Time to Quit Blogging? Hitting & Overcoming Blogging Walls

It’s official… I’ve hit a quit blogging wall.

SideGains went live 4 months ago now. During these 4 months, it has been pretty much all consuming for me.

I know I can become very obsessive about things that take my interest and inspire me. When I’m in the zone, I want to spend all my time focusing upon them. I spend a lot of time thinking about what I can do to make things better. Or I just like to imagine a day when… well, you can fill in the blanks!

The point is, I’m putting a lot into SideGains.

Funnily enough, sometimes I get huge surges of energy from the effort I’m putting in. It’s exciting and gratifying to see it growing in terms of content… all of it written by me to date.

I’m also making tweaks to the blog itself here and there. Some of these have been on my to do list since day one.

However, yesterday I woke up and felt like I’d hit a wall… hard. I felt like I wanted to quit blogging.

My Quit Blogging Wall

At first I thought I was coming down with some sort of bug. It feels like winter has begun over here in the UK. It’s normal for me to feel run down when the seasons change.

I left blogging alone for the day because I felt I earned a break. My thoughts were, “I’m feeling a bit run down and need to recharge”.

However, I woke up yesterday and it was clear I don’t have a bug. However I do have some kind of malaise.

I had a nosebleed yesterday… I never have nosebleeds. All day I’ve had a thick head and the thought of writing a blog post has literally depressed me.

With a bit of grit, I struggled through writing a post. But it was extremely painful and I’m not entirely happy with what I’ve produced. It’ll need to be edited.

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few days about traffic. Month 4 of SideGains and I’m still getting drips and drabs but nothing substantial. I’m even working pretty hard to promote what I’m writing almost as soon as I hit publish!

However, I’m not naive and I know it takes time.

Past Blogging Success

I’ve had some success with blogs in the past, although in fairness never with a blog that’s been solely mine. Also the last successful bog I worked on was a few years ago now. The game has changed considerably since then.

I know it takes time to build a following. I also understand it takes a while for a blog to develop a sufficiently strong punch to knock a hole in the Google wall so organic traffic can start dribbling out into your pot.

I’m aware of the possibility of the Google Sandbox. You have to maintain your commitment to a new blog for months to years before you’ll see traffic growth.

As I say, I’m not naive and I know that people start to see results after 6 months to a year of blogging. Sometimes longer!

And yet… even though I know all this, it takes a huge amount of effort to press on. Especially when you’re working hard and the feedback you’re getting in traffic terms is so small.

It’s hard to continue, knowing that even if you stick to your game plan and stay committed to your blog, it might not work. Additionally you might not find this out until a year or more has passed!

And so I’m here with the wall I ran into yesterday. It’s staring down at me almost daring me to quit blogging.

Blogger Burnout?

It’s interesting. Last week I made a post about blogger burnout. One of my advice tips for anyone suffering from it to give yourself a break. Literally take a break from blogging and clear your head.

Great advice on paper, but actually very difficult to do when you’re obsessed about hitting milestones on your plan.

Do I feel I want to quit blogging? You bet. Will I? Well, no actually.

It’s easy for your thoughts to stray into quitting territory when things get tough. I totally get it because I have thought to myself how easy life would be if I were to quit blogging right now.

But the hard reality is life won’t be easier. What keeps me going is remembering why I started SideGains in the first place.

Why I Started Blogging

• The potential to be my own boss.
• Not having to deal with office politics.
• Having potential to improve my standard of living without having to work additional hours.
• The choice about when and where I work.
• Trying to help others.
• Feeling less stress.
• Enjoying being around more for my family.

Yes it would be easy to quit blogging. But, I’m not sure right now what I would substitute it for to satisfy all the bullet points above.

I also enjoy so much of what is happening right now. I’m building relationships with other people in a similar position to me, all trying to get their content out in front of others.

It’s also good to look back on the small successes I’ve had people have said some nice things to me.

I know I have a lot to offer people… I’m a pretty generous person and I truly like helping others. It’s enormously satisfying to go the extra mile and feel appreciated.

But it’s still hard to press on through the uncertainty. You could be the best blogger in the world. You could do all the right things in the right order and your blog could still fail.

As I often say, blogging is a leap of faith into the unknown!

So What Am I Going to Do? Will I Quit Blogging

Well, I won’t quit that’s for sure.

Despite the malaise I’m feeling, I know this is a part of the game. It’s something that all the bloggers I admire have experienced at one time or another.

There’s a great post here that helped me recalibrate my thinking: Why I Quit Blogging (and What to Do If You’re Struggling)

Even successful bloggers still hit walls, have days they’re not feeling it or perhaps even want to quit.

So I’ll press on.

Actually just being honest and writing about how I’m feeling right now has helped. When I started SideGains my aim was to be completely transparent and to discuss the realities of starting a blog.

This is a post that aims to tick both of those boxes!

In fact, I think whenever I hit the wall instead of trying to keep to my content calendar, I might just try to exorcise my burnout by walking around the wall and posting about what’s bothering me!

But I won’t quit blogging anytime soon!

Thanks for reading.

Paul

Have you hit a blogging wall hard and felt like you should quit blogging? Let’s talk about it! Leave a comment below with how it affected you.