Why the break
Honestly, I needed a break. I have a 4-month old baby daughter at home. She’s fantastic but it doesn’t get any quieter around the house. Also, over the holidays, my older boys were home all day, without Kindergarten. Which means they needed a lot of playing time.
But that’s not the real reason why I stopped writing for more than two weeks. To be honest, I started to get a little burnt out. I’d rather stop before a complete burnout to not lose the enjoyment. A break works wonders here.
Another major reason was some medical problems. I got diagnosed with borreliosis in early December. Or Lyme disease as you English-natives like to call it. Since I didn’t notice anything until symptoms appeared, I might have had Lyme disease for quite a while. And that’s not great.
Apart from that, my wife and my kids also got sick. A stomach bug and an ear infection. Fun times as a father of 5.
What happened during the break
Before my break, I was on a roll. My views were on their way to hitting 50,000 that month (December).
But can you guess what happened when I stopped writing for two weeks?
They went down. And when I say down, I really mean DOWN.
From the mid 40 thousands to a whopping 15,000 to date. That’s a hell of a decrease.
Why the decrease
If you didn’t believe me before when I said consistency matters, here’s proof. From almost 50,000 views to 15,000 within 14 days.
That hasn’t caught me by surprise though. I write daily. Stopping for over 14 days is a major change. Also, my recent stories were mainly about Medium and these are usually short-lived, meaning they get views quickly in the beginning and then die down most of the time. Although I was lucky to have had quite a few stories that stayed on the trending side for a while.
The bright side
What’s the bright side here?
First of all, the holidays and the break were beautiful. We enjoyed our family time (once we were all healthy again), we had great Christmas days and a quiet but comfy New Year’s Eve.
Secondly, I felt my burnout symptoms going away. I started to get anxious to write and work again. Which is great. I got my to-do list for 2022 done.
Lastly, my borreliosis symptoms have cleared. So far, so good.
Now, I’m enjoying my last few days of free time before I’m back to my 9–to-5.
One last sidenote: While my views did decrease greatly, I got 5 new referrals which is fantastic.
I’ll be getting back on track next week. We’ll see if I can hit these 50K this time.
