How to use your energy for change when change is challenging

How to use your energy for change when change is challenging

I know how challenging it is to grow your business.

The thing is: you can make it easier or harder for yourself. 

What are you willing to do?

What do you want?

What do you like?

The magic trick is to give these things your energy instead of the opposite.

You can do this!

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“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

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Instagram for Business

Instagram for Business

Hello, today I’m going to be talking about Instagram for business. 

I don’t know about you but I enjoy Instagram as a social media platform more than any other. It just feels more fun and easy to show up there and I particularly enjoy getting ideas for my sewing projects and art-life as a user.

Using Instagram for your business is going to be a bit different to using Instagram for fun and whether you enjoy Instagram or not I think it is a really valuable tool especially if your audience is potentially hanging out there.

In this blog I’m going to cover:

  1. The 2 kinds of Instagram business account
  2. Types of post
  3. Tools I use to create content
  4. An easy Instagram content strategy based on content types

I know there is a lot of advice about using Instagram for your business that already exists on the internet and I do not want to add to the noise of endless recommendations, have-to’s and “shoulds” to add to your list.

2 Kinds of Instagram account

The way I see Instagram for business is that there are basically two kinds of accounts.

One kind of account is someone who starts creating content and finds that people love their content, they find it entertaining. They earn themselves a large following and at some point they realise “Hey I have an opportunity here. I could monetize this account and this could be a business”.

I see a second kind of account where people are service based businesses or product based and they already have a business. They want to use Instagram for marketing so the Instagram account is not the whole business. The Instagram account is for relationship building and communication.

I see myself in this second category and most of my clients are in this second category as well.

The reason I mentioned these two different types of Instagram accounts is that I think a lot of the advice given in the online marketing business world about Instagram is actually better suited to the first kind of Instagram account and not to service based businesses.

Some of the advice I see being delivered about Instagram is that you have to post everyday, you have to create Reels, you have to point and dance and be entertaining to succeed on Instagram.
This is not my experience and so I’m going to share my advice on Instagram.

LISTEN ON THE PODCAST

Types of post

Firstly let’s talk about the different kinds of posts you can do on Instagram. Instagram used to be a photo sharing app but that has changed a lot recently as Instagram themselves try to compete with Tik Tok and other social media platforms.  

That means there are a lot of different post types available. 

There are:

  1. Feed posts
    1. Single image
    2. Carousel
    3. Video
  2. IGTV
  3. Stories
  4. Reels
  5. Live 

Your feed is the main place you see posts as a user; when you click on that little house icon in the bottom corner. The feed contains lots of different post types but the main ones that are featured in your grid on your profile are of this three types:

A single image may or may not have a caption,  

A carousel post that may or may not have a caption or 

A video that may or may not have a caption. 

Videos in your grid need to be 60 seconds or less

IGTV is for longer videos; from 1 minute up to 60 minutes. You can preview a snippet of an IGTV video in your feed so it will appear on your grid, and they show up on your profile in the tab with the little play icon, under your highlights. 

One of the great features of igtv is that you can include a clickable URL in your caption. This is not available in normal feed posts.

Stories posts that last 24 hours and then expire. You can add them to your archive and then use them as Highlights. They are portrait dimensions rather than square or landscape and they are highly recommended by me.

Reels are a recent feature that Instagram copied from Tik Tok. They are short videos that can include photos, music, captions, links and more. They are currently very popular however personally I do not create many Reels as I find, while I do get more reach, it is not to the right audience. This may or may not happen to you so I recommend experimenting to see what happens.

Finally, live videos are available on Instagram. I recommend doing these occasionally as they are a great way to connect with your audience and appear later in your igtv feed. The fun thing about going live on Instagram is that you can have other people join you and do fun Q&A days or chats or interviews. 

One thing I especially love to do is share my Instagram posts to Facebook. Personally I do not love posting on Facebook on my page (and that is partly because I don’t find I get very good reach or engagement over there) but I do want to maintain my presence on Facebook so I always share my Instagram posts over to Facebook, that way people can see I am active in my business.

