I Found my Niche -- And this is Who I Am

No matter how many times a blogger drills it in, it doesn't work until you are truly ready to make the change. Not just read the advice and move on, but actually apply it. What is it, you ask?

It is finding your niche.

I hadn't planned on even posting this until Jocee did this super inspiring post the other day. After I read it, it hit me. For months now, when I would go to write a post, it just didn't really feel like me. The words just wouldn't flow. I began using words and phrases that I didn't use before. Does that make sense? I feel like instead of taking other bloggers posts as simply inspiration, I have wanted to be more and more like them. All these blogs with 1000+  readers, comments abounding, and people head over heels for their blogs -- I thought that if I could make my posts more like theirs then I would get more readers. Conclusion? It back fired. Big time. My little blog slowly and gradually got less comments and less followers. If I'm being honest, that stung a little bit. But I now see why it happened. It is because I wasn't writing like me. I was so ingrained on wanting more followers, more comments, and wanting to become more like the other bloggers -- that I lost my niche. I wasn't writing like myself anymore. The last time I really feel like I wrote like Anna Gray was maybe last Spring. It was before a bunch of bloggers got their big break (as in getting oodles of followers) and since then it has felt like competition.

I felt like if I could be like the "big bloggers", then my blog would thrive and grow. But that is like trying to eat ice cream without a spoon. It doesn't work.

Since I read Jocee's post though, it has encouraged me to reflect a bit and find my niche. My niche is expressing myself through my own simple thoughts and photos. I know, that sounds like what I am already doing -- but there actually is a huge difference. With this post and the kabillion more to come, they will be my true style of writing -- not trying to sound like somebody else.

I hope you all will continue to stay on this journey of my little blog -- perhaps pour yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy the ride?

I am quirky, I am sarcastic, I am dorky, I am loud, I am quiet, I am offbeat, I am silly, I am not perfect because -- I am me -- and that is what I hope you all will see now. I hope you all will get the visual picture of my ups, my downs, the flaws in my life, the good things in my life, how God has worked in my life. I want you all to see the true me.