*collaborative post.
I started Cuddle Fairy in March 2015 with a lot of nerves & very little blogging knowledge. I was quickly swept into blog life by interacting with the lovely & friendly bloggers on Twitter. I got into linkys & my blog knowledge started to grow. It wasn’t long until I started to host my own linky, then a second linky.
Over a year & a half later, Cuddle Fairy is still teaching me new things. And I am still learning so much from fellow bloggers. I have said it before & will say it again – the blogging community is simply amazing, so supportive, helpful & kind. We all teach each other & we all learn from each other.
I took a blog break this summer & during that time I didn’t use social media at all – I know! I even cut out Twitter! It was a badly needed break & I realized that I need to make some changes to how I spend my time in order to change my blog from something fun into a business.
I came across this great graphic from Penna that nicely shows key points to growing your business. As they point out, it’s all about the employees & helping them to grow, in turn the company will grow.
Now, I have am my own boss & single employee so my business isn’t exactly the same as the graphic shows. But what hits home to me about this is the importance of the company getting a competitive edge & fostering their employee's growth & development.
My goals for myself for the coming months which I am hoping will help me to grow Cuddle Fairy are:
To make & stick to a blog schedule which includes most weekends off to spend quality time with my family.
To learn how to use Pinterest in a way to further grow my site views.
To continue to learn new strategies for blogging including social media growth & blog layout.
To redesign my homepage.
What I’ve learned about blogging is that it can become all consuming, very easily. I assume any start-up business would be the same. It takes a lot of time & dedication to get everything up & running but at the same time, it’s important to have time off as to not suffer blogger burn out.
With all of my social media accounts right there on my phone, I used to check in on them & check stats & things far too often. With my new schedule, I won’t be checking in on my phone as much.
Striking the elusive life / blog balance isn’t easy but I hope that I will get it down right this year! And I hope that by making a stricter schedule, that will help with the balance & also help me to be more productive when I sit down to work.
Do you have any business or blog goals you are hoping to accomplish before the end of the year?
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