Tools I use to create content

There are a few tools I use when creating content for my Instagram and I thought I would share a couple of those with you. 

But before I go into those I need to be clear with you: you can start simple and just use your mobile phone camera and the Instagram app itself. You don’t actually NEED any other tools at all. I just like to use these and thought I would share. If you are at the very start, just use what you have got (and maybe Canva haha). 

#1 Canva

 I love to use canva for lots of things and I find I use Canva a lot for my Instagram.  I’ll use it to create posts in my feed,  I use it to create Carousels,  feed videos, IGTV  videos  and more.  There is a great free version of Canva that I recommend before you even think about paying for Canva and you can do heaps with a free version. One thing I particularly love about Canva is that it has the templates for Stories and IGTV so I don’t have to worry about giving the size of those posts right.

Here’s a link to Canva

#2 Creator Studio

Creator Studio is a Facebook tool that lets you create posts for Instagram from your desktop or laptop. It Is also a great way to view your results from posting where you can see how many likes and how many comments on different posts. 

Here’s a link to Creator Studio

#3 Headliner App

Headliner.app is another great tool I love to use to create “wave grams” of my podcast episodes or audio recordings. This  is a great way to make videos if you don’t want to get dressed today.  You can use an audio recording and turn it into a video

Here’s a link to HeadlinerApp

An easy strategy based on content types

People always want me to tell them what they should post on Instagram and while I resist I noticed that I have this method that I use which might work for you too. 

The reason this works for me is: I have plenty of time with clients and so many ideas for content that I don’t have any trouble coming up with content ideas. What I sometimes lack is clarity when I get to the moment in my calendar where I know I have to create a post. I have a little brain fart about what it should be. To overcome this I keep a big list of my content ideas and then when I get to Instagram I just pay attention to what type of content am I going to create today and make a post as quickly as I can.

I create content based on content type so for example:

On Monday I create a 60 second video for my feed. On Tuesday I create a Carousel post. On Wednesday I create an IGTV. On Thursday I create a Headliner post and on Friday I create a Reel. For Saturday I might have scheduled a single image post that is text on a white background and has a caption (a bit like a Blog). I always try to post an offer at least once a week. I will create a post for that depending on how I feel. You could do a Live, it could be a little video in the feed, it just depends.  

I also try  to do Story posts every day or as often as possible because I know a lot of people jump on Instagram and start in Stories and hardly get out of Stories into their feed.  So I think it’s important to always have posts in your stories because they only last 24hrs. 

So, I wonder how you find this information: do you have more questions? Please leave a comment or email me and let me know so I can make another blog for you 🙂 

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Facebook for your Business

Facebook for your Business

Hello, today I’m going to be talking about Facebook for business. 

If you are a lightworker, a very heart centered person, sensitive and empathetic, if you really feel the feelings, and you really don’t like tech much, it may actually be helpful for you to be on Facebook. 

If there is such a massive departure of all the good people leaving social media, then Facebook becomes a less positive space. Now I know, it’s not our responsibility to make Facebook good. There are things that I don’t like about Facebook but it is a place where you can show up and connect with people. If you choose not to be on facebook it’s a lost opportunity, not just for you in your business, but for the people that you serve, because they are looking for you. If they happen to be on Facebook, and it’s easy for them to find you.

It’s kind of thwarting their opportunity to grow and thrive and flourish and transform, if you are simply holding back because of a mental aversion. If you can kind of get past this then you’re going to be able to help people more. 

 

Before I was running a business, I was not on Facebook and it’s not really something I’m massively in love with, for so many reasons. However, I wouldn’t really have a business if it weren’t for Facebook. I’ve grown my business over six years and part of that has been through using Facebook for my business. 

I have been through the ups and downs of wanting to release Facebook and choosing to stay. So I understand all the different feelings around Facebook and its suitability for me and my business.

I’m just going to talk from a place of having realized that this is good for me and good for my business, good for my clients, for me to show up there. If you don’t have a social media platform yet, and you’re trying to decide which one. I would say Facebook is an okay place to start. 

