Feeling Hopeless About Your Blog? Here’s the Recipe for Getting Unstuck
If you've ever felt hopeless about your blog, you're not alone. Maybe you're stuck at the same traffic numbers for months. Maybe your income plateaued and you're wondering if it will ever grow. That sinking feeling? It's called hopelessness. And it isn't a fact. It's a feeling. A feeling generated by your thoughts.
Here's the truth that sets successful bloggers apart: You will always create what you believe.
Hopelessness Is a Reflection
Hopelessness feels real. But it's not evidence of your blog's future. It's a reflection of the story you're telling yourself.
Most food bloggers don't consciously choose to feel hopeless. They simply default to thoughts like:
"Nothing I try ever works."
"I'm too late to grow now."
"I don't have what it takes."
Each of those thoughts creates a cascade of discouragement. You start seeing your blog through a lens of defeat. Your actions reflect that belief. And your results confirm the original thought. It's a perfect loop.
And loops like these are what make us feel stuck.
But here’s the empowering part: You are in charge of your thoughts and feelings. You can interrupt this loop at any time, and when you do, you’ll change your results.
Believe First, Then See the Results
In order to change your loop, you have to change your thoughts.
When you’re stuck in the hopeless loop, you’re waiting to see success before you believe it's possible. But that sequence isn’t accurate. Belief always comes first.
Think about a recipe. You follow the steps because you believe it will turn out. You believe that if you follow a cookie recipe, you’ll get cookies. You don’t wait to see the cookies baked before you believe you’ll get cookies. You believe first.
Your blog is no different. If you believe it’s possible to grow, you’ll behave like a person who’s growing. You’ll show up consistently, test ideas, learn from data, and invest in your own mindset.
But if you don’t believe, you won’t show up the same way. It’s like you’re using a different recipe. And you’ll get completely different results.
You’ll never get cookies from a meatloaf recipe.
Choose Your Thought Recipes Carefully
Here’s the exciting part: Just like you get to choose your own recipes, you also get to choose your own thought recipes.
While it’s true that 95% of our thoughts come from our subconscious, this still leaves 5% for us to control. This is actually quite a bit. If we stick with the cookie recipe analogy, it’s the difference between adding chocolate chips or adding walnuts. Both options significantly change the outcome, but the base recipe is still 95% the same.
Train yourself to play with the 5%.
The 5% is always within your control.
You can always create a better thought recipe.
The Ingredients for Better Thought Recipes
The best thought recipes contain the following ingredients:
Intentionality - They lead to a wanted result.
Natural Motivation - They make you feel good or help you avoid unnecessary pain.
Identity Alignment – They align with who you believe yourself to be.
Efficiency – They don’t waste your resources.
A thought recipe doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be helpful; it just has to be better than your past one.
Want help applying this to your blog?
Tips for Creating Better Thought Recipes
Creating better recipes is not about denying your past recipes; it’s about developing something new. It’s about shifting your focus to something better.
Sometimes those shifts will cause quick, massive results, and sometimes they’ll create a smaller result that you’ll use as a new baseline for a future shift. Both are helpful.
Don’t be surprised if you’re tempted to go back to a past thought recipe. Your brain views them as “tried and true” and believes they work. This is just mental muscle memory.
And don’t beat yourself up for being tempted. Who wouldn’t be? Temptation is just part of the human experience.
Final Thoughts
Feelings are not signs; they’re signals to rewrite your thought recipes. Use them to your advantage.
You can control your thought recipes.
Choose thoughts that make you feel strong, capable, and ready. Choose the mindset that matches the success you want.
Your thought recipes create your food blog success.
and start writing your personalized recipe for success today.
Mini FAQ
What causes hopelessness in food blogging? Hopelessness is caused by repetitive negative thoughts. It's a symptom of a story you're telling yourself about failure, not a reflection of actual potential.
How do I stop feeling hopeless about my blog? Change your thoughts. Identify the story you're telling and rewrite it in a way that supports growth and momentum.
Can changing my mindset really help my blog grow? Absolutely. Your mindset drives your actions. Better thoughts lead to better actions, which leads to better results.
