Why I Took A Break From Blogging

*This post contains PR items. Please read the end of the post for more details.

If you hadn't noticed, I took a recent hiatus from blogging and decided to focus on myself. And purely because my blogging brain was knackered and my creative juices stopped flowing.

There is that sense of panic when you first think of taking a break from blogging. There's that fear that you will lose your audience and your readers will forget about you. Yep, I had those same feelings around 10 days ago when I knew I needed to take a blogging break. But surely people would be understanding? Right?

When I came to the decision to take a break, I realised that I hadn't really torn myself away from blogging since I started blogging 4 and a half years ago, which is quite surprising and, I feel, kind of stupid of me. I allowed myself to reach a point of total burnout from writing and creating content. I always felt I needed to keep whatever readers and audience I had happy by producing content regularly. That's not how it should be. I should have listened to myself rather than chugging on like Thomas The Tank Engine writing endless blog posts and finding photo inspo on Pinterest.

What this recent break has made me realise is that I need to take a break more regularly, even if it's just a couple of days off during the month. It's important for me to step away when I need to, give my creative juices a refill and for my brain to to reset itself to 'non blogging' mode for the time away.

One thing I have learnt in blogging is that I sometimes forget to live my real life. You may be looking at this quite perplexedly, but bear with me. I think my brain has become so 'bloggy' that when I think of ideas or random thoughts, my brain automatically links the thoughts and ideas to blogging and creating content. For example, "There's a balloon in the sky!" - I wonder if I can get a shot of that for Instagram! Or "This is a lovely coffee shop" - ooh I could write a review on this for my blog! You get the idea.

This blogging break has made me see that I need to focus on real life a bit more than I have done. I need to make the most of what's around me and not completely obsess about blogging everyday like I have done. They say blogging is a 7 day a week job/side hustle/hobby. I completely agree with that statement. It can feel like that, and it's only because I love it so much that I will make it feel like a 7 day a week job/side hustle/hobby. 

If you're still wondering whether taking a break from blogging is worth it, ask yourself these questions -

*Are you getting frequent writers block?

*Are you churning out content for the sake of it?

*Do you feel like you're at a stalemate with your blog?

*Are you overthinking about your blog?

*Are you feeling uninspired when trying to create content?

*Are you comparing your/your blog to others and feel disheartened?

TAKE A BREAK. 

But yes, I'm back now. The week off has done wonders for myself and my creative flow. I have written this post and another one in the space of two days. I've shot some photos and I've even bought some new blogging photo props and a new tripod for my camera. If that's not a good sign, I don't know what is! I can't even begin to tell you how beneficial it is to take a break from blogging once in a while. It's surprising how much of a positive impact it's had on me!

I'd love to know your thoughts on blogging breaks! Have you ever taken one in the past?

*The cushion in this post was one of the PR items sent to me from Sara Miller. There was no obligation to include it in this post. All views are my own. For more info, please read my disclaimer.