“I bet you were really popular in school, weren’t you?”
“Haha! You must be joking!”

I was standing in the queue for lunch with one of the support guys. It was a few years ago, and I can’t remember what we were talking about that led to him saying that, but I remember feeling half amused, half suspicious that he was being sarcastic (he wasn’t).

I wasn’t popular at school.

That’s probably the biggest understatement I’ve ever made in my life. I was the cliche of every geek ever portrayed in a chick flick. I was horrendously overweight, wore unflattering glasses, and was permanently in a mood.

Unlike Laney, I didn’t miraculously take off my glasses, put on makeup, and be “normal” in the space of five minutes.

Later, in true She’s All That style, I swapped the glasses for laser eye surgery, grew out of the moods,¹ and also lost a lot of weight. But it took several years. I became more popular in my mid-twenties. People would start to say, ‘People like you!‘, and I would never believe it because I have so many hang ups.

I’ve often worked with younger people who’ve had the similar experience of being mocked for their geekiness, their appearance, their preferences, for years. I can spot it a mile off, not least because I still have the confidence hang ups. Sometimes I can even see it in their faces. Wariness. The uncomfortable ‘She won’t want to talk to me’ expression.²

The truth is that I find them the easiest people to like because we’re guaranteed to have similar interests; I’m a geek to the core even if I don’t look like the stereotype so much now. And I know what it’s like.

But sixteen year old Jenni didn’t care about real life. She was popular online. Pre-social media, blog posts would regularly get over a hundred comments, visitors were in the thousands per day, and the first money she ever earned was from a web hosting affiliate programme.

So, what can I go back and learn from her now I have a more balanced life but a hell of a lot more responsibilities?

01. Work ethic

My sixteen year old self took blogging very seriously. After school, at least three hours was spent writing content, doing markup, editing images, and getting everything online every night. (Other tasks included completing homework, playing The Sims, playing N64, and reading).

At weekends this time was extended dramatically; I spent most of my time in front of the computer unless I was spending it with friends or family. Typically I’d roll into bed exhausted as it started getting light, already looking forward to waking up and seeing what I’d created in a more awake state.

More importantly, it never ever felt like work.

This would be a crazy timetable to adopt now, because I have so many other things to fit in – not least a house, travel, and social life! But setting aside time to work on my website is something that should definitely be ingrained into my schedule. That’s something I’ve been working on this month, but as with everything I do, I have to be careful it doesn’t get too extreme. It’s all about balance.

The other significant part to this is the whole ‘it should always be fun’ thing. This is slightly harder given that I have far more sources of fun now, and because my day job is similar to what I do here in many ways, so sometimes it’s hard to push myself to more hours. On the flip side, focusing more on the creative elements and full control are huge motivators.

02. Habits

I had a very specific daily routine as a teenager, and that made it easy to create good habits when it came to my website. Some tasks I’d run through on a daily basis: replying to emails, returning comments etc. Even though they weren’t my favourite tasks, I did them out of habit. Blogging was a lot simpler back then because social networks were only just starting to become prominent (hello MySpace). There wasn’t really any content marketing whatsoever, and SEO (was it even named as such then?) was super simple: you traded links.

In that respect, I could learn a lot by reintroducing some basic habits that I know will help my website grow. Daily habits seem a bit excessive, but weekly habits? Totally doable. I’m going to set aside a day to return comments, a day for content marketing, and a day for cleaning up old posts. (By ‘day’ I mean probably an hour).

03. Consistency

This is very much linked to the habits thing. Back when I was sixteen, I’d religiously write a blog post every other day. I’m not saying those posts were good – they were very much short, diary style and ‘here’s what I added to the website’ pieces, and like I say, I didn’t really do much interesting in my life then – but I had the consistency nailed.

04. Natural motivation

Sixteen year old Jenni couldn’t wait to get home and work on her website every day. Thirty year old Jenni has to do a lot of adulting, a longer day at work, a long commute, and has a lot more interests and people. Most of the people in my life are pretty spontaneous (we can afford to be because we don’t have kids), and last minute plans are very common. A lot of the time there isn’t even a plan, people just drop round.

However, little things like a new theme or a fresh admin colour scheme can make a difference. It’s easy to get bored of staring at the same old thing all the time. I’m also using social media to my advantage now, and it’s really helping to boost my productivity.

05. Patience

Although I loved the number of hits and comments I got – I seem to remember being particularly obsessed with a ‘users online’ counter, and displaying my stats publicly with Sitemeter – I didn’t really have any goals at sixteen, so I wasn’t impatient about growing page views or getting followers – instead my focus was on satisying the community I already had. The blogging community is very different to how it used to be, and while it’s great to see it growing, it’s too easy to compare yourself unfavourably to everyone else out there. Everyone is different and doing different things, which is great!

So I want to be patient in growing my blog again and being happy with where it is and how it is by my own standards, no other people’s. The lesson here is that I can’t do everything at once. I need to follow the other steps, particularly work ethic and consistency, and I’ll get there :) You don’t fail until you stop trying!

What were you like at sixteen? Is there anything you’d want to go back and learn from your past self?