10 things I really regret about my early days of blogging

.....and by 'early days' I mean about the first 3 years!

As you blog you get better by degrees, so much so that it's only looking back through your archive that you realise how many new skills you've picked up. Here are the things I wish I'd addressed sooner, but I'm glad I know about now.

1. Taking my outfit photos indoors - you just can't beat the light outdoors, plus my home is so crammed full of my clothes, shoes, bags and makeup stashes there's little free room to pose. Plus if there's a choice of a lovely scenic place to take photos in or my tired ol' living room wall unit, there's no contest!
2. Not resizing the width of all my photos - when I look through my posts from 2014, even part of 2015 I see hideous higgledy piggledy images of all sizes. It makes my brain hurt to look at them.
3. Not investing in a softbox set for winter photography sooner - I got one last year. When it's cold out no matter how crammed my flat is, I'm still not going out to freeze my arse off unless I really have to. (Fibromyalgia + cold temperatures = widespread cramp, all over). Having soft box lights REALLY helps in winter, not just with outfit shots, but product shots and selfies too.
4. Not keeping a journal. There are some things that would've been best kept to myself. What's that old quote about wondering if someone's an idiot and them removing all doubt by speaking? Yeah, sometimes it's best to keep people wondering rather than spewing out my every thought.
5. Being such a grumpy cow. I've waged one-woman wars against so many retailers in the past, let alone the ways I've likely pissed off other bloggers with my open-mouth-insert-foot tendencies, so since last year I've been trying to calm my tits, especially on Twitter. It's so satisfying to have a quick Twitter whinge, but I don't want to be 100% whingebag.
6. Not investing enough time in my photos. Photos in blogging are everything, and mine have been on a sliding scale from absolutely fricking dire to passable and back again a few times. I've started picking up little props here and there which look pretty in the background of photos and I've been making a real effort to get outside more for outfit shots. 
7. Not knowing anything about SEO until about a year ago. I had no bloody clue and I'm learning all the time. Being an older blogger and thus not so media savvy is a definite minus but it just proves I need to read mooooooooooore blogs!
8. Huuuuuuuuuge close ups of my face. No man, no. I scrub up all right but seeing myself in close up at about 850 pixels wide when I scroll back through my blog? I scare myself. 
9. Using alll the links. Jaysus and Mary, I used to link to everythaaaaaaang. I have been way too generous with links in the past. Now I'm going through allllll my posts prior to last year and deleting all of the links, dead or not. I have something like 6000 links on this blog. Bananas.
10. My biggest regret of all - not really believing in myself sooner. 

I'm one of those people who'd always swung wildly between huge self confidence (for about 2 days a month) and feeling like a single celled organism hanging around in the bottom of a pond. I now like to think I'm a slightly more stable individual, making good use of antidepressants, journaling and voracious reading to keep me on the up. I started blogging because I wanted to share my JOURNEY to confidence, and I'm still on it, but I've noticed something in my time slow-burn. People LOVE people who are goddamn on fire in their self love from the get go and I've been crawling there. If people come out of the gate like 'WOW, I love myself and you should too!' people flock to them.

That's not my journey though. I've been here since 2010 (I've reverted everything before 2012 to drafts as it was awful) but only now can I say 'Yeah, come at me, I'm at one with my existence.' It feels like my time is now. I regret not being that kind of person sooner, but you know what? Hard fought for victories taste SWEEEEEET. I switched my focus around to plus size blogging in about 2011, and that was my baby steps into thinking, yeah, you're all right, love. Prior to that I'd been on the dieting train obsessively for 25 years (since before puberty) and had always been made to feel wrong for existing by society. As time has gone on I've become more and more at one with myself, and now at the grand ol' age of 42 I find myself in the situation of giving almost no shits at all about what other people think of my body. I'm putting myself out there because although it's never nice to hear crappy things on social media, other people's opinions of me are just that - other people's. I feel like the best stuff is ahead of me, so 10 little regrets are nothing in the face of what's to come.

What are your blogging regrets, if you blog? If not, share a regret you have. 

Leah xoxo