Episode 453: How to Recognize and Deal with Burnout – Manage Your Time and Priorities with Danielle Wolter

EBT453 – Danielle Wolter

Intro  00:00

Food bloggers, hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blogs’ growth and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal or professional. 

I’m Megan Porta, and I’ve been a food blogger for over 13 years, I understand how isolating food blogging can be at times. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you know that you are heard and supported.

Megan Porta  00:38

Have you ever experienced burnout? I truly hope the answer is no. But if you have or if you feel like you’ve even been on the verge of being there, you will definitely want to listen to this episode. Danielle Wolter from Went Here 8 This joins me in the episode to talk about her experience with burnout and how she recognized it, how she dealt with it, and how she has used that experience to really transform her business. She runs multiple businesses, and has learned to grow them successfully by taking care of herself and by creating boundaries in her life. And investing in quality business coaching, and hiring out when needed. And a handful of other things. Join us in this episode. It is so good. Even if you have not ever experienced burnout, you’ll want to listen, because there’s a lot of great nuggets here. This is episode number 453 sponsored by RankIQ.

Sponsor  01:42

I have a quick question for you food bloggers, one year from now fast forward and imagine yourself there. Do you want to hear yourself say that was the best investment I could have made in my blogging business? If the answer to this is yes, awesome, then the 2024 Eat BlogTalk mastermind group might be the perfect solution for you. Get 25% off now through October 31. So act fast. Go to eat blogtalk.com/mastermind to apply today. Real quick, here’s a clip from Jen from Cook Eat Go, talking about how this mastermind group served her better than other groups she’s been in: “I was struggling to keep up with everything. And so like I joined the mastermind in hopes that it was better knowledge than what I was getting from Facebook groups where you ask everybody and everybody has an opinion, like the ladies in the group and the gentleman because we had a gentleman and ours. They grew to know my content. And so like they were able to fine tune advice to what my sites were about and what my needs were. And then like, they learn to understand how my brain works. So when they came down explaining some of the technical stuff, they were able to break it down for me better than I would have with a stranger from a Facebook group or email.”

Megan Porta  02:53

Danielle Wolter has any food blogger for almost seven years at Went Here 8 This. She spent the first two and a half year struggling not knowing anything about blogging. Then she dove into learning about keyword research and grew her blog to about 175,000 visitors a month. While starting and growing to other businesses and working full time. The blog focuses on creating internationally inspired recipes as well as a strong focus on sous-vide cooking. Danielle, thank you so much for being here today. How is your day going so far?

Danielle Wolter  03:27

Uh, hi, Megan, I’m having a great day so far. Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited.

Megan Porta  03:32

Me too. This is a really important topic, I think for us to talk about. It’s something that we tend to maybe shove under the rug a little bit because I don’t know, we like to think we’re Superman and Superwoman. And you know, burnout doesn’t catch us, but it often does.

Danielle Wolter  03:49

Totally, totally, I definitely always like to think I’m super strong, but this is something I think a lot of people a lot of people deal with.

Megan Porta  03:56

Yes, so true. But before we get into that topic, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

Danielle Wolter  04:02

So I thought about this a little bit. So fun fact, I have back in 2004, which is a long time ago back in 2004. I actually spent about eight months a little less than a year over in Iraq doing audits. I used to be an accountant, doing audits of defense contractors over there in Baghdad. Actually, I stayed in the in the palace over there. It was an interesting time.

Megan Porta  04:26

Oh my gosh, wow. Wouldn’t experience I bet you came home with just yeah, memories and all kinds of… yeah.

Danielle Wolter  04:34

Oh, yeah. It was it was crazy. I got to ride in a lot of Blackhawk helicopters and had to wear all the all the gear and everything. So it was an interesting time because I was a civilian so it was all kind of new to me.

Megan Porta  04:48

Wow, that’s so cool. Okay, that’s something that has never been shared as a fun fact on the podcast. So you just trumped everyone. 

Danielle Wolter  04:56

There we go. 

Megan Porta  04:57

There you go. Great way to start right now. Yeah. Okay, so I love our topic today. I know it gets a little bit heavy. But I think it’s really important to bring this to light. And just tell people how they can cope with it because it kind of hits all of us at some point or another, unfortunately, but I think, Danielle to start, if you just kind of tell us a little bit about your blog, I think that will naturally lead into this topic.

