It’s officially been 3 years!
3 years ago, I nervously posted on Instagram that I had launched a blog.
Six months earlier, I had bought the domain for this blog and spent 6 months trying to get it perfect for launching. It was only when I finally launched this blog that I felt a sense of relief.
I wrote this blog as a way to share what I was learning with others. I wanted to share concepts that I was learning that not everyone knew about. It became my little digital diary to document the things I was learning during my own personal growth journey.
3 years later
And now, we are here! What even am I doing?
I ask myself that because I really felt like I would be in a different place with my blog right now.
First, I thought it would be monetized in a way that it’s making me sustainable income.
I thought I would have the “success” that I envisioned three years ago. Right now, I am nowhere near that.
And look, I could go on and write about how upset I am that I am not even close to the goals that I have set for myself. I could get all upset about how I am not close to the vision I had for this blog.
But instead, I thought I’d just acknowledge and celebrate the achievement that I had stuck around with this blog for the past 3 years. I must remind myself that people quit things when they don’t see results in the short term. With me, even though I haven’t seen the HUGE break I am hoping for, I am still posting consistently on this blog, and continuing to evolve in its content.
3 Lessons I Learnt
And of course, three years on, I still learned valuable lessons along the way. These lessons are valuable because I can carry them with me in the future to make sure that I make wiser decisions.
1 – The only person I should be comparing myself to is myself
Comparison has been a HUGE struggle for me forever! I compared myself to other people in high school, and up until now, I still compare myself to people who are on similar journeys to me and are “ahead of me”.
But, I’ve noticed how much it drains your energy to worry about this, and how useless it can be. Although it’s still a work in progress, I definitely notice the difference in how I feel whenever I simply just compare myself to… myself.
Three years ago, I was afraid of taking risks. During those three years, I have taken risks and I have learned lessons. When I compare myself to three years before, I’d like to think that I have become more of a risk-taker and someone who likes to get out of their comfort zone.
Ultimately, comparing yourself to another person doesn’t contribute to your progress. Instead, it derails it. If you are going to compare yourself to someone else, compare yourself to your past self.
2 – Pivoting is necessary
When I started this blog, I was only talking about personal development, productivity, and habits. Now, I have expanded my content pillars and started talking about routines, self-care, self-love, dating yourself, living your main character’s life, and lifestyle.
Here’s the truth, you are going to grow and evolve. If you are a content creator, your content is going to grow and evolve with you. There have been instances where I had explored another content pillar and realized that it wasn’t going to be a good fit. I used to talk about studying tips and blogging tips in my blog posts until I realized that I didn’t really like talking about it.
That’s why, sometimes, in life in general, you’re going to be pivoting and that’s okay. Instead of resisting it, it’s more fun to just go with it. One of my favorite sayings that I love hearing is that if you haven’t changed interests, it means you haven’t grown.
And that’s why my blog of 3 years has come a long way as well. It had evolved in its content, and in its intention as well. I had pivoted my focus to sharing what I learn with others, to actually hoping to help others. Hence, I can guarantee that in the next 3 years, my blog is going to continue to grow and evolve.
3 – Just do it
Yes, this is Nike’s slogan, but it does seriously have so much helpful meaning to it! This valuable lesson isn’t just for my blog, but it’s for everything else I am doing in my life too. It’s one thing to visualize and set goals, it’s another to take action.
I’ll admit taking action can be scary and way out of your comfort zone at first. But honestly, once you take action, a lot of that fear goes away! Even for me, I get afraid of taking action because of what is going on in my head. My head is exaggerating a lot of scenarios that probably won’t happen and fears that I created in my head.
It’s only when you take action that those exaggerations and fears in your head subside. I have experienced this on multiple occasions. I don’t even know why I still get exaggerations and fears in my head sometimes whenever I am about to take action. But I guess, it’s part of being human?
When it comes to this blog, there have been times when I experienced all this. Starting from when I launched this blog, to when I told people, to launching different products. I can say that every time I just took action, all the fears and exaggerations I built up in my head just subsided, and I don’t even think about them anymore.
Top 3 Popular Blog Posts
Since it is 3 years, I thought I would do Top 3’s? (hence why I also did Top 3 lessons). Here are the Top 3 popular blog posts:
1 – Productive Ways to Live Your Main Character Life
My most popular blog posts happen to be this one! This was a fun blog post to write so I was really happy when I saw that this was my most popular blog post this year.
This blog post is about the productive ways to live your main character life. I wrote some practical tips to help you live your main character life.
