Since it’s the New Year and all that, I have been thinking about the future and what this year will bring.

Probably a whole load of stress, blood, sweat and tears; hopefully some good times too…

You have probably already read my Goals for January (and 2018) post, but I want to write about what I plan for this blog.

I hit several points in 2017 when I thought ‘this blog is too much effort’, ‘I barely have time’, ‘everyone else seems to be doing so well promoting their content’, ‘why am I blogging, it’s so 2008’ etc. but I’ve always kept my commitment to post every Monday.

Now that my blog has come so far, I would be devastated to drop it!  It would be amazing if I could live off my blog someday, but I just don’t see that happening yet.

Blockades to Going Pro

For starters, going to university takes up so much of my time.  I don’t have any time to myself, let alone blog!  I want to throw myself into university life, but that means that I have to give up other parts of my life.  One of those parts has to be engaging with other blogs because as soon as I start reading awesome blog posts I never want to stop!

Blogging also seems to be very much tied to social media – and I’m just not ready to have a social media following.  To have to keep up with comments and posts every day would be exhausting for me (despite Oxford’s instagrammable scenery!)

Thirdly, I’m happy with the fact that very few of my friends know that I keep this blog.  It’s my ‘guilty pleasure’, so to speak.  I don’t think I’d like my classmate’s flatmate to know I have a blog.  If they read it, I’d be fine with that – it’s just I would not be comfortable if people I might bump into judge me by the fact I have a blog rather than my personality.

Also, as much as I care for and appreciate each and every one of you readers, I want this blog to be about me.  There’s no nicer way of putting it; this definitely does come from a selfish part of me but hear me out first.

I started this blog as a means of getting my thoughts in order, of figuring out who I am and documenting what I found on my journey.  That is why my blog will not be successful as it is at the moment – it doesn’t help people find themselves; it only helps me.  And that is all I need it to be at the moment.  Maybe in the future, I will turn the spotlight to you, my dear readers, and I will then have enough experience and know-how to help you.

Finally, going pro would take a lot of effort.  It would mean risking money and time to buy my own domain, set up a website, sort out the bugs that would inevitably bring, redo my branding (I don’t really have branding at the moment), focus on traffic and SEO, and all of that.

Other Factors

Focussing on getting my degree is definitely a major factor in my holding off of getting my own domain, but also I think I’d like to get a more stable job and work on this blog on the side.

I’m at the awkward stage where I have a good blog but it’s not great; it’s promising but not incredible.  It’s a work in progress, not a masterpiece – yet!  So I don’t want my acquaintances to see it until it is going really well.

Going pro also means that I’ll have to narrow my blog down to one niche, which will probably be productivity and study tips seeing as those are the posts that are quite popular here, but I’m not ready to delete all my posts about random stuff.

Also, I’d like to keep this blog ‘home-made’ essentially, and not some corporate glossy thing.  I want to provide value, and maybe one day, going pro and becoming shiny will be the way to provide value, but I’m not ready to take the plunge yet.

So What’s In Store?

I am going to carry on writing whatever I think will be interesting, I will keep sharing books in my Friday book share and I will keep spreading the love!

Goals:

• Hit 800 followers – to my existing followers, thank you so much for all the support you’ve shown me!  You are more than just a number – your thoughts and comments make my day 🙂
• Use my Twitter more – shameless plug 😉
• Keep my publishing rate at one post a week.  It’s been going well so far and this is the most sustainable method so I hope I can carry on!

And maybe one day, I’ll take the plunge…