Danielle Wolter  05:22

Well, thank you, Megan. And so my blog, it’s called Went Here 8 This. So I actually started it back in 2016, as it was going to be a like traveling around the world and eating food type of blog. But at the time, like I worked full time, so I didn’t know exactly what was going to be evolved over time. I don’t travel the world, I ended up probably a year later focusing more on creating recipes. And I’ve always been a food lovers. So like creating recipes is something that kind of came naturally to me. So it was a natural progression. And I it took me a long time to understand blogging, I would say like, I qualified for Mediavine in the fall of 2018. Right, right, as the holidays were hitting, so that was great. But like those first two years, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just kind of like writing recipes, throwing them up there. You know, like everybody, a lot of people that started out they have like the photos. They’re orange in the kitchen, you know, with my cell phone? Of course. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t think I started too much differently than a lot of a lot of bloggers started who didn’t know anything about it. So I started that. And then like, I had my audit with Casey, of course, beginning of 2019. And that really changed the progression of my blog, I got a lot more focused, I really started doing a lot of SEO, social media has never really been a big part of my blog traffic. So I started doing SEO and since then I just kind of grew it to where it is today. Um, a couple years ago, I started to niche down doing sous vide cooking. So a lot of what I focus o, a lot of what I focus on now is to sous vide cooking. Um, I also do some some other stuff, but it’s really internationally focused, also. So I use like a lot of international flavors, because we do my partner and I do enjoy traveling. And even though we don’t get to travel the world and write about places that we’ve eaten, you know, we do a little bit of traveling, and I like to learn about different cuisines, and through all the grocery store aisles of like all the different types of markets and stuff we have I live in San Diego. So we have a pretty, pretty diverse culture here. So there’s a lot of different markets, I learned a lot about different foods and everything like that. So that’s kind of where that’s kind of where we are.

Megan Porta  07:47

Yeah, I love hearing each individual blog’s kind of journey. Every one has its own personality and its own story. So that’s really cool. And I know that you’re bringing this topic to the table, because you have unfortunately experienced the burnout that comes with food blogging. So what would you say led up to that point.

Danielle Wolter  08:08

So basically, a lot of it started with COVID, I worked full time I was a CPA, I worked full time as an accountant for many years. And that was up until COVID and COVID. Had I made a lot of changes to my life, I put a lot more focus into the blog. And I also started, I bought another blog, not a food blog, a finance related blog. It’s another passion of mine. And then I also started two new businesses. 

Megan Porta  08:38

Wow. 

Danielle Wolter  08:39

Yes, I know. So I mean, this is what was leading to it, mainly because I was unhappy in my job. So starting those two businesses trying to grow the blog and working full time, kind of started me down the path to the burnout. And then I quit my full time job in September of 2021 to focus on all the other three businesses. And between that time, and I think when I finally had, I don’t know if you want to call it a nervous breakdown, but pretty close to it in the spring of 2022. Like between quitting my job, you know, like as a CPA, like I was actually CFO of a company. And I made pretty decent money, which was great. And quitting that job and working with three, you know, I don’t know if you want to call the blog, a startup still at that time. Like it was making money, but it wasn’t making millions. Yeah. And the other two startups like really put me down a path of I would say like financial insecurity. So, you know, startup companies sometimes lose money at the beginning. And I got really stressed while I was working probably 90 to 100 hours a week on all three of them. And I was yeah, I’d really put myself in the position because I thought I’m like I’m strong, I can handle this like I can do anything which I do believe is true to a point. But I got to a point where I was just so burned out. And I didn’t feel like I was seeing progress with any three, I was just like flailing. And I just hit a wall. So like, I got in contact with a business coach, I don’t remember how I think just a mutual friend introduced me to her. And I met with her. And even though I was financially struggling, I still hired her because I didn’t know what else to do. And even when within those first few weeks, I got to a point where there was a week where I just like, turned off my phones, and basically just like completely shut down and laid on the couch in my living room and watch TV, because I just couldn’t, I just couldn’t deal and this is gonna sound I’m sure my partner maybe will listen to this. But like, he was working at the time. And like when I knew he was about to get home from work, I could hear the garage open. And I would like scramble and like go and just hide it because I didn’t want it to know, I didn’t want him to know I did, like scramble, get into my office and pretend like I’d worked work the full day, which is terrible, but it is what it is.

