If you’ve been feeling a tug to let something go as the year comes to a close, today’s episode will encourage you to let it go and free up space for something better! 

In the last few episodes, we’ve talked about reviewing your year and strategically planning content for the year ahead.

When reviewing your year, you may come across some things that are absolutely not working for your blog.

Maybe you’ll find some things that are overwhelming you, getting pushed to the bottom of your to do list, or things that fall into the “should” category of things someone somewhere told you you should do.

I shared more of my journey this past year, slowly letting my food blog go in the last episode. But in today’s episode, I want to just walk you through the process of physically and emotionally letting go of something that is not serving you or your business.

Analyzing What’s Not Working

As the year has drawn to a close, there’s a really good chance that something has stirred up in you as something that’s not working in your business. 

Before you are tempted to just push that feeling aside and continuing doing whatever that thing is, I want to you really think about it. 

Ever since becoming a mom, I’ve really learned to analyze the things I’m doing. I’ve really learned to ask myself WHY about pretty much everything that I do. 

If I feel resentment towards something, I try to dig into why. 

If I feel like I should do something, I try to look at why. 

The other huge shift has been my outlook on my time. There are tons of people who have said that time is your most precious, most non-renewable resource. And I think having kids just solidified that truth for me. 

The fact of the matter is, if I’m spending my time doing something, it better be giving me some sort of return. This goes for my real life as much as my business life. 

As food bloggers, the things you are doing for your business should either be: 

• Growing your traffic
• Building your audience
• Or making you money

If you’re doing things simply because you think you should but you’re seeing no return, don’t be afraid to let it go. 

Ask Yourself Why

Ask yourself: 

• Why isn’t this working?
• What would make it work better?
• Is it worth trying to improve?
• Does focusing on whatever it is take you away from growing your traffic, building your audience, or making money with your blog?

Think about how much time you spend on that thing. 

It may be the time ACTUALLY doing it, or it may be the time you spend worrying about it. Either way, that’s time you could have back if you let it go. 

This is the question I asked myself when I looked at my two businesses and wondered what would happen if I poured everything into my design business. 

Had I not asked that question, I probably would’ve been too afraid to switch gears. 

If it’s something that isn’t driving results for you, what would happen if you spent that time doubling down on what IS working? What if you spent that time doing something for YOURSELF instead of spending it on your business?

Trust me, coming from a recovering workaholic, I know how shocking that statement might be to some of you. 

But the interesting thing for me has always been that the less time I have to work, the most productive I suddenly am. 

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

Parkinson’s Law

…that has proven true the less time I give to my work. 

Replace what you’re letting go

On the note of tasks filling the space and time you allow them, it’s important that you set your mind on what you’re adding instead of just what you are letting go. What will you do instead now that you are letting something go?

You don’t have to replace it with something work related. 

It can be self care time. Time with your family. Time to read. 

OR it can be things that grow your business. Either is totally fine. 

But old habits die hard so be sure to replace what you’re letting go with something so you don’t look back at this thought a year from now and realize you wanted to stop sharing posts to your dead Facebook page. 

Your Permission to Let It Go

If you’ve been wondering if it’s okay to let it go, I hope you now know that it is. I’m ready to cheer you on as you enter 2020 with more clarity on what’s next for your blog! 

Next week I have a very exciting episode to share with some of my favorite food bloggers who will be sharing some of their insights from this year and some of their plans for 2020! It’s going to be a good one. 

Make sure to subscribe so you won’t miss when it goes live!