The Formula For Failure

This quote has been on my mind a lot lately.

A few months ago, I found myself unemployed and terribly bored. So I got really into blogging. I wanted to fill the empty space in my schedule and start feeling like a productive human being again. Hours were spent learning html, redoing my blog's design a billion times, and thinking up ideas for new things to write about. I read every post I could find about how to grow my blog and interacted with as many bloggers as possible.

I was a busy little bee and quite happy about it!

Then came along the job, which I am so grateful for, much more quickly than expected. My social calendar also started filling up, and I felt so blessed. This summer has been spent at huge family bbq's and chatting with my new girlfriends - both activities that I'd missed so much. Having that back is a great feeling. 

Over the last month or so, my life has slowly started becoming full, and though I still frequently miss the States, the changes are becoming much easier to deal with. My little apartment and married life with Monsieur Right, feel just like I want them too at the moment.

So I just kept enthusiastically adding things to my plate and was pretty darn excited about it. Everything sounded like so much fun? But do you know what happens when you spread yourself too thin? Instead of doing a great job on a few projects that you're passionate about, you end up sucking at everything and not even finishing the simplest of tasks.

I know ladies who are awesome wives, mothers, workers, and bloggers. They can do it all, and get along just swimmingly. But I am so not that woman.

And that's ok. I'm honestly not bummed about not being that woman. She's pretty cool, but I really like me and the person that I've become. Je suis bien dans ma peau as the French would say. What I don't like is having committed to things, and suddenly feeling like I'm doing things only half as well as I should be. I don't like feeling burned out, and I don't like feeling like it's too late to back out.

You know that feeling of balance? That moment in the evening when you've completed everything you hoped to do in a day, and still have time to whip up a three course dinner, and spend quality time with your SO before going to bed? Because I sure don't. If you've figured out the secret to achieving this, please let me know!

This month, I'm hoping to be able to take a step back and prioritize. I will also be avoiding adding things to pile.
....I'm also planning to become a heck of a lot more organized. But that's another post for another day. As my blog has grown, I've also found myself hesitating to post certain things. Nothing too scandalous - quite frankly, I'm not interesting enough to have stories that could be considered risqué. But I want to write posts that everyone will like and relate to. I've run into that terrible rut where I feel the need to be entertaining and please people all the time, both on and off the blog.

Do you know what happens when you try to write posts that absolutely everyone will like? 

You end up with some pretty boring posts. When I try to write about things that could apply to absolutely everybody and their dog, I ended up posting subjects that have been written and rewritten about a million times. All the originality is gone, and writing on here becomes a chore.

My post becomes - "What would my subscribers like to read? People who aren't of my faith? My mom? The Expats? The girls who are still in college? The party people? The married ladies? The single ladies? The critics?" Basically, it turns into a one-size fits all, vanilla ice cream type post. Though I do love vanilla ice cream, you can only eat so much before you vomit.

........................................

And that's where I am today friends. Wondering where to go with this little blog of mine. Thoughts? Suggestions? How do you do it?