Blogging Series – Part I: How I Became a Blogger

Happy Monday, y’all! If you have been following along with my blog for the past twelve month – Yes, that’s right a full twelve months have passed – we are celebrating this week because Wednesday, September 30th will mark my one year anniversary of blogging! My first blogiversary! How awesome is that?! I can’t lie, a part of me has considered high-fiving the computer screen. That’s how excited I am.

I’m beyond happy that I reached this point and can’t wait to share with you my story of this first year. This week I will be publishing a series of posts dedicated to blogging and why I chose to blog and how to tackle that first year. I am so excited to be sharing this moment with you all. It is because of you and the support from family and friends that I am able to do something that I absolutely love. Each time you read these posts and share, you put a smile on my face. Thank you for giving me this opportunity by allowing me to be a part of your email inbox and appear on your social media feeds. It is privilege to share a little part of my story with you each week.

I will be the first to admit that my relationship with social media has been interesting. Social media if pursued incorrectly can be exhausting and frustrating and truly difficult at times. Maybe you have never felt that way towards social media or maybe you have. Regardless of your feelings that is actually where my story for blogging began. In late 2012, my social media involvement was limited to Facebook and Instagram. I was twenty-five. I was starting graduate school in less than two months, and I was exhausted with life. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. At that age, I didn’t expect to feel that way. I was looking for something in my life, and I was never exactly sure what that “something” was. It was at that time that I made the decision to delete my Facebook account. I didn’t understand social media then, and I never saw how it could be beneficial. I used it more as a way to compare my life towards others rather than an outlet for communication.

A few months later, I began graduate school and was knee deep in projects. I was tackling finance problems once again and researching branding techniques and applying business theories. I was on cloud nine. I love school and business and projects. I always have, and I hope I always do. I was exactly where I needed to be. That fall I sat next to four individuals in an entrepreneurship class listening to our syllabus and course outline for the next few weeks. Our project for that class: To write a business plan. I had to create a fictional business, email current professionals in that field to gain insight, and write an effective business plan. The business could be anything. Practical or not. I sat there and the first thought that came to my mind was photography. Until that day I had never considered photography as anything but just a hobby. It was because of that project that I started researching photographers to see what information I could find. What I stumbled upon was the world of blogging as many professional photographers (as well as other business professionals) use blogs to market their business and define their brand.

It was like I had found a new corner of the Internet. Blogs. Photography blogs. Fashion blogs. Food blogs. Inspirational blogs.  At the time I didn’t even realize that this world existed. This world of sharing stories. With Instagram being my only social media outlet, I immediately started following several bloggers on there to see what it was all about. What I found was an area I was extremely curious to learn.

I finished graduate school in May of 2014 and found myself with time on my hands. One Saturday morning, I made my way to the local Barnes & Noble and stood in front of the section dedicated to social media. The area of life that confused me months ago was right in front of me sharing insight into understanding its purpose. I grabbed the first book that caught my eye: Blogging for Dummies. I sat. I read. And I brought that little guy home and began researching. After that day I realized this was something that I wanted to try, and if I was going to create a blog I had to learn how to do it. I spent the next few weeks researching. Reading about sites that hosted blogs. Trying to figure out exactly what my posts were going to center around. If I was going to be a photography blog. If I was going to focus more on writing. If I could actually write.

In September of last year, I made a goal for myself: Publish my first post by the end of the month. No more analyzing. No more researching. It was time to take action. I spent that entire month trying to write my first post. Seriously, I had so many versions and never felt comfortable with any of them. The last week of September finally appeared. At that point, it was now or never if I was going to do this. On a Tuesday morning I hit publish for the first time in my life, and since then I have hit publish over fifty times. And that is how this little space was created.

This time last year my biggest fear was if I actually had enough content to write about to make this space successful.  When I first began blogging I had no clue what I was doing or why I was doing it. If you ever started something new or set a new goal, I’m sure you can relate. The more I blogged, the more I became comfortable with it, and I realized my purpose for doing this. To share my life story confidently and humbly so that others could feel inspired to pursue a life of intention and purpose and to have a little fun as well. That became my motto for publishing and still is today. Before I hit publish, I keep in mind my readers and if what I share will be beneficial to their lives. Always. The more I blogged the more I began seeing stories unfold and wrote words that popped into mind daily. So, I continued blogging. What I saw develop this first year was a story. My story.