There’s another blog I have about which social media to choose which social media platform. So I would recommend checking that out if you’re not really sure.

If you’ve decided, yes, Facebook’s for me, I understand how it works, I have some connections here already, then the first thing you need to know is for business, it’s against Facebook’s terms and conditions for you to conduct business from your personal profile so they’ve created a business page option. 

LISTEN ON THE PODCAST

That’s the first thing to note is that there’s your personal profile, and there’s your business page. However, you can’t set up a business page without a personal profile, you can’t run ads without connecting it up through your personal profile. So don’t get confused about where you’re showing up. 

 You know, if you use Facebook, just for friends and family, it’s going to work much better for you to have a Facebook business page but if you’re really only on there for business, then it’s okay people will just find you.

 It can be really helpful to leverage your current contacts to help grow your business because word of mouth is such a widely successful way to build a business. I would say the two main pillars of business growth are your current network and referral sources and your content creation. 

 

Something that is so great about social media and Facebook is that you can connect on both those levels using Facebook as a tool. You need to go in the top corner, there’s usually a button or you can click Create, and you create a business page.

There are three things that I think you need when you’re setting up your Facebook business page. These are that you will want a banner at the top, you will need a profile picture and it’s really helpful to focus on your ‘about information’. 

 For the banner I like to use a tool called Canva. It’s a free tool, you just sign up with an email address. You just type in the search field, Facebook, then you’re going to see a lot of templates that they have. And I want you guys to make your banner using the template called ‘Facebook Cover’. 

 

The good thing about Canva is that it will help you because it’s got all these beautiful templates in there that you can simply choose one, that one that you find appealing, you can bring in your words, your colors, your images, and make it your own, then you can just download it as a JPEG and bring it into your Facebook business page. 

 

The second thing you need is your profile picture. So if you are an entrepreneur and working with you is the service, then I would think it’s great to have your picture. Sometimes people like to put their logo as their profile picture and that’s okay. However I think if people are working with you, they’re going to meet you eventually and it’s important that you get used to posting pictures and videos of yourself, it’s gonna just make your business go so well. 

 

So even if it feels a bit uncomfortable at first, I know for me it felt uncomfortable at first, hopefully you will get used to it over time. What I see is that people get used to it over time. So if it feels really wrong, right now I feel you, I have been there.

 

The third thing you will need to fill in the about sectionion, it’s helpful if you can just fill in as much information as you can write as much as you can about your business, how you help people, what your values are, fill the about section as much as possible. 

     

And then your business page is ready to go.

There are so many reasons why I think the Facebook pages are important. One of them is that their SEO is great. If anyone ever typed in your name, it’s going to show up in the Google search as your Facebook listing, which can be really helpful if someone’s trying to share your information with someone else.

 

It’s helpful to run ads. I really like running low cost ads to help my business grow. As a business owner, it is just a normal expense to spend a little bit of money on ads. Even if you don’t love Facebook, and you mostly show up on Instagram, the running of ads on Instagram and Facebook is controlled through your Facebook account. 

 

Usually, you can run ads on Instagram from inside the app but it doesn’t give you many options. It’s quite limited. So I like having all the businesses I work with set up with a Facebook page. If we’re running ads, it just makes it so much easier. And it gives people something to share. 

 

It also gives you a place where you can practice creating content. Like I said before, one of the important pillars of growing your business is creating regular content. On Facebook, there are lots of different kinds of content you can share. You can share an image, you can share text, you can share live videos, or pre recorded videos. They have now stories on Facebook, and I think they even have reels on Facebook. Stories and reels are things that have come over from Instagram. 

 

If you are at the beginning, don’t worry too much about all of those options. Just focus on writing some blog style mini article type posts, so text only posts, and posting some pictures or videos of you with captions that just explain what you’re talking about. 

 

If you just made a couple of bits of content every week, you can then share them to your personal profile. It also helps you to  practice talking about your passions, how you serve people and what your business is all about. 

