Where Have I Been?

An Explanation

Where have I been…where have I not been is the question. Well, when I last posted here on my blog (gulps) in April, I was frantically putting together the finishing touches on a sponsored post that had been approved by a brand just hours before I was due to go away. I pretty much hit publish just before dashing off in a taxi to the airport, ready to set off on a flight to Australia…now this seems like the part in the story where I tell you I then went travelling for 6 months, hence the long absence here on my blog. But in fact I was away for just 3 weeks in total on that particular trip. No short vacation by any means, but not quite the impressive world travelling excuse which would have succinctly explained me abandoning my blog for what feels like a lifetime (and could actually be classed as such by internet standards).

I’m not quite sure why I let the time pass by for as long as I did, or even how for that matter. I call myself a blogger and I work doing this weird and wonderful online creative thing (call it being an influencer or whatever you wish) full time, but I’ve felt quite guilty that I’ve not actually been doing, well, what my job title suggests. I guess things have changed and evolved in this industry a lot more than I wish to fully acknowledge at times. As we all know, Instagram has somewhat taken over the blogosphere and so, many people have abandoned their blogs (or these days not even needed to start one in the first place), in favour of more frequent short form content. There’s been a real shift in the tide and I guess I’ve sort of floated along with it, without really realising. I get that things change and we do have to move with the times but I never wanted to leave my blog behind completely, gathering dust, and in fact I hate that I’ve pretty much done what I said I would try so hard not to.

Before I went full time with this thing, I don’t think I quite realised the scope of work that my job role would come to entail. I’ve talked before about the juggling act which this job and many similar self employed jobs require. A lot of the time you’re learning on the job and you’re soon forced to become well versed in roles that you may previously have had little interest in, but are required to do in order to keep your business going (especially if you’re a one man band). I really can’t complain, as I feel so incredibly grateful that I get to work for myself doing something I really love. This is just a way of giving some sort of explanation to both myself and this here space on the internet, as to why I’ve been away for so long.

Moving Forward

I’ve realised that as my business evolves and my work continues to expand, I need to allow myself to let go of certain things. You can pretty much say that’s what I’ve done by no longer posting here, but this has just made me realise that whilst something has to give, this doesn’t necessarily have to be it. It hasn’t been a concious decision to stop writing and sharing my long winded musings here, but after how overwhelmed I found myself getting with my work last year, I must admit that putting zero pressure on myself to post here in recent months has been one less thing to worry about.

The thing I’ve come to realise though are the things that I value most with what I do, and time is one of them. I’m now finally coming to terms with allowing myself to let go of certain responsibilities so that I have more time to focus on the things I actually want to, like my blog, and let go of the other things that I’ve maybe been holding onto for the sake of holding onto them. I think that the comfort zone you create for yourself can be rather deceptive, it has you believing that you’re exactly that ‘comfortable’, but maybe you’ll find a more suited position seated around a different table, you’ll just never know until you take a moment to come out of your ‘comfy’ spot and switch to a different chair.

And of course it wouldn’t be a Samio blog post unless there was a rather abstract metaphor squeezed in somewhere there, so good job I got one in right at the end. So on that note, that is the end of my blog post, and hopefully the (re-)start of many more.

Ciao for now.

Samio x

Images shot by Carrie and edited by me.