Hello friends!
Featured Items:
Cut-Out Sweatshirt (Nordstrom Rack), Skater Skirt (Urban Outfitters) & Block Heels (Dr. Martens)
Today’s blog post is all about celebrating the two-year anniversary of Stylishly Good Vibes! I seriously can’t believe that it’s already been two years since I started this blog.
So much has changed in that time!
When I started this blog, it wasn’t something that I had extensively planned out, or had known I was going to do. Of course, I always liked the idea of sharing my thoughts on a blog, but I was always scared that people wouldn’t want to hear what I had to say.
Starting a blog was something totally new and different for me, and I was completely spontaneous in starting it. I’m not kidding when I say that I woke up one day and just decided that I was going to start Stylishly Good Vibes. The name just came to me, and I felt like it really represented who I am and what I stand for.
I remember how nervous I was to publish my first blog post, but after I did, the course of my career changed forever. This blog became, and still is an outlet for me. Whenever I’m stressed out or going through something difficult, this blog is the thing that I come to to unwind. Writing is definitely a form of release and relaxation for me, and being able to share my thoughts with an audience means the world to me.
Today, I think about my blog all day, every day, and I feel like the luckiest gal to have such a fun passion project to invest my time in. I’m so excited to see how all of my hard work and effort transforms this blog in the coming years. For now, I don’t know where I’m going, but I know that as long as I’ve got Stylishly Good Vibes, I’ll never be lost!
I wanted to share with all of y’all five things that I’ve learned over the past two years. Whether you’re a rising blogger like myself, or you want to start a blog, but want to know what it’s really like, I’m here to give you the truth.
1. Starting a blog doesn’t mean that everyone is going to be supportive of it.
This was something that I noticed almost instantaneously when I started my blog. Some people truthfully aren’t going to be interested in what you have to say, and that’s okay. Starting a blog isn’t about pleasing people — it’s about creating content that you’re passionate about. Honestly, haters gonna hate, but don’t let them cramp your good vibes! You’ve just got to stay positive and remain on the track of success that you wish to create with your blog.
2. There is no proven formula for getting and maintaining followers of your blog.
Like anything in this world, blogging is definitely a gamble. You could bet everything and lose everything, but you can always build yourself back up again. The biggest thing to remember when starting a blog is that in the beginning, it’s really, really hard to gain followers. Trust me, I know. But over time as you master your craft, the followers will start to come organically.
For me, I felt like I was doing so much content-wise on social media, that I initially didn’t understand why the amount of followers I had wasn’t increasing. It really wasn’t until this past summer when I started expressing myself and my personality through my captions and content on my blog that people started to follow along.
3. You should not start a blog with the end goal being to get sponsored or paid to post content.
This is something that particularly grinds my gears because as someone with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, I think and process every decision that I make with a strong ethical compass. When I started this blog, it was as an outlet — a way for me to channel positive energy into something that I loved to do. I could never imagine using it as a way to “get sponsored” or paid to write about things that I don’t agree with.
Even today as my blog has grown, I’m not comfortable with the idea of basing my entire blog on collaborations and paid partnerships. You guys should know that any of the collaborations that I agree to do on this blog are ones with companies that I am 100% on board with. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t lose sense of yourself or your moral compass just because companies start to reach out to you about blog collaborations.
4. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself with the content that you write.
When I created this blog, I had the idea that it was solely going to be about fashion, and that was it. But, there is so much more to me than just my undeniable love of fashion and personal style. I was so passionate about sharing my beauty and makeup tricks, as well as my advice about life, but I was scared that people wouldn’t want to read about that.
I think that one of the most important things to do when you initially start a blog is to focus on one idea that you’re really passionate about. Master that idea so well that when you start to integrate other ideas into your blog, it will happen effortlessly. It took me over a year of creating content for me to be comfortable writing about things other than fashion, but I’m so glad that I did!
5. Never lose hope in your blog.
No one ever said that blogging was easy, especially if you’re trying to make a career out of it in the future. There’s a quote that I read on Instagram one day and I think that it totally applies to what I have to say about this.
“You deserve everything you want, but you have to work really f***ing hard.” – Sonja Rasula
That is the truth of the matter. Your blog is important, and you should never lose hope in its success. But in order to see growth and to create your brand, you’re going to have to work really, really hard. For me, I work a full-time job all week, getting off at 5:30 p.m. everyday to come home and work on my blog, and then I start the day over again. My blog has become sort of like an unpaid internship for me, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The important thing in this digital world is to believe in yourself, and everything will fall into place over time with a little luck and a lot of hard work.
Well, I hope that you all found this advice useful, whether you’re a blogger or planning on starting a blog! I hope to write another one of these in five years, and I really hope that all of you will be reading along! 🙂
Until next time, friends!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND FOR YOUR ENDLESS SUPPORT!
Alicia
Instagram: @stylishlygoodvibes
Pinterest: Stylishly Good Vibes
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Photo Credit: Stylishly Good Vibes