 

You don’t have to post every day. But the more you post, the better you get.. I just like to stay in practice and help the content creation muscle get stronger. So the more you do it, the better you’ll be at it and I really encourage you to create content as much as you can. Don’t deplete yourself but do keep trying. 

 

It’s very important that you can write the content for your posts so that later on if you decide you want a website, you’ll be practiced at writing content about you, about how you serve people and about the challenges your clients face and the way you help them move through that.

 

Alright, think that’s enough about Facebook for today, but if you have other questions, please let me know and I’d love to answer those either in a comment or as another video. I hope you have a beautiful day and I’ll see you soon. Bye

 

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Do you just want to talk to me about your business and website?

I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss website set up and all of the other things I mentioned here. We can even set it all up of ryou and save you the headace. 

Go ahead and book a free chat here: 

Social Media for your business

Social Media for your business

Today I’m going to discuss social media for your business. 

I really love hanging out on social media but sometimes I get sucked in there and I kind of hate that. However I do have a business and so when I started my business, I wasn’t really on social media but I did go on to social media, for the sake of my business.

If you don’t have a website yet; you have a fledgling business or if you’re at the very beginning of your business journey, then I do think a social media platform can be really helpful.

  1. It works well when you create content regularly
  2. It gives you somewhere that people can refer their friends to 
  3. It lets you have a link for things like MailChimp, Instagram etc

If you’ve been following along with some of my other videos, where I talk about Zoom, Acuity and setting your ABN up, then I think a social media platform is a good next step.

Then it’s just a matter of figuring out which social media platform really works for you. 

I have these three questions that I suggest you ask yourself.

The first question is where are your people hanging out? 

For most of us, that are serving women that are middle aged, a little bit older, our people are going to be on Instagram, unless our audience is much older.

Or our audience might be on Facebook a bit more.

If your target is  people who are in corporate right now and trying to leave their corporate job to start a business, then maybe LinkedIn is for you.

Whatever you do, just choose one social media platform and learn how to use that really well for now. 

So where are your people hanging out?

LISTEN ON THE PODCAST

The second question is where can you show up and feel happy? 

If I post on Facebook, I just don’t feel happy.

I don’t know why but Instagram feels more comfortable for me, I feel happier there.

The real question here is: which platform do you understand the best and can you show up there?

Even if your people are on Instagram, but you really just don’t get it and it feels like it’s stalling you or it’s getting in the way or  you just don’t feel comfortable there, that will block your progress.

You could do my Instagram course but also you could just post on Facebook, if that feels more familiar.

If you’re like, you know how to use Facebook and that feels more comfortable then do that for now.

Later on, when you’ve really nailed one, you can choose the default one.

The third question is  are you able to use the tool?

I have just discussed this merged in with the second question.

But what I specifically mean here is: can you create a post? Do you understand the tech side of it? Do you understand how to create posts that people will engage with and respond to? 

If that is a “yes” for Facebook, then just hang there for now. You can conquer the others later when your tech skills have increased. 

Just try to make it easy on yourself so you can focus on what’s important: showing up and sharing regularly.

Building relationships with your ideal clients. 

That’s the three questions. Where are you people? Do you understand how the tool works? And can you show up and create the content using that tool?

Where do you feel happy?

Because your energy is going to come through.

If I’m not feeling great, my videos won’t go well but if I feel good then my good energy comes through.

It’s the same for you, it’s really just important that you feel good on that platform.

If it’s really shutting you down, then you either need to just do a little training to suss out the platform or choose a different platform. 

Now the one thing that I do recommend with your social media is even if you don’t have a website yet that you do these two things.

That you link it up with your Acuity if you’ve set up acuity so that people can make bookings with you that’s great. So you want to send them off there so they can book sessions, 

You also want to make sure that you make a commitment to create some content with some kind of regularity. That doesn’t have to be every day however, posting every day is really good for you as a creative person. 

This way the more you do it, the better you get at it.

