. When I first started writing, you weren’t meant to read it. This blog is and always will be for me, first. It’s going to be the thing that I need. Not the thing that society needs from me. This blog is and always has been about showing up for myself. How? Writing about those really scary times I didn’t think I would get through. Having a place to remind myself, “You can do this. Look at where you were here and you still made it.”