Blogging Struggles: Envy

Okay, so here’s a post I’ve kind of been thinking about writing again and again for a couple of weeks now and even more so the past few days. Do I want to talk about this? No, because I don’t like being vulnerable. But I also think it might be something that I should get off my chest and maybe someone out there is feeling similarly and this helps them in even the tiniest bit.

Y’all may have seen that the lovely May has taken over hosting the Blogger Awards this year and you’ve probably seen a lot of people nominate all of these awesome bloggers all over your feeds or Twitter timelines – I definitely have. And the more I saw these posts pop up, the more this envious feelings kept fighting its way to the top.

I said this on Twitter too, but it sucked not being included in most of the nomination posts – I don’t blame anyone, by the way.

We all have different tastes in blogs and I simply haven’t been active enough or involved enough to probably stand out for most/any of the categories to have people think of me and/or my blog as a possible choice for those categories.And I know this. But it still sucked and gave me that negative feeling about my blogging and myself as a blogger more often than I would care to admit.

The book community, as a whole, is made up of so many fantastic voices and advocates who have rightfully gotten shoutouts and appreciation for the past few weeks and I just want to make sure no one misunderstands me here, I am incredibly and truly happy for all of them. I see how hard a number of the nominated people work on their blogs and social media to stand out and be acknowledged.

And while this could be a great motivation to myself to do better and step up, I don’t feel like I have a unique enough angle to position myself within in the community which keeps bringing up the question if I should continue to invest time into my blog at all when it’s for ‘nothing’ (or, it feels like it’s for nothing at times), you know?

My blogging experience as a whole also hasn’t been the most fun anymore for quite a few months at this point. I don’t remember when exactly, but I started distancing myself from the community more and more. I stopped reading the blogs of people I adore and look up to, I stopped commenting on posts that I did happen to read and even more so, I stopped trying to find new blogs to get inspired by and to make connections with.

I feel like my entire blogging experience has mainly been focused on my own blog and the people who still take the time out of their days to leave me a comment – I don’t know if you know how much I appreciate it.

To be honest, I don’t know if I have the energy to even try and go back to the way I used to approach blogging probably about a year ago (or maybe a bit longer). And then I think maybe that’s exactly what I need to do: go back to the way I used to do it. Reach out and read different blogs. Discover new blogs and bloggers. Be inspired by the voices around me. Be more open. Because I do truly miss that, even if it doesn’t always sound like it.

And now I’m kind of struggling to wrap up this post because it’s mainly just been me putting my thoughts to the screen up until now and there’s nothing else coming out of me anymore. xD I should’ve thought this through more and maybe made some notes – but I also knew that if I kept pushing this up, I probably wouldn’t hit ‘Publish’ ever, so. We’ll deal with this kind of mess of a post – I hope you guys don’t mind too much.

Have you guys had similar experience in your blogging journey before? If so, how did you deal with it or what’s something that you may have implemented to make sure you don’t end up in this position? Please, share any and all tips you have in the comments down below – I would really and truly appreciate them. Thank you!