The first few of my videos I probably wasn’t as happy with and then over time I’ve become more comfortable.

The first few social media captions I wrote, I wasn’t that happy with them and I’ve become happier with them.

Same with my blog writing and all of my content creation.

The more I do it, the better I get at it simply because I’ve done more of it. 

So if you can bring yourself to post every day that’s good and if you can’t, even once or twice a week is fine. As long as you feel good when you create the content.

I think it’s more important to have social media for your business as an interim because it’s free and you don’t need to set much up. It connects you with other people. 

A website is a lot of work, I have another video and post all about this.

A website is a big cash investment and a big time investment. You have to have all your wording and messaging figured out. You want to have some great images and you probably need to know what’s going on with your brand in terms of your colors and your fonts. 

Definitely in the first six months online, I don’t think that that website is what you should do.

I think social media is great if you want to have a way for people to book with you using Acuity or Calendly, or something like that. Use that as the link on your social media where it says website, it doesn’t have to be a website, it can be your Acuity link, or your Calendly booking link. 

So in the short term, it’s great to have a social media platform because it’s free, you get to practice talking about what your message is.

So you can practice talking about the things you care about & talking about how you serve people.

This way you get to practice speaking about your purpose, speaking about your service, writing about your service, making videos, you get to practice all that content creation. And that will support a website later, when it’s time. 

You also get used to seeing your face on social media, hearing your voice on social media, just on the internet in general. If you are completely opposed to social media, and you just don’t want to do it at all, it’s fine you don’t have to do it. There are other ways.

I just think it’s cheaper, quicker and easier to set up a social media platform for now, before you crack into a website, I don’t think a website is the first move.

I think I’ve made my point. I think it’s a good idea to have social media. And especially if you are a more sensitive person, a sort of spiritually minded person, you care about personal growth, you care about making the world a better place, about the environment. 

If you’re one of those people, social media desperately needs you, because you will bring such a beautiful energy and make the space so much richer.

Even though it feels difficult, I think it’s really important for people like us to show up and shine a different kind of light, so that these spaces don’t become dark and awful spaces, they become places of light and transformation.

I hope you have a really beautiful day. I hope this made some sense. If you are starting up your business and you start a social media account, comment below with your link or tag me in your Instagram post and I will come and say hello.

Lots of love, I’ll see you next time x

“I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

Do you just want to talk to me about your business and website?

I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss website set up and all of the other things I mentioned here. We can even set it all up of ryou and save you the headace. 

Go ahead and book a free chat here: 

Video content

Video content

Video is a great way for people to get to know you while you do other things like laze on the beach or make dinner for your kids or even sleep.

But maybe you don’t feel like getting dressed up, doing your face and getting yourself onto video. Can you still use video for your business? 

I don’t want to spend ages convincing you a video is a good idea. 

If you are here you clearly want to start making videos for the marketing of your business. 

If you do not want to show your face don’t stop reading now because it is entirely possible for you to create videos in lots of different ways.

There is no denying how good it is if you can bring yourself to do videos of your own face especially if you are service-based. But if you can’t do that for whatever reason I do not want you to navigate away and not make a video for your business because it seems too hard.

There are loads of ways to get around not showing your face and all the ways of creating video give you some benefits.

I know that people always like to hear what I do personally so I will start with that and then I will also share a couple of other ways that I think you can create video if you want.

My current 2 favourite video processes are:

60-second (or less)

10-minute or so videos

I like to create short videos and publish them on Instagram. I try to make these 60 seconds long or less.

I create these on my phone and record them directly so they go onto my camera roll. Then I pop onto Instagram and share them in my feed with a small caption.

I love this method because I can experiment with ideas without investing too much energy in the process. I also find that people like to see me and they like to hear from me. These feel light yet intimate.

They are the quickest and easiest way for me to create video and they also feed into my entire content creation strategy. I have another blog post about that which you can check out over here.

Basically I test the water with new ideas in my 60 second videos so if they are well received they may get turned into a longer blog or video. I usually don’t overthink these and I get important feedback from my people when they do well.