Megan Porta  11:09

I don’t think that’s terrible. We do what we have to do it. And it’s not something in the moment you really wanted to get into probably right, like…

Danielle Wolter  11:17

Correct. I didn’t want him to see me as weak. Yeah, I thought at the time, I thought it was weak to to be like that.

Megan Porta  11:24

And then in retrospect, you look back and you realize that it wasn’t weak at all, that you were actually like, incredibly, you know, strong and doing so much. So it was the opposite of weak, but in the moment. Yeah, totally. 

Danielle Wolter  11:38

Yeah, 100% .

Megan Porta  11:40

I think it is so amazing and impressive that you just knew that you needed the business coach, and that you didn’t necessarily have the resources for it. But you just knew like, I need this step, and I’m going to invest in it. Right. I think that is so cool. Because a lot of people would have not done that. Like they might have had the thought like maybe a business coach would help. But then like, oh, I don’t have the money you so I’m just gonna keep following and chugging along. But I love that you did that.

Danielle Wolter  12:09

Yeah, it was a hard decision to make. Because when you’re not bringing in the money that you need to sit, think about spending the money was very difficult, but it’s one of the best decisions I ever made.

Megan Porta  12:20

Yeah, I invested in a business coach a few years ago. And it was hard. I mean, it’s not like a, it’s a lot of money. And it’s not an easy decision. It took me a lot of strength and courage to do that. But it has been one of the best investments I’ve made. It has made such a difference in my life and my business. So I encourage anyone who has that, if you are at the stage of burnout, or even if you’re not like even if you just know, you need that extra nudge to get where you want to go. Oh my gosh, there’s so much value in finding a good business coach.

Danielle Wolter  12:56

It makes a huge difference. 

Megan Porta  12:58

It really does. Okay, so once you hire the coach, then I’m assuming you’ve started maybe turning things around a little bit and realizing you needed to make changes.

Danielle Wolter  13:09

Yes, 100%, you actually helped me focus on the things that were important because it’s hard when you’re when you’re in it, you’re just working constantly, and you feel like you’re not getting anywhere. And that’s kind of what I was feeling. And, you know, like she she helped me to kind of take a step back. So take a step back. One of the biggest things that helped me get control of all this was time blocking and figuring out like, were like for a few weeks, it’s just and I still do this, like just tracking my time, like 30 minute increments, like I write down what I’m doing. And when I started doing that, I realized that I’m just like spending so much time like just doing I want to say meaningless tasks, like everything has its place. But like in the in the time I was in, I needed to be focusing on the tasks that would actually drive my businesses, like, we’re spending so much time just in emails, answering emails, and just doing administrative, administrative stuff that felt like it was work, but wasn’t the work that was driving my business. So she really helped me see where I was spending my time. And that helped me start time blocking using my calendar. And like I still do that now and it it just makes my life so much better. makes it so much easier. I only work about I still gonna say I work about 45 to 50 hours now. But like I’ve so much more freedom.

Megan Porta  14:31

Yeah, the time so time tracking can lead to good time blocking. I think that’s such a key there. Like if you don’t know where you’re spending your time, figure that out first, and then kind of tweak it. 

Danielle Wolter  14:43

Yeah, I mean, it was one of those situations where I just thought I was really busy all the time. And in reality I was just mismanaging my time so badly. Yeah, I just I was busy all the time, but just not on the right thing. So now and part of time blocking was is putting time in there for myself and me and my coach struggled with that at the beginning because I would put time in there for myself. And then I wouldn’t do it. I would, I would do something with work instead. And she says you’re not, you know, you don’t do yourself any favors, like taking time for yourself has actually been like a huge catalyst and helping me grow these businesses, which are no longer losing money.

Megan Porta  15:23

Oh, good. And isn’t that funny how we put ourselves on the back burner? And it’s really, if you’re used to doing that, it’s really hard to get to a point where you’re prioritizing self care and exercise and like downtime and all of that. But once you do it, you see the magic. Am I right, Danielle? You just see like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing.

Danielle Wolter  15:45

Oh my gosh, yes. And at the beginning, I will say when I was first doing it, like I would go take a walk in the beach. And I would spend the entire time thinking like I need to be doing something else like this is but like overtime like that goes away. Like I go to the gym five days a week. Now I take time for myself. I don’t work weekends anymore, rare occasions, but I don’t work weekends at all anymore. So I have a five day workweek I go to the gym. It’s amazing.

