So you read 4 Reasons You Should Be Writing a Weight Loss Blog and decided to start one yourself. You got on an exercise and diet plan that was really working. But then you got stuck in a plateau and started getting frustrated. The expectations you put on yourself in following your exercise and eating routines, in finding interesting things to write about and in contributing to helping others with their own journeys through comments, started to take a toll and you started to feel overwhelmed. Work and life issues didn’t help.
My friends, that’s pretty much what I have been dealing with.
Here are 9 tips that I used to bust out of this rut:
- Read your blog. If you are like me and if you have followed my advice, you have been honest in your blog and you have written about both the ups and the downs. Go back through your archives and remember key points on your journey. Pay particular attention to that first month. Think about how much better you feel now, and reflect on how your weight loss blog has helped get you to where you are. Read the comments. Think about all of the people who have taken the time to offer you support over your journey.
- Clean out your Inbox. If you are feeling overwhelmed you need to attack the clutter. Your email Inbox is undoubtedly filled with old messages you had planned to one day to respond to. Either respond to them or just delete them. Do whatever it takes to get your Inbox empty.
- Mark all of your RSS feeds as read. I do not mean read them all, I mean mark them all as read. This is more clutter and you need to start with a clean slate. Sure you may miss a ton of cool stuff but if it truly is that good you will see it again soon - either linked to by someone else or in a future “best of” post by the author. The world will continue on if you miss a bunch of good content. There is always going to be a steady stream of new content for you to digest, don’t worry.
- Address whatever else was causing you to be overwhelmed. In my case one thing that was causing me to feel overwhelmed was my newly introduced weight loss forums. I realized very quickly a forum is a lot of work. I wasn’t prepared for that. I need to either decide to shut them down or give them the energy they deserve. Figure out what is burdening you and put a plan in place to address it.
- Tell someone about your blog. Still blogging anonymously? Tell someone in the “real world” about your blog and your weight loss journey, and ask that they support you. It’s too easy to disappear off the face of the blogging planet if you nobody in your life knows about your weight loss blog.
- Re-evaluate your goals. Go through all of your short and long term goals and make sure they are the right goals and achievable. Make whatever adjustments are necessary and commit to making the appropriate changes to meet your goals.
- Start exercising and eating right again. Good for you if you have maintained your exercising and good eating habits during your rut, but I’ll bet you didn’t. You need to get back on that horse today, cowboy!
- Write a post. Get started writing again. Kind of like I am here. Do not preface your post with “I am so sorry I haven’t been posting…” I hate that. We all go through ruts. Just get back up and start posting honest content on your blog. That’s what your readers want, not a bunch of apologies.
- Visit other sites. As I have not been keeping up writing my own blog I have not been keeping up in reading yours. If you have been following my tips you have already marked all of your RSS feeds as read but now I am telling you to hit the blog pavement and go touch all of the blogs in your blogroll. Post as many comments as you can. This is your coming out party! You are back, baby.
In a blog rut? Give these tips a try and if you do, let me know how they worked out for you!
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