The other way I love to make videos is using Zoom. I begin a Zoom meeting with myself, click record then I just chat away to the screen in my own meeting with myself.

When I click “end meeting”, the recording gets downloaded onto my computer. I am then able to share it directly to YouTube which I also embed onto my blog.

The fun thing about these Zoom videos is that I can often use the audio download to create a podcast as well. I just love it when one piece of content can be used in lots of different places.

I also like to use this video on IGTV (if it is not a how-to demonstration style vid).

One other cool thing about these podcast episodes is that I can create a video from the episode using Headliner App really easily. I have another post about how to use Headliner App over here.

If you don’t want your face in the video.

If you don’t want your face to be in the video for whatever reason you can still use the Zoom methods and just don’t worry about how you look on video.

You can then use the audio component of the zoom recording and turn it into a podcast.

The podcast episode can be turned into a video using Headliner app. This means that people can experience your energy through your voice without you having to even get out of bed.

Literally some of my podcast episodes I made late at night in bed or early in the morning in bed. That’s how easy it is to use Anchor. I then turn those podcasts  into a video without having to show my face at all.

If you don’t want to deal with a podcast and Headliner App you can also use Canva to create videos with an audio recording you have created.

These audio recordings can be created on the voice memo app on an iPhone or a similar voice recording app on an Android phone. You can then upload those to canva and add a couple of little animations and a nice stock image and then you have basically the same thing as the Headliner app video without having to create a podcast and without having to show your face.

There is a part of me that does want to kick in and start telling you how important video including your face is so I do just want to touch on that lightly.

A lot of people who come to me for a free 30 minute chat have already ”met me”  through watching my videos.

People often tell me how nice it is to finally meet me in person and that I am exactly like my videos and how comforting that is for them. Usually they watch my videos while I am on the beach, making dinner, sleeping or doing other things in my business.

I find this duplication of myself really great.

It means that people who are referring their clients or friends to work with me have somewhere they can send those people to figure out whether they want to work with me or not.

The other thing that is good about video is: if you’re posting them on social media the algorithm which decides who sees what content will slightly favour a video over other kinds of posts.

That is the end of my convincing you about why video is good.

There are just so many places and ways you can share video.

Here’s a hard and fast list:

    • YouTube video
    • YouTube short
    • YouTube live
    • Instagram Reel
    • Instagram feed video (60s max)
    • IGTV (15 minute max)
    • Instagram Story
    • Instagram live
    • Facebook live
    • Facebook feed Facebook Story
    • LinkedIn
    • On your blog
    • Twitter
    • Tik Tok
    • Slideshow with you talking over the top
    • Plus all the ways I mentioned in this blog

    I think if you are not doing video you are missing a really potent opportunity so if you’re not ready to get your face on I would recommend trying one of these other methods for creating video content for your business.

    If you found this helpful and you like, you can make a small donation.

    “I pay my respects and acknowledge the people of the Yuin Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work. I also pay respect to all Elders — past, present and future.”

    How to create content intuitively AND productively

    How to create content intuitively AND productively

    This blog is intended to share a simple, practical structure to support wild, rule-defying creatrix women to create content.

    What???

    I mean: I work with a lot of women (and I myself am one) who dislike norms. Women who need to pave their own way. Who have a lot to share but say “f*&# you” to shoulds. 

    Or maybe they’re not quite that shouty but they find it hard to follow a regular set of rules about content creation. 

    I have been there. I thought I knew how to create content and I would just go with the flow. I would just pop into Facebook and post a bit there and then pop to Instagram and do a bit there and then pop to LinkedIn and then POP – the day was over and I wasn’t sure what I’d really achieved and where the time had gone. 

    Plus, I wasn’t sharing my gold. 

    I was kind of splatter gun promoting, not really building an audience around my deeper soul work.

    Sound familiar? 

    The thing is: I am SUPER creative (and so are you) but I didn’t realise how deeply this runs in the veins of content creation and entrepreneurial life. I could embrace cooking amazing meals, sewing fabulous garments, or painting and drawing as creative pursuits – but business?? 