The past few years of my personal growth journey have also been about living my main character life. That’s why, it made sense for me to also write a blog post about the things that have helped me live my main character life.
I definitely recommend you read this one if you haven’t yet! They’re all practical easy ways to live your main character life, and they’re easy to implement!
READ: Productive Ways to Live Your Main Character Life
2 – How to Practice Self-Care Without Spending Any Money
The second most popular blog post is about how to practice self-care without spending any money.
I also enjoyed writing this one too. We all know that self-care is important, and there are so many things you can do for self-care without spending a dime.
It is a misconception for some that you need to spend a lot of money on self-care. The truth is, there are so many different self-care tasks that you can do without spending a dime, so you don’t need to use the “no money” excuse when it comes to your self-care.
This is a good one to read if you are looking for ways to practice self-care without spending any money.
READ: How to Practice Self-Care Without Spending Money
3 – How to Ruin Your Morning Routine
If I’m being honest, I am quite surprised with this one! Out of the Top 3, this was the only one posted more than 2 years ago.
This blog post is all about how to not ruin your morning routine. My idea behind this blog post is that to improve in something, a good first step is to know what not to do.
If you are looking to improve your morning routine, this blog post is a good first step to knowing what not to do in your morning routine, so you can have a good morning.
READ: How to Ruin Your Morning Routine
Top 3 Favorite Blog Posts
Now that we have gone through the popular ones, here are my favorite ones!
1 – Any of my Week in My Life’s
This year, I started writing more quarterly Week in My Life blog posts. This is mainly for my memories and looking back at it. The last time I wrote a Week in My Life was in 2021, and it was pretty cool reading it back and seeing how my life was in 2021.
That’s why, I wanted to start doing regular Week in My Life’s this year so I can look back at them. It’s pretty awesome that every quarter, my life and routines were always different. I will be writing more of them in 2024!
Read my Week in My Life Blog Posts in 2023:
- Week in My Life – March 2023
- Week in My Life – May 2023
- Week in My Life – August 2023
- Week in My Life – November 2023
2 – The Ultimate Guide to Bouncing Back From Your Flop Era
This is a relatively new blog post (I only posted this two weeks ago), but it was one of my favorite blog posts to write!
(Let me say that I’m going to pick recent blog posts as my favorites because I do believe that my newer blog posts continue to improve and improve as time goes on!).
I had gone through a flop era myself and then made the decision to build habits and challenge myself to bounce back from it. After feeling like I have bounced back from my flop era, I decided to create a blog post about how to bounce back from your flop era.
So, if you’re looking to bounce back from your flop era or just improve your life in general, this blog post will be worth the read!
READ: The Ultimate Guide to Bouncing Back From Your Flop Era
3 – 100+ Solo Date Ideas – that are fun, easy and enjoyable
This is also a recently new blog post as well, but this had become one of my favorites in my third year of blogging. I am huge on solo dates, and I am always looking for different ways to take myself out on dates.
I have been inspired by Pinterest and TikTok to have a whole self-date menu filled with solo date options and ideas. I created jars to randomly pick a solo date, and I put these solo date ideas into this blog post.
So, if you’re looking for some solo date ideas, this blog post has over 100+ solo date ideas that you can do. A good part about it is that they are categorized based on what you feel like: Spontaneous, Planned, and At Home.
READ: 100+ Solo Date Ideas – that are fun, easy, and enjoyable
The Next 3 Years?
I have some goals and visions for the next 3 years that I would like to keep to myself for the time being. But all I know is that I still hope that I am writing blog posts and continuing to grow this blog in ways I never thought possible.
I know that this blogging journey hasn’t always been easy, but I am grateful that I decided to get into this journey anyways. This blog is like a child to me, and that’s why I want to continue to nurture it by writing and publishing blog posts.
I am grateful for those who even just click on it to read just one blog post. I am grateful for those who have been here whether it was Year 1 or just started in Year 3. I cannot wait to see what the future of this blog has in store!
To Wrap Up
To celebrate 3 years, I have launched 2 new resources in the Free Resources Library for you to check out! I have created the:
- Becoming the Main Character of Your Life Workbook
- Bouncing Back From Your Flop Era Mini Guide
You can click here to sign up for the Free Resources Library and access to many more free resources, including my free book Small Steps to Progression.
In the meantime, thank you for being here, and I hope that you can continue to be a part of this journey in the years to come!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, this is Lauren! I’m a law grad from Melbourne, Australia. On laurenbarri.com, I create content on all things personal development, productivity, self-care, and habits! I am super passionate about these topics because of how they helped me in all areas of my life, and I want to share it with others!
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