Megan Porta  16:10

Yes, those boundaries, right, like just creating boundaries with yourself and stopping work at a that’s my step one, when I got to the point of burnout, because I’ve been there to my worst bout of burnout, I was like, I need to make a change. And I knew I just needed to start with one little thing. And so that was number one for me was you’re going to put your computer down at five o’clock every night. And it was so hard because I was one of those people who worked around the clock, like I would work in the evenings while my husband and I were watching TV. It was ridiculous, like all the time. So doing that was really hard. But it made such a big difference because it kind of created the snowball effect, like okay, now I’ve got that. Now I can stop working on weekends. And now that you know, like you can kind of build on those habits once you start them.

Danielle Wolter  16:59

Yeah, it becomes way easier. Like when you once you start like it takes a little bit of practice. But like once you start you realize that there’s always something else that you can do like you’re never going to be done. And I think we need to realize that like there’s just tasks that aren’t going to be done. And when it’s time to quit, it’s time to quit. You know whether or not you’re done or not. Because if you’re never done, you’re never done like any business owner knows that there’s always something else you can do.

Sponsor  17:25

Taking a really quick break from the episode to chat about RankIQ, my favorite keyword research tool that is made just for bloggers, I love taking time off around the holidays. And one of the things that helps me do that is figuring out ways to be more efficient in my business. RankIQ allows me to be more efficient, and to take that time off that I so badly need this time of year. And most likely you do as well. How does it do this? For the past few years, I have published a lot of content that has been run through the RankIQ optimizer. I also selected a lot of the keywords from the keyword library to start with a lot of that content has produced a really nice crop of traffic for me giving my existing traffic a nice little boost. Looking through my analytics, I see four URLs that are in the top 10 for this year, that came from keywords I found on Rank IQ and that I’ve run through the optimizer within the past couple of years. If you have not dug into RankIQ yet, it’s okay. You can always start today, head over to rankiq.com to find that magic for your own blog and traffic. Now back to the episode. 

Megan Porta  18:28

And it’s almost good to learn that like what you don’t do. The next week, you kind of readjust like, Okay, I should have done that last week. And so you make changes and helps you streamline your business, I think when you Yes, yeah. When you have things kind of left over, right? 

Danielle Wolter  18:45

Yes, one something else that I did too, in figuring out where to spend my time was I really took like a hard look into like all of my businesses like including, including the blog, and I was, you know, like what items am I doing that actually are driving the business forward and creating the revenue because like you like for, for me to make any progress, I had to get to the point where I was making profit, or I was profitable. And you know, I spent a lot of time figuring out what those things were. And then once I figured it out, that’s what I focused on. So like I barely do social media at all because those weren’t driving the needle and I was spending time on it. So instead of spending four or five hours a week on Facebook, I spent four or five hours a week writing SEO optimized content because that’s where all my… and it’s helped. It’s grown. My revenue has grown this this year, it’s grown quite a bit and it’s been it’s been great because with revenue growth, then I’m able to start hiring out.

Megan Porta  19:45

Did you resist hiring out prior to that?

Danielle Wolter  19:48

So I’ve never been overly resistant on it because part of my goal with with all the work that I’m doing is to be able to, I guess say quote passive income have passive income. And I wanted to do just the recipe creating on my on my blog. But part of what I struggled with with hiring out where I was is I kept thinking I needed to make more money, I needed to make more money. And that’s something else my coach helped me with was, you know, as soon as you can afford it, that’s when you need to do it. Because just having that extra time, so I actually hired out photography, I’m okay with photography, don’t love it. And it takes a lot of time. And I hated doing process shots. It was one of the things I hated the worst. And I hired out photography. And it was just the most amazing decision I ever made. It was so helpful, I wish that I had done it earlier, like 100%. And whatever it is that people like everybody has their different the different aspects of their blog that they liked doing and aspects that they hate doing and presses shots was one of those that I hated doing so was hugely impactful.

Megan Porta  20:59

Yeah, that’s a hard leap to take to for a lot of bloggers just getting to that point. Because when you don’t hire out yet, you always think like, oh, this is saving me money, just me doing it and saving money. But then once you do it, you get that extra time to make money doing things you love.

