Next Month Will Be A Bit Of A Fresh Start (or What Is Coming For This Blog)

Last week, I wrote about how I was debating again about reducing how frequently I write blog posts. It wasn’t the first time I was thinking about doing that, but for some reason, it felt different to me. I’m not sure what is making this time different, but I’ve just had a lot of thoughts and reflections on how I’m spending my day each day and what I’m sharing with the world.

I’m so glad that I have shared a lot of things here and I know that it has helped other people, but I also feel weird sometimes knowing that I’m out doing something and I will be writing about it later. I do try to keep things private as far as other people go, so I don’t usually say names unless that person has given me the ok to do so. And I don’t share a lot of details that others tell me because those aren’t my stories to tell. But it’s still a weird feeling being on a date or something and knowing that will make a good blog post and not feeling like I can tell my date about it. And then there is always the fear that they will find my blog and see the posts I’ve written about them. It’s not just with dates, doing things with my friends usually have become blog posts and I don’t like that I always have that mindset. It takes me out of experiencing things as they are happening and makes me think about how I can craft the story I want to tell. Even with some things about my health, I don’t necessarily want to share everything. It’s not because I’m ashamed or gatekeeping anything, but health issues really can vary from person to person so I don’t want to say something that happened to me and have others feel like that’s how it is for everyone.

And when I’m struggling with what I want to write, I feel like I have to take more and more from my life and turn them into posts. Even if I wasn’t planning on writing about something, if I’m really stuck for what I want to write I feel like that’s the only option I have. That pressure hasn’t been horrible, but it does happen from time to time, and I have to decide if that idea is worth writing about, if it’s interesting, or if I’m sharing something that I really want to keep private for now. I don’t necessarily regret any of the posts I’ve written, but I do feel like there are some that I don’t really love. Writing 5 days a week for over 10 years is a lot and my life really isn’t that interesting. I do have some interesting days, but to come up with that many posts means that there are a lot of boring or repetitive posts.

And after I wrote that post last week, the idea of changing my post frequency really just stuck with me. I normally write a post about thinking of doing that and then it leaves my brain. Almost like I just needed to put it out there and then I’m fine. But this time, I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. And it doesn’t help that I really don’t have anything planned for a while for posts outside of my Monday workout recaps.

So I’ve decided that for May, I want to see if I feel comfortable writing less frequently. I’m torn between wanting to have 2 or 3 posts a week, but it will likely be one of those. And my plan is to still do a workout recap on Mondays and then I’ll do either 1 or 2 other posts during the week. I’m not sure which day or days I’ll post the other ones. It may depend on what I have to write about.

As much as I feel like this is the right move, it’s hard not to think that somehow I’m failing because I take a lot of pride in the fact that I’ve written 5 days a week for over 10 years. But at the same time, the person I was 10 years ago or even 3 years ago is different from who I am today. When I started this blog, I couldn’t have even imagined that I’d still be writing over a decade later. So the ideas I had for myself back then don’t have to be what I hold myself to now.

I also know this might not be the right move for me and I might change my mind. But I want to give it a try and see if maybe I will have a bit less stress since I won’t be spending as much time thinking of ideas and writing. If it works, then I’ll continue with the new plan until I think I need another change. If I hate writing less often, then I can go back to my old ways. This change doesn’t have to be permanent, but I do think it’s a good move going forward.

And no matter what ends up happening with this blog and the frequency of posts, I am so proud that I was able to maintain this schedule for as long as I did. It was a real challenge for me at first since being so public was foreign to me. But for a lot of the struggles I went through over the last decade, having this outlet to write out my feelings has really benefitted me. And I think even with less frequent posts, I’ll still be able to have that same benefit for myself.

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