How to Bounce Back into Blogging After Burnout with Amber Lozzi

How to Bounce Back into Blogging After Burnout with Amber Lozzi

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. Today I am talking with Amber Termity, a digital marketing strategist, and we will talk about how to bounce back into blogging after burnout. This is such a great topic at the beginning of 2021 when we’re recording this because everybody got burnout in 2020, and we’re all recovering.

I have been blogging since I was a preteen. I was one of those angsty kids who always had to write out her feelings. We got our first computer, which makes me feel a little too old for comfort. I remember looking into just these different ways to share. Of course, back then, it was called web blogging, and I was creating my websites with Geo Cities and learning HTML and then using Zenga and all of those old, even MySpace as we got, moved later in the two thousand.

But it was when my husband started in about 2013 started talking about how. I wanted to create a blog to help us retire in our thirties. And he wanted to be the next Pat Flynn or Mu Mr. Money mustache. We were both working full-time jobs at the time. I had two under two, and I was like, yeah, please, let’s retire and live and be with our kids. And he just kept talking about it, And finally, I’m going to do it. I’ve got the experience to make it happen. 

And so in November of 2015, even though I was working a full-time job, as I said, I had two kids under two. My youngest, my daughter, was still nursing. So I was dealing with that, not sleeping at night. I said I’m going to launch a blog and see what happens. And so I found thrifty guardian.com, a frugal living site for millennial parents or guardians of children. By April 2016, it had taken off to the point where I could quit my higher career and become the work-at-home mom I am today.

At the time, it was primarily just the blog. I have a professional background in organizational leadership and marketing. So I always wanted to stick with the blog and offer e-courses since I also had that background in education and that first e-course, which led me to quit my job in higher ed in April of 2016. 

One of those students approached me afterward and asked, do you offer one-on-one mentoring? Because I love your teaching style. I want to go even further. And so I threw together a package and wasn’t prepared for it. But then it snowballed into; now I offer services as a blogging mentor and digital marketing strategist so that others can start profiting from their own.

I have always wanted to be a writer. But if you had told me, I would be making money to where I’m not working outside the home and teaching others to do it. I don’t know that I would’ve believed you. 

In my experience. Many people start blogging, thinking it will be an easy way to make money. Going back ten years ago, it was pretty simple when you knew a few key aspects of it when you learned about SEO, and starting, if you got in on social media, on Facebook, on Twitter, when it first really started kicking things, Blogging was a reasonably simple way to start making money.

Then again, if you kept going with it, you would see those profits keep rolling in. But now, if you go into blogging thinking it’s easy money or even think this is a way, I will make money from this. This is what’s driving me. All of that, you will burn out because you won’t see those profits, even in those first six months.

Because I always want to throw in that caveat when I tell people my story of I. It was successful incredibly early on. I feel like because I had a professional background in, again, marketing, organizational leadership, social media, you know, education, I had a lot of those different components that added to my nearly 20 years of experience with blogging, led me to where I was able to hit four or five figures. 

Within that first year of being a blogger, being a work-at-home mom. But if I had gone into it thinking I have to make money from this, I have to, you know, it hit X income within X months, I would’ve burnt myself out again. Especially since I was working a full-time job and was dealing with, you know, my two little ones under two.

It would’ve been exhausting. And that’s always my first; my number one tip with anyone I hear wanting to talk, wanting to go into blogging, is, You can’t lead with the money. You can only lead by wanting to profit from it. It has to come from a place of the passion of, you know, leading with your creative genius of something that you love to do now.

And here’s where the tricky part is, is that you also have to be able to reign in that passion and that creativity. To a certain extent, because if you are someone like me, I’m speaking from a place of experience here. If you are somebody who gets, really, really excited about something and you go all in, and you’re doing it from a place of, again, un unbridled passion and.

And so we always get to like these high peaks, and we’re right there, and we’re so close to making something beautiful happen. And then we burn ourselves out because we’re not pacing ourselves. And so it is this sort of balance of. Leading from a place of passion, but not letting the power lead you.

Can you go through that for the listeners who need to know how people make money from blogs?

There are so many different ways to make money with blogging. As I said, I started primarily with, I used a blog to build an email list, and then through my email list, I launched an online course related to my blog. So it was called Life on a Budget, and it was similar to what we’re talking about today in time management and productivity strategies, but also, Touched on financial components. So that was my first big money maker, if you will.

But there’s, of course, affiliate marketing, so referring products and services that you love, that you want your audience to love, that relate to your niche or industry. There are, of course, sponsorships. There’s an ad, there’s. eBooks. I’ve got a client who runs a Japanese food blog, and so one of her big money makers is she created first an ebook and then a full-on physical book, a Japanese cookbook. 

There are a lot of different ways to make money with blogging. All of which I would always say is active. We hear that all the time. Oh, it’s passive income. It never really is, but there are many ways to build up streams that you can automate to where they become.

