Blogging resolutions

Oh man, I've only just started this blog and I'm already so hard on myself. Blogs have become my little obsession lately. I view and read a ton of them whenever I'm on my laptop and follow a bunch on Bloglovin'. I like to browse through for inspiration. I'm still figuring out what kind of blog Going To Find is going to be. There's a lot to think about when creating a blog, and it's certainly something that's occupying my mind right now as I'm starting mine up. As a way of pushing myself, I thought I'd share some blogging resolutions: things I want to achieve with Going To Find. Might be helpful for others like me who are just starting out too. I might come back to this in another post later (a few months, maybe a year from now) to see how I've actually achieved these goals. So here are some of my blogging resolutions.

➙ Become a better writer - I like writing, that's the main reason why I'm doing this. I can never quite explain my passion for language to people. I think my overall grammar is okay, but I still have difficulty constructing interesting, naturally flowing sentences. English isn't my first language, but I'm hoping in time I can make believe that it is. As writing is also something I want to do professionally, blogging is definitely a way for me to exercise and develop my linguistic skills.

➙ Become a better photographer - I used to think I'm sort of a decent photographer. I got my first dSLR in 2009 and have schooled myself on a lot of the technical lingo since, but I have to admit in recent years I have neglected my camera a little bit. I've also discovered there are a lot of categories of picture taking where I could do with some more experience. Concert photography has been my main strength, but that's a totally different game from shooting architecture, food or product photography. Where I'm used to encountering the obstacles that come with gig photography (low light, rowdy crowds, fast moving subjects), to me that's a lot more straight forward than photographing objects. It's time I better my skills, which also gives me a good reason to play with my new camera.

➙ Improve photo editing skills - Boring... While I can easily spend all day taking a hundred photos, the thought of going through them and editing them later often arouses a big sigh. I'm not someone who likes tweaking settings in Photoshop all day to produce fabulous photos with all kinds of cool filters and colours. I really like looking at those pictures, but personally lack those skills. I need to find a post-processing flow that works for me, and I also want to have my processed images to have a consistent style, whereas now I'm still experimenting a lot (though that's not necessarily a bad thing).

➙ Find a rhythm - I'd like to post sort of regularly but realize that's not always going to be possible (as blogging is not my job). I'll have to find a way to schedule in time and not neglect my blog when I get busy, and also increase my writing and photo editing pace.

➙ Build a community - Did you know that not too long ago I had a password protected private blog where I posted articles to exercise my writing? Yep. Not a private journal, I actually wrote all sorts of stuff: reviews, lifestyle articles, business articles, but I didn't like the idea of people actually reading them. I know, what kind of journalism is that? I'm now ready to take that leap though, and I think it would be marvelous to meet new people through blogging. I'd be very honored if people enjoyed the content I create here. I don't want to name numbers like this many visitors a day or this many followers on social media, but the idea is to be gradually expanding. Baby steps? More like teeny tiny mouse steps. I don't want to be too ambitious too fast.

➙ Find personal life/public life balance - I like reading blogs with a personal touch and I like reading stuff that's narrated in the first person in general. I want this blog to sound human, it is my blog. But I have to admit that opening up about my life publicly scares me a lot, whether I've got 3 or 3,000 readers. I also don't want this blog to take over my 'real life-life', like having to worry about taking the perfect photo to post on my blog later when I go out. I'll have to gradually figure out how much 'me' I want to put into Going To Find.

I feel the need to make clear that I'm not blogging as a profession and in no way am doing this to make money, but when I do something, I want to do it right. If anyone takes their time to visit my page, I feel I owe it to them to provide satisfiable content. 

That's it for my blogging resolutions for now. What do you think is most important when starting a blog? What did or do you struggle with? Share your tips!