Danielle Wolter  21:18

Exactly, exactly. I enjoy writing. And I, you know, like part of what I wanted to do is write a lot of posts, because I do focus on the sous vide cooking, write a lot of posts will be more helpful to people, not just recipes. And I just didn’t have time to do that when I was doing everything. And, you know, this helped me create that time. So I could start getting those posts out there. And I think that’s what helped me grow my traffic this year also.

Megan Porta  21:41

You’ve mentioned niching down to sous vide a couple times, do you feel like that’s helped you to just kind of streamline your business?

Danielle Wolter  21:47

I think so I think focusing on that it’s an area where there’s not a ton of competition is so like niching down to that has enabled me to rank really well on I would say 90% of the posts I do related to sous vide, or at least on page one, which is been really, really great. Yeah, like I really resisted niching down, and I’m not gonna lie still struggle with it, I still go back to some of the other recipes that I like posting, and I post some of those also. But I think I mean, I think it’s one of the best ways you can really grow your business is by making it smaller. I know that sounds crazy, but…

Danielle Wolter  21:47

No, I don’t think that sounds crazy. Like you’re narrowing your focus. And everything we’re talking about is kind of related to that, like you’re narrowing, what you’re focusing your time on and what you’re focusing your content on. And your you know, your attention and all of that. And I think that’s kind of the key here.

Danielle Wolter  22:43

Yeah. 100% Yeah, definitely.

Megan Porta  22:46

Yes. So we talked about self care a little bit and just creating boundaries, so you don’t work on weekends, and you just work five day workweeks. Is there anything else you did, to focus on yourself and make sure you’re taking care of yourself?

Danielle Wolter  23:02

I actually take time, every day to do a little bit of meditating, I’m not going to claim to be like an expert meditator. My brain wanders a lot, but I actually do it in the sauna at the gym. Like that’s become kind of like a sacred time. And it actually, it also keeps me motivated to go to the gym, because I say, once I’m done working out, I get this time and I spend half an hour in there. And it’s just quiet meditation music on and I just close my eyes, and I sit there for 30 minutes and try to meditate. And that has been that’s been amazing. Like, it’s really helped me call my brain because I have a brain that works like a million miles a minute, always thinking about everything. So like, helps me like, really focus. Now I have to try hard because it wants to think when we’re doing that, so I always have to bring it back. But it helps also doing a daily gratitude list, which I used to do years ago but kind of got away from it. And I started doing that. And that is really helpful too because, you know, especially when things are going, maybe not so great. It helps you keep focused on like, all the things that are are good in in your life, which you know, for, you know, a lot of us we have a pretty good life. Yeah, like especially like where we live like I live in a great place. I have a great house. So all those things, remembering to focus on those things has helped has helped a lot. And just like mindset, I’ve done a lot of mindset work. And just all that has helped a lot and really like the weekends off has been great. Something I’m still kind of working on is my personal relationships, and it’s been an area that is going to be my new focus next year. It’s something that has kind of fallen by the wayside and everything that I’ve done so that that is something I’d also like to like to work on, but… 

Megan Porta  24:52

Bit by bit, right? You can’t do it all at once.

Danielle Wolter  24:55

But yeah, exactly, exactly. It’s like just doing like little parts. At a time, but yeah, like that. And I mean the time blocking, honestly, like, if you’re not time blocking, like you should really, really think about starting to do it because I can get more done in a three hour time block than I used to be able to get done all day. Just by focusing. 

Megan Porta  25:16

That’s so true. There’s so much power in that, that Yeah, just one little nugget right there. Like, it just forces you to be super intentional, super focused. And just to get your stuff done. So you can have the evening off or the weekend off or whatever time off.

Danielle Wolter  25:31

Yes, I turn off everything, everything that I can by turn it off, and I just close my door, I’ll tell my partner like, Hey, I’m doing this like, leave me alone. Yeah, and I just do the work. And then it also helps. Because when you do that, and you get done, it’s there such a great feeling of accomplishment, because you actually got it. A lot of work done.

Megan Porta  25:51

Oh, it feels so good, doesn’t it? Yes. Oh my gosh, on top of the world. So do you occasionally blip into those feelings that you used to have of just like, oh my gosh, I’m so anxious or stressed? Yes. And what do you do? When you get there? 

