The blogging struggle is real. Although I wrote a previous post about avoiding blog burn out, I'm not exempt from experiencing it. Over the past eight days many of you have noticed that I've been absent. I've been MIA from comment pods, haven't posted any photos on Instagram, and my blog has been very quiet. Some of you have even sent me texts about my whereabouts. 

Don't worry, I have not been kidnapped I'm alive and well!

Life has been extremely chaotic. I've been so busy being Shasha that there wasn't enough time for Shatia. I didn't plan on taking a break until one day I had a heart to heart with my husband. He gave me a piece of advice that stuck with me. "You need to slow time down." 

Initially, I thought he was crazy when he said this. No one in the world has the ability to slow time down. After taking some time to think about his advice, I realized that I could slow time down in a sense, by slowing down my pace and focusing on other aspects of my life. 

Blogging slowly started to feel like a chore for me. It started to become less and less enjoyable. I started to feel so down about my blog that I questioned if I should keep it going. There were a few moments when I asked myself "What's the point?" I was giving my blog a serious side eye. The crazy part is that last month, I had my best month ever in terms of users and page views, yet I still felt like I wasn't doing enough.

Fast forward to today, and I've managed to pull myself out of the funk.  Here's a couple of tips that helped. 

1. Don't Beat Yourself Up. I felt super guilty about taking a break. Especially since this break wasn't pre-planned. On the flip side, I never feel guilty about taking time off from my corporate job, so I should really feel the same when it comes to my blog. I felt like I would miss out on what was happening in blogging social scenes and the latest news surrounding the blogging world. However, during my break I gained a lot of clarity and realized that I needed to make some beneficial changes that I wouldn't have made without taking a break. 

2. Stop Checking Your Stats. It was really nice to not have to worry about checking my stats and analytics. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that most of have my stats had stayed fairly consistent during my break. I didn't realize just how well my blog stats could do, if I just let it be. SEO and Pinterest for the win! 

3. Re-Visit Your Goals. During my break I spent a lot of time thinking about my goals and coming up with a concrete time plan on how and when to achieve them. Although I had many goals before I took a break, I had slowly allowed some of them to slip underneath the cracks. Now that I've taken a few days off, I feel refreshed and ready to conquer them. 

4. Go Have Some Fun!  I never realized just how much time I spend blogging until I realized all the things I could do when I took a break. Reality sat in that I needed to do a better job of managing my time and building more free-time into my schedule. Last week, my husband and I went on a date night during the week, I scheduled an awesome reflexology appointment at my favorite spot, and dug out some time to continue reading Shonda Rhimes' newest book. Going forward, I'm committed to doing a better job of balancing my time and not viewing blog time as me time...it really isn't the same. 

5. Confide in Your Blogging Buddies.  I had an excellent conversation with my favorite blogging duo Virtuous Virgos. We were able to discuss our experiences with blogging and it was really comforting to be reminded that we all need to take breaks at certain times. Talk to your blogging buds when you're feeling down. I'm sure they'll be able to relate to your struggles. Who knows, they might even be able to provide some helpful advice and insight.

6. Remember Your Why. Have you ever heard of the term Know Your Why? As a Blogger, you probably already know the reason why you started blogging. However, the longer you blog the more challenging blogging becomes. I had to take a moment to reflect on why I started my blog in order to regain the motivation to continue blogging. You can easily lose sight of your blogs purpose when things get hectic and tiring. 

I'm so glad that I took a blogging break. Going forward, I'm going to plan to schedule my blogging breaks every quarter. Have you ever taken a break from blogging? Do you have any tips for overcoming a blogging funk? Drop a line below and let me know!