Danie’s Corner: 10 Hardcore Blogging Lessons I’ve Learnt In The Last 6 Months [Part 1]

As bloggers and creatives, constant learning is an integral part of our job and it’s not possible to reach a point where you can say, you now know everything that blogging entails and in this post, I’m sharing with you guys 10 hardcore lessons that I’ve personally learnt from blogging in the last 6 months which have been the time and season in my entire blogging journey that I’ve been so dedicated, so committed and consistent in actually growing my blog and creating quality content to the best of my ability and coincidentally, also the time when I’ve felt like quitting blogging the most. In no particular order,

1.  Don’t be afraid to take the first step – I think this is very important and it applies to so many aspects of blogging. Don’t be afraid to contact that blogger for a collaboration, don’t be afraid to email that brand, don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and try something new with your content, don’t be afraid to ask a professional for help because the worst that can happen is you get rejected, turned down or not receive any answer but don’t be afraid to take the first step.

2. Apply for jobs you feel not qualified for – Now in our industry, I’d say apply for campaigns you feel you’re not qualified for, apply for collaborations, for partnerships that you feel you’re not qualified for because guess what?  You might just get those campaigns, you might just get accepted, approved and might just be what they are looking for because sometimes, we tend to under value ourselves as bloggers.

3. Rejection will come, but do not let it get to you – If you want to venture into taking the first step like in number 1 above, then be ready and open to facing a lot of rejection because you’re going to get a whole lot of NOs and you should never let it get to you because if you do let them get to you, you will feel depressed, incompetent and it will affect your motivation and drive to keep blogging.

4. Sent an email? No response? Try contacting them again and do not assume that ‘they’ intentionally did not respond. They may have just missed your email. When it comes to contacting people, other bloggers and especially brands, it might seem like the person does not want to reply your message after days, weeks or even months. But try again, send another email that goes like “Hello or Hi, did you get my last email please ? “ or “I sent an email earlier, did you miss it? That’s okay I understand, could you check it and get back to me please ?“ Truth is people get a lot of emails and it’s hard to keep up with the older and constantly incoming ones. I’ve been in situations where by I didn’t get replies for days or weeks and then I sent another email and then they reply me and sometimes, I had to send a third email before I got a response whether positive or negative.

5. Perfectionism will stunt your growth – This is a quote I picked from Fisayo Longe in one of her the full-time blogger webinars. Waiting for everything to be perfect – for you to have a perfect professional camera, waiting to have perfect lighting equipment, waiting to be able to afford or hire a photographer, waiting until you travel to a more blog/insta – worthy location or environment before you create content will stunt your growth and you just realise you’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and the conditions are never really going to so perfect.

To not make this post too long, I’m going to be sharing the next 5 hardcore lessons next week (or maybe later this week) still on this segment, so stay tuned and watch this space for the part 2 of this post. I really hope this list helps, motivates, enlightens, informs and inspire someone out there, you may also want to check out How to Stay Motivated When Blogging Is Not Encouraging and Little Extra Things To Do For Blog Success This Year. Comment below what you have learnt as a blogger in 2017.

Thanks for reading and happy blogging!

Update: I shared part 2, read it here.

Written by: Daniella Bature