Danielle Wolter  26:07

Yeah, I would love to say no, but like, you know, week this week has been like a tougher week. And you I do I get back down into those feelings. And what I tried to do is I just, I actually tried to take more time for myself, even when I’m busier, like, I’ve been very busy the past couple of weeks, and things have been a little bit crazy. And like after this call here, like I literally, I’m parked at the beach right now I’m gonna go take a nice long beach walk. Because I think I think that’s important. And it’s also important to recognize, at least for me that like, this is just temporary, like I feel this way. It’s just a temporary feeling. I’m just going to take some extra time for myself, like maybe I’ll just work half day to day, maybe I’ll just finish whatever it is, I feel like I need and just working on like not feeling guilty for taking that time, which has been a process for me. 

Megan Porta  27:00

Just the guilt. 

Danielle Wolter  27:01

Yeah, exactly. Just the guilt of like, I should be working right now. And I’m not, but it’s okay. Like, you have to take care of yourself first. Because I don’t want to get back to that point of complete burnout. And I can like I feel it. You can feel it kind of starting to build. And I think at that point is when you need to take a step back, like I take a step back, and I say okay, I’ve got to take I’ve got to take some time.

Megan Porta  27:25

Yeah, the burnout memories are so raw and painful for me that if I feel even a twinge of it, I’m like, okay, well, I will do whatever I need to do to get out of this and not get back into that place. Because it is awful.

Danielle Wolter  27:41

Yeah, it totally is. And that’s that’s kind of how I feel. And sometimes it’s me, and I have to explain it to my partner too. And he’s so understanding and like, very supportive of me, which is great. But I have to say, Look, I just, I need some time alone. Like I just like I’m gonna take this time, I’ve got to, like step back reflect. And a lot of that involves me, like just thinking about all the good things that are happening, because you can get wrapped up in everything that’s not going the way you want to, but being like a heavy goal setter. So I keep my goals up on my wall, and I can track them. And sometimes it’s just a matter of me turning my head to look, I paste them up on my wall just so that I can see them to look at it and see everything that I have already accomplished for the year. So even if there’s a couple things that aren’t going well, like just seeing that and being like, you know what things are going well, like, look how much you’ve grown like you deserve to take some time.

Megan Porta  28:32

Oh, I love that you do that. I think we should all do that. That’s so powerful right there. Just seeing how far you’ve come. And that helps. Can I tell you one thing that’s really helped me recently, this is really new. I don’t think I’ve shared this, but I tend to get it sounds like we operate very much the same way Danielle and I tend to get caught up in like, oh my gosh, I like this goal isn’t exactly achieved and what am I what am I going to do? So I have started just first of all seeing that like, Okay, this is crazy. So, awareness, like acknowledge that it’s crazy. And then taking a step back, and realizing that my end goal so those big things I want I know they’re going to happen. So I just remind myself like, Dude, you know, those things are going to happen. And this one little detail probably does not matter, right? Like it’s not going to impact your your whole life. So that in itself just clicked for me the other day, I was like, Oh my gosh, okay, I can let go of this stupid little thing that I’m worried about. And that has been such a huge help for me.

Danielle Wolter  29:37

Oh, that’s yes, that is. I love that. I love that. Yeah, like most of what most of what we look at and what we stress about is not like it’s not going to be a huge impact like in the whole scheme of your of your life and your life goals. You’re just not… I love that.

Megan Porta  29:54

Yeah, letting go of those little things. Okay, so if somebody’s listening Danielle and they either are feeling twinges of burnout or they really want to avoid it. They never want to feel it, which yes, please avoid it if you can, you have advice for them just things to put into place to be proactive about it.

Danielle Wolter  30:13

I really think like setting boundaries number one, I do realize like entrepreneurs, when you’re first setting out like, you are going to work some extra hours, but just setting some boundaries and making sure you’re taking time for yourself, like whatever it is that you’ve enjoyed doing, that makes you feel kind of at peace, figuring out what that is, and taking, like, at least a couple hours each week to do those things and self care. There, it’s going to the gym, also, like I’m a healthy eater, as well. And, you know, whatever it is that makes you feel good. And being like, being easy on yourself. Like you said, it’s okay, if you don’t meet all of your goals at once. Like, it’s stuff takes time. And it’s okay, if it’s not happening as quickly as you thought. And you know, just just be easy on yourself. 

Megan Porta  30:58

It’s so easy to be hard on ourselves. It’s hard to be easy on ourselves, we, we are all entrepreneurs, we’re driven we our goal, you know, like we like to achieve goals. So when it comes to like not achieving a goal and the timeframe we want, it’s so easy to just be like, Why haven’t you done this? You’ve let you down? And is that grace is really hard sometimes.

