BLOG BURNOUT

There is a topic out there that has affected me not to long ago and I'm sure affects lots of bloggers out there, and that is blogger burnout. I've often written about blogging as a passion for myself and others, how it is an enjoyment and an outlet. It allows us to be creative and express ourselves and keep in touch with people. Blogging can definitely be a lot of things to a lot of people.
So what happens when blogging becomes stressful? Is it something we do to ourselves by not wanting to let anyone down or let our blog get "stale"? I think bloggers get a self perceived notion that it's expected of them to keep their blog fresh no matter what. I think that bloggers are afraid of losing readers and/or adsense revenue or whatever the case might be, so they push themselves to post and stress over what they are going to write next. It's almost like they are trying to keep up with the Jones.
So what do we do to get out of this funk? Allow yourself to let go. Maybe you need to walk away for a while, take the weekend off, go shopping and spend some of that Adsense money. In my case I left for a few months and decided to come back because I missed it. That might be too extreme for you, but I think we need to find a happy medium. The whole point to blogging is to enjoy and inform. When it gets stressful then it is no longer fun. Another good therapy is to go visit other blogs and see what other people are blogging about, or try blogging about your burnout and see if others share your worries. There are some very highly respected bloggers that I read often who have posted on this topic, one being Darren Rowse of Problogger and the other being Duncan Riley at The Blog Herald. Both of these bloggers have been blogging professionally for a long time and I'm sure they have struggles with this very topic to some extent. We might not all blog professionally, but we all blog passionately, and it's because of this passion that we want to keep a healthy attitude about the thing we enjoy so much.