Passive-ish, and especially when you’re first starting, if you can really hone in on one stream at a time and build them up again to a place where they’re strong, they’re steady, again, you’re pacing yourself, then those streams start to run themselves to where that, that’s when you hit 5,000, $10,000 a month and you don’t 

My number one tip is always to start with an editorial calendar. It is something that, again, as a writer,  I majored in; I always joke that I majored in blogging because my major in college was experiential writing, a fancy word for blogging, I think. And so I’m coming from, at this, from a place of, Being a writer and somebody who loves, who sits down and writes.

You have to have that structure in place because, again, if you are somebody like me who loves to sit down and write and just loves to let the creativity flow, that is great. Right? That is a great place to start. But if you stop there, If you don’t have a structure in place and don’t know what you’re going to be writing a month from now, you’ll get stuck.

And so you’re going to end up coming to a place where all of a sudden you’re sitting down, and you’re staring at that dreaded blinking cursor on a white screen, and you feel pressured, and your muse has turned her back, and walked away from you. And you’re like, what do I write about? What does my audience want from me?

And so if you start from a place of an editorial calendar, not only can you map out, okay, I know that Two months. I want to push an affiliate for meal planning because it’s back to school the season, and that’s, you know, something that my audience is going to want.

Then it would be best to look at what you can write in terms of long-form content, in terms of those blogs, to lead up to that so that your audience is primed when you start pushing on social media, Instagram, Facebook, whatever.

They’re investing now, buying you; they’re not even hesitating. And so rather than all of a sudden, it’s back to school season, and I really wanted to push this. You’re not going to see people clicking through, you’re not going to see people wanting to make any investment or engaging with you, because all of a sudden it’s like, whoa, where did that come from? 

The more that you can plan, the better. I always say to start with every quarter. Have an editorial calendar for the coming quarter. If you’ve got ideas beyond that, awesome, write them down. But start with that quarter. Try to get ahead when you can, then let it build out from there. I

What you’re going to put on Facebook or what you want on Instagram makes the time you spend on content so much less involved that you don’t risk burnout. That then you still maintain that excitement to keep moving forward. Either, again, either going overboard or getting to a place where you’ve got riders blocked, and you’re just stuck.

Do you have any resources or anything we can use to get our creative crease juices flowing again?

As somebody who has been there, done that a new number of times, I’m looking at, actually in, in five days from the time of this recording, I will have, you know, given my notice to my nine-to-five, five years ago. I have burned myself out. Even, you know, it happens to all of us. And so the first thing is to give yourself grace.

Give yourself the love to say, you know what? It’s okay. It happens to all of us. And then from there, you know, I am. On amber lowie.com, I have an editorial calendar template that people can utilize.

Well, that comes with the training. It’s like 20 minutes long, so it’s not super intensive. It’s not something that’s going to take you hours and hours. It’s a nice place to start fresh, and this goes for whether or not you feel like you’re burning out or not. It’s a nice place to take that step back, map out your content, and look at where you want to grow over the coming.

And then beyond that, um, personally, I also have purpose planning and profits, which is a P three power pack for busy entrepreneurs. And so that’s a toolkit that is comprised of everything from focusing in on your why and mindset and outstanding client work to content creation, setting up structures, um, You know, implementing profitability systems, all of that good stuff to then the bigger components of marketing on Facebook and Pinterest and the like.

Those are all resources that anybody, whether you’re, again, just air quotes or just a blogger. Or any entrepreneur you could take advantage of. But again, it comes back to regardless of whether you are investing your time, your. Whatever it is, you will focus on getting away from that burnout and start fresh; you have to come from that place of grace and recognize that it is okay to be tired.

It is okay to feel like. To question yourself and feel like I am doing what I’m meant to be doing? Take that step back before diving into anybody’s program or resources, and really sit down with yourself and give yourself that space to recharge as you need to. 

Do you have any other tips for us for recovering from burnout?

If you really struggle with structure and what I’m about to say, many people have had clients, especially those who shun away from this and, like, Crinkle their noses and hate it.

But if you feel allergic to structure, you must structure your days. If structure makes you want to break out in hives, that tells me all the more that you need to work on structure, and you’ve got to be almost neurotic with it in that you should be planning—every minute of your day for the next week.

I know so many people will hear that and go, oh no, I don’t think so, especially if you’ve got kids; I’ve got; my kids are now six and seven. I get it. It takes a lot of work. Or at least it seems to be a challenge. But when you have space in your calendar to see where you are.

I love it, and it’s a good example. We have 52 chances every year to reevaluate what we’re doing every week, and you know, the sooner you feel like you can tune into what works for you, the better. I love that not only can it be applied to blogging, but it can also be applied to your social media strategy, podcasting strategy, and your. Whatever strategy it can, everything you’ve talked about can really help us in many areas. 

Where is the best place on the internet for people to find you? 

Visit me@amberlousy.com. Again, I have an opportunity to get your editorial calendar template going and resources to connect with you more.