Danielle Wolter  31:24

It is one especially like, there’s a lot of, you know, like social media out there. And even like listening to some podcasts you hear like some bloggers like yeah, I started six months ago, I’m already on Mediavine, like, you know, have half a million pageviews a month and like you compare yourself to some of these people who maybe maybe got a little more success a little faster than you and it can be hard, it can be hard to do that. So making sure that you realize that some of these people like are I don’t want to say anomalies, but like it’s not the norm. Like you shouldn’t feel bad about yourself just because your journey is a little bit different.

Megan Porta  32:01

Yeah, embrace your journey. I always I’ve said that, from the beginning, your story is your story. Embrace it, no matter what my story is not a huge, like quick success story with my blog. And I’m okay with that, like I am. This is a long game, and I’ve been a slow grower, and I am like, that’s great, because it’s allowed me to have this podcast and have so much understanding for every piece of the journey. So your story is unique. And no matter what it is embrace it. I know it’s easier said than done. 

Danielle Wolter  32:32

It is but yes, yeah. Just like be conscious. Be conscious about it.

Megan Porta  32:37

Exactly. Is there anything else you feel like we should touch on relating to this topic Danielle?

Danielle Wolter  32:42

I do want to say like this for people who are feeling like if you get into that burnout position, like, I obviously didn’t do it, but I encourage you, like let somebody know, like, talk to somebody about it. Because like it can help. Sometimes just talking it out with other people like whether it’s another blogger, your partner or you know, like a professional, whatever it may be, I think it’s important to kind of get it, get it out there.

Megan Porta  33:07

It’s hard to a lot of the stuff we’re talking about is like, well, that’s not easy. But yeah, it’s really important. For sure, for sure. And hopefully you have good understanding people in your life who will receive it and if not, like find a food blogger who you trust because we get it. You call me I don’t…I’m happy to talk through.

Megan Porta  33:28

Yeah, 100%. If you feel burnout send me a message like I’m more than happy to talk to anybody about it.

Megan Porta  33:34

Same. I love that. Well, thank you Danielle. I love this topic. I am so grateful that you brought it to the table and thank you for just sharing about your story and for being vulnerable and for showing up today for this. Thank you so much.

Danielle Wolter  33:47

Oh, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Megan Porta  33:50

Yeah, do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave us with?

Danielle Wolter  33:54

So I had a couple that I had trouble choosing from but one of them I actually first heard on the Food Blogger Pro podcast, Bjork like a long time ago he talked about being 1% better every day. And that was something that really really stuck in my mind. I think it actually came initially from James Clear., Atomic Habits. 

Megan Porta  34:13

Yes, yeah, Atomic Habits. 

Danielle Wolter  34:15

Great book great book, but like I guess it kind of made it so like I didn’t feel like I had to like do like this 100% improvement every day. I’m like just like a tiny bit better every day. And like that’s all you have to do.

Megan Porta  34:26

That’s powerful 1%. And that’s it just a little tiny bit. Yeah, yes love it. Thank you for sharing that we’ll put together a show notes page for you Danielle if anyone wants to go look at that you can head to eatblogtalk.com/wenthere8this

Danielle Wolter  34:43

The worst blog name ever but it is what it is now.

Megan Porta  34:46

Oh gosh no. And then just to mention eight as a numeral so number yes. Yeah. And then tell everyone where they can find you Danielle.

Danielle Wolter  34:54

So they can find me on Facebook @wenthere8this, Instagram @wenthere8this. Twitter same, I don’t really participate much on there. And I also have a new cookbook out that can be found on Amazon. So it’s a sous vide cookbook. It’s literally just called the Sous Vide Cookbook: A Beginner’s Guide to Gourmet Cooking Made Easy, longest title ever. So that’s on that’s on Amazon but you can find that there too. And of course my blogs.

Megan Porta  35:21

Congratulations, that’s awesome. 

Danielle Wolter  35:22

Thank you. 

Megan Porta  35:23

And your blog is wenthere8this.com?

Danielle Wolter  35:25

Yep, that’s right. 

Megan Porta  35:26

Awesome. Everyone, go check out all that amazing stuff Danielle mentioned. Thanks again, Danielel, for everything and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you in the next episode. 

Outro  35:39

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Please share this episode with a friend who would benefit from tuning in. I will see you next time.