How a Break From Blogging Can Improve Your Blog

Taking a break from blogging is like asking me to not see a child.

I have worked hard on this baby of mine and I hate to walk away from it for very long.

As many of you know, I have had a long couple of months. The Ison household has been through its share of stress between the death of a close family member, unexpected expenses, and the passing of our 11-year old pup, Kasey.

I took on extra freelance work to supplement our income and took time off to mourn. On top of these stresses, I had decided to add another blog post per week to help increase traffic and bring in new readers. All of the extra work plus everything going on in my personal life left me stressed out and burned out.

So, I decided to take a short break from the blog and use that time to explore my creative side and spend time with my family.

As it turns out, the break was a great idea. I have a clear head and feel ready to take on this beast called blogging. In this post, I’m going to talk about how taking a break from blogging can improve your blog. If you ar skeptical, I was too. However, I am glad that I did and the following are the reasons why.

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I Had Some Major Concerns About Taking a Break

I took a five-month-long hiatus last year. This was primarily due to the fact that we were moving into a fixer-upper and had to get it suitable for habitation.

However, I had only started this blog shortly beforehand. I didn’t have enough readers and subscribers to really worry about it, so it was a no-brainer. I knew I would have to start over from scratch, but I was okay with that.

This time around, that is not the case. I have been blogging consistently all year and have worked hard to build a loyal following and email list. I was okay with starting from scratch last time. This time, I wanted to retain my readers and social media followers, but was concerned about how it would impact my blog.

Amazingly, I have discovered several major benefits from taking a break from blogging that will improve my blog and help it grow substantially going forward.

A Break from Blogging Can Generate Some Awesome Ideas

Although I was taking a break from the blog, my brain was still in “blogging mode.” That meant that while doing mundane tasks, I would come up with great, unique ideas.

A few of these were so good that I dropped everything and write it down. Rather than struggling for unique ideas, they just came to me at the oddest times. Once I was watching a commercial, another time, I was reading a news article.

The point is that my mind felt free and this opened it up to lots of unique content ideas. Even the failer of IHOP’s “IHOB” marketing campaign inspired a post (which I plan to release next Tuesday). Is your interest piqued? I certainly hope so.

The quiet time combined with a large amount of creative output that I had been holding onto seemed to spur the creativity in my ideas. It seems to have given me a different perspective, which will separate my content from the rest.

The key to writing content your readers want to read is to put a new spin on the topic. Taking a break from blogging and allowing myself the time and freedom to be creative helped me achieve this.

I Decided What I Did (and Didn’t) Want to Do

Prior to my break, I was very indecisive. One day, I would think, I want to write an ebook! Then, I would wonder about whether that would be too time-consuming and if it was a good fit for my blog. That left me hanging there and stagnated my blog and income.

I now know that I want to generate passive income for the foreseeable future. This will work best for me in the coming months. Passive income is any income which results in you doing the work once and you are done (for the most part). This includes writing an ebook, affiliate marketing, and creating a course.

I have also decided to focus on creating one awesome blog post per week, instead of writing two. I feel like the quality of my content suffered and I am not happy with that at all. Writing two posts per week is just too much for me and I don’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Live and learn.

My Content Is Fresh and So Am I

After a while, it seemed as if all of my ideas became a huge jumble and I lost direction with the blog. Taking a break has allowed me to take a step back from my blog and view it from a different perspective.

When you are immersed in something, it is difficult to see your mistakes and where you can make improvements. My short break from blogging has allowed me to identify key factors that are important to blogging success and address those factors.

It’s kind of like when you write something and go back to edit your work but you can’t catch all of your errors. You need that break to clear your head so that your brain isn’t filling in the blanks with the information still fresh on your mind.

Now it’s as if I am almost like looking at my blog as an outsider, which helps me relate to my readers. This has resulted in fresh content that you will love reading.

You Will Gain Fire and Drive

When you have a lot going on in your life, it’s hard to maintain passion and drive. You are exhausted and stressed out. When you temporarily remove yourself from all of your stresses, you instantly feel better.

Whether you take a vacation of some sort or just a break from your smartphone for a week, you know how good it feels to disconnect. When you return to the real world, you appreciate what you have worked so hard for and will be that much more dedicated to making your goals happen.

I have had doubts for the past couple of months. This has seriously impacted my passion and drive for what I do. When I was away from my blog, I missed it. I missed the social interaction, writing content, and even getting comments from readers.

These things really drive me to work hard on my content. When I realized how much I have missed it, it made me that much more dedicated to succeed. The fire is back and I’m loving it.

Develop An Effective Plan of Action

I hate going into a new month, not knowing what I am going to do. I wonder things like, “Which direction should I go? What is working and what is not?” It’s like driving down the road and not having a clue where you want to go. You have to know your goals to create a path.

Now, I know what I need to do to achieve my goals and how everything should fit together once I am finished. For instance, I finally decided on my first digital product. This has been something that has been weighing heavily on my mind as of late.

I originally wanted to create a Pinterest course but decided that at this time, it probably won’t work. So much has changed this year on the platform, so I don’t think it’s the great idea I had hoped for. That is not to say that I will never create the course, just that it is on the backburner until I feel like I have a better understanding of the platform in the future.

After careful consideration and contemplation, I now know the content that I need to write to develop and promote my product. Today, I have a much better understanding of my time constraints and that has led me to choose an ebook instead of a course or service.

I even know exactly how to create an effective sales funnel to drive sales of my product and how to create more effective emails and newsletters for my subscribers. How awesome is that?

A Better Work / Life Balance

Before we moved into this house, I was on a roll. I was organized, earning decent money as a freelance writer. I was working out three to five days per week. I had lost 30 pounds, was eating to fuel my body with loads of energy, and had enough energy for chores and having fun.

With my hiatus, I let all of it go with the goal of making my home a liveable space. I was spending every moment and extra dime on the house we were moving into. I just didn’t have time for it all. I stopped working out, slipped out of eating a healthy diet and found myself miserable.

We were paying bills for two properties and my husband’s income is the most consistent. That meant that a lot of the burden was on me since I understand the basics of contracting and could find time in my schedule. Now we are in the house. It is liveable and nowhere near complete, but I’m okay with that.

This small break has helped me find ways to get back on track with professional and personal life without going crazy. I have worked out a daily schedule that includes freelance writing, my blog, exercise, and time for chores and the things I enjoy.

Are You Stressed Out and Overwhelmed?

If you feel like you can’t gain traction with your blog, it may be time to take a step back to relax and evaluate things. This doesn’t have to be a scary thing. It may be well worth the break for you as it has been for me.

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