Be Right Back
Hey there, be right back!
I'm not typically one to post big announcements but this one felt pretty important to share. I'm going to be taking a few weeks away from posting here in order to feel a little more like a functioning human and be able to produce content that I really do feel happy with. For a good few months I've been battling a serious burnout, I constantly teeter on the edge of it and as of right now whilst I'm able to afford myself this time I'm going to make a very important choice to not run myself completely in the ground.
Just writing these words completely terrify me, my blog is my income stream so taking a few weeks away feels terrifying. So many thoughts are going through my brain like what if taking this step ruins my blog? What if all my readers disappear? What if no brand ever wants to work with me again? But in reality, a few weeks aren't going to harm anything. You might have noticed things haven't been as frequent on this blog as I like them to be and that's because I'm overstretched, I feel like a fitted bed sheet who can't just quite reach the edge. And that is not how I want to put myself out there, this is my job and I want to do it to the best of my capability and if to better my business I have to take a step back that is ok. This is my seventh year of blogging and this is the first time in over five years that I will take a long break away from posting. I've posted daily for a good 3 years, that's an awful lot of content to produce. So it's no surprise that I'm feeling a little fried, I've not taken a break unless because I've been so sick I can't move and that's just not a healthy work ethic to have. And no matter how hard I try at the moment I cannot seem to get on top of my workload and feel like I'm drowning in every single aspect of my life.
I, of course, recognise that I'm incredibly privileged to take a step back from work right now. But in all my years of self-employment, I've never taken a proper week off, I've not been on holiday and I think it's really ok to give myself permission to take a step back if I'm able to and not feel like a vile and lazy human being for doing so. I'm not taking a step back from posting to take weeks away from work, I'm still going to be working. But one of the biggest reasons for doing this is to get my workload under control and manageable. I'm a one girl band, everything that I do is done alone and that can be incredibly hard. I've not been totally honest in how poor my mental health has been as of late and I think feeling like this with work isn't making that any easier for me to get better. I want to feel strong enough to leave the house and walk my dog without feeling so anxious that I'm going to be sick or snap in half my body feels that tense and upset.
I'm still going to be posting over on my Instagram and Twitter if you'd like to follow me on there. But I wanted to write this post as a little heads up and an explanation although I don't feel like I need to justify why I'm going to take time off. Something that has taken me far too long to realise is that my business is me, so when I don't feel too good then that is obviously going to have a huge impact on it. So I'm hoping to return on the 1st of April, it could be sooner, who knows? And thank you for all of your support over the last seven years because without that I wouldn't be able to take this small little break to get back on track.