    After I read Big Magic, I had a strong sense that my business was a creative endeavour. But writing and content creation? They were just for marketing and business and “getting” clients weren’t they? 

    The artistry of content creation was lost on me until I started working with my 2021 mentor, George Kao.

    Through working with George and following his Authentic Marketing  approach I have realised how much content creation is about me and my service to humanity and how little it is about “getting” clients – although that is a lovely outcome sometimes. 

    And over time I’ve learned to apply some of the things I’ve learned through making art to creating content. I did the Artist’s Way process with the divine Aesha Kennedy a few years ago and since going deeper with creative practices I’ve realised 2 key things: 

    Content creation and creativity in general flourishes when there’s a regular practice 

    Creativity flows when there is space to feel free and unhindered

    These 2 things seem to be in conflict though don’t they? 

    Let’s unpack that a little.

    When I make something every day, whether it’s a painting or a piece of content for my business, I just get more relaxed and comfortable. I make more and from that more means there are more wins. Not that the ratio of “happy with this” to “this is balls” changes, but rather, because I made 100 in total instead of 10 in total, the number of “happy with this” is 10 rather than one (if that were the happy:balls ratio). 

    DId I lose you in the maths? 

    I just mean, there is always some content/creations that we are happy with, that resonate with others and that really “work”. But if we only make content two times a year, it will take us 20 years to even have 40 pieces of content. If we make one a week we have 40 pieces of content in under a year and if we do it every weekday, we have it in 8 weeks. 

    Not that 40 is a meaningful number. 

    It’s just that out of 40, you might have a few that you are happy with, that resonate with other people, that really “work”. 

    And further to that: as you create more, you will naturally get better. Because creativity is like a muscle and when you work it out – it gets stronger. You get clearer on what it is you’re trying to say and how you say it. You get better on certain formats, like video or (if you’re like me) writing. 

    So, I wonder if you feel inspired to do a little creating each day? 

    Or if that’s too much once a week? 

    I used to try for one a week and that was great for a couple of years. I really didn’t think once a day was for me. But since I’ve been doing daily content, it’s become a lovely and heart warming practice that I miss when I can’t do it. 

    But how does that work – when creativity needs to feel free + unhindered to flow?

    The trick is: knowing where to constrain and where to be free.

    A simple practice that I recently shared with a client is to use Google calendar for 2 things:

    1. Collect the ideas I have for upcoming blogs
    2. Create the space and time for content creation 

    Basically, you can create a new Google calendar if you need to or use an existing calendar and make some repeating Content Creation events. 

    I go to the Google calendar and create an event. Call it Content creation and allow about 1hour for writing a blog and around 15 minutes for a simple piece of content. 

    In the date and time of the event, I set it to either recurring weekly for a blog or recurring every weekday for general content creation. In the description I gather together my content ideas that I have on bushwalks, in the bath or wherever they strike me. I might have to write them down till I get to tech, and then pop them in my collection spot when I get to it. 

    Then, when it comes time to sit down and create, I don’t make myself work through the list. This is when I leave it to my inner compass to guide me. I trust my energy and intuition to decide what to post about on that particular day. 

    This is the balance of structure + flow. This is knowing when to constrain and when to flow. 

    The commitment to your growth and the commitment to sharing your brilliance is the constraint. The time that you lovingly set aside to dedicate to humanity and your business is the constraint. Your loving commitment and service. 

    The choice of what you will create content about and what format is the freedom and intuitive aspect. What is lighting you up today? What is alive in you? What is ignited today? If it’s definitely NOT a video day (we all have them) maybe it’s a writing day. If you feel sparkly, then maybe it’s a video day. You get to decide + be free. 

    What do you think? Could you experiment with this method and start to share your brilliance? 

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    Do you just want to talk to me about your business and website?

    I’d love to chat. You can book a free chat and we can discuss website set up and all of the other things I mentioned here. We can even set it all up of ryou and save you the headace. 

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