An unconventional fashion blogger trying to find her place on the internet

I’m not going to lie, although I’ve been keeping up with my regular posting schedule of three times a week, I’ve been finding it quite difficult to come up with some new posts while I wait for a couple of orders I’ve made for some online fashion shopping review posts (make sure to read my round up of what I’ve found so far here).

In order to get some inspiration for new material, I went to some of my favourite fashion blogs, online fashion stores and some fashion magazine sites, but nothing really spoke to me until I was catching up on some of the latest UK bloggers/vloggers videos on their recent trip to the Maldives with Benefit Cosmetics.
I was in complete awe of how beautiful these islands are (Aaron and I have always said that we’d love to go there one day – but life’s expenses get in the way of that happening any time soon) and how amazing all of the girls on the trip looked. It was this that got the cogs in my brain turning to think about a subject to cover in today’s post.
What makes these girls the trendsetters of today? What makes the ordinary girl of yesterday the “it girl” of today? Granted, they’ve all been completely devoted to this for a number of years, which has given them time to build their platform – but what makes their opinion more relevant than the smaller bloggers of today?

It also got me back into the mindset of comparing myself and this tiny space of the internet to the big ones (which I know I shouldn’t do – I KNOW THIS!); why am I not being heard among the noise when I know what I’m saying is relevant, what is wrong with my little blog – is it because I can’t afford to shell out on the latest camera equipment? Is it because I don’t want to spend my weekends out in the cold in front of houses I don’t live in (nor will I ever live in – I’m being pragmatic people) posing as if I’m the shit? Is it because I don’t have disposable funds to create an “I SPENT £500 ON …” post? I could go on, but I’m aware that this isn’t a very uplifting post today (soz).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that, even I (yes, Gabrielle Banner that’s banged on about staying true to yourself when you’re having a blogger identity crisis and owning the fact that you live on a council estate) have times where the dreaded green-eyed monster gets the better of me. This is the thing about social media – it gives you such distorted views of other people’s lives and because blogging goes hand in hand with it, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in the numbers, comparing yourself to others and not measuring success in a realistic way.

I don’t begrudge the people that are fortunate enough to have these great opportunities or believe that I’m more deserving of them – in fact I admire how they’ve managed to make something like blogging/vlogging into a career and just wished that I could get my shit together to figure out what I’m doing with my own blog.
I started to write this post on Sunday night and had a chat with Aaron about it all when we were about to go to bed (he could see I was sad and suggested I stop writing for the night and hit the hay bless him!) – he instantly knew that watching those videos of the Maldives had made me feel this way as I’d been showing him some of the footage that was captured during the #OutOfThisWorld launch (it was just a mascara – lol). Sometimes it takes someone that isn’t wrapped up in the online world of blogging to give you a reality check – whatever is going to happen will do so when it’s supposed to. Everyone’s vision of success differs – I might look at one blogger and compare my lacking blog performance with them, but someone else might well do the same with me. I guess this is also the same in all walks of life – people always want what somebody else has.
I was also chatting to my friend Emma from work (she’s got a life coach site coming soon and I’ll be sure to share it with you all when it’s live!) at lunch time today about it all and one thing she said really resonated with me “Think about where you wanted to be when you first started – you’ll soon remember how much you wanted to be where you are now.” And she was SO RIGHT! I could never imagine having over 1600 followers on Twitter, or to be hitting over 1300 page views every month, or actually making it over the 1000 follower mark on Instagram (especially with the god damn algorithm – make sure to check out my post on why we all hate Instagram here). These were my goals and I’ve been smashing them! So what if I’m not balling and working on this full time? It doesn’t happen overnight (trust me – I’m very aware of that fact!)
The key point I want you to take away from this post is that there is no clear cut way to success because everyone’s idea of it is different. It’s completely normal to get jealous of other people because it’s a human emotion we all have. I’m going to get stuck back into it and will make sure to read back on this post when I’m feeling a bit poop about my blog.

Let me know whether you’ve felt like this during your blogging journey in the comments below and some of the ways you tame the green-eyed monster!

bloggerblogging jealousyclothesfashionfashion blogfashion bloggerfashion inspirationfbloggergreen eyed monsterInstagraminstagram goalsjealousyonline woesvlogging