I know I said “harsh” but I’ll take it easy, I promise.
the harsh reality
It’s not always like the online gurus say that you’re just entertaining the life you don’t want, and that’s why you’re not living the DREAM yet… Nah-uh, some of us have bills to pay (adulting in your 20s is hard) and can’t afford to just make rash decisions, such as quitting our 9 to 5 jobs, even when that’s the very first thing we WANT to do!
That is what to NOT expect from this Blog post today.
I’m about to get personal here, because if you haven’t realised yet, your business is as much about you, as it is about business-related things.
Behind your online business, is a person, is you.
That person is who feeds into, and paves the direction, of where the business may go, depending on each choice made.
Choices are driven by multiple factors, but all reflect on how we are personally doing too.
If you’re a Blogger, like me, then maybe you are planning to batch your content ahead of time, but then you lack the discipline to do so and end up falling behind (it happens, and has to me before don’t worry!), or maybe you have a lot of personal life things you are figuring out and you can’t find the energy to do what you KNOW you need to do (no longer about discipline but simply about life getting a bit much sometimes).
The point is life can shift and not always go as planned, but that where you are in your online business journey has as much to do with you, or more, than it does with the business alone.
Let’s breakdown 4 of the reasons behind this reality…
number 1
YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT.
The way you nourish yourself, treat yourself, care for yourself, directly impacts your energy levels, your mood, your creativity, how sharp your mind is, and so on.
So, eating foods that will fuel you (most of the time because we love balance here), moving your body in ways you enjoy (doesn’t always have to be about the gym), and making sure you really take care of yourself, in and out, will promote an internal environment within you that will GLOW.
This glow you create for yourself, will not only make you happier in your general personal life, but it will make you more energised, more fulfilled and more creative to tackle your business with a fresher gaze; one that can push your online business to higher heights, or in a faster way.
NOW, I know, we all know what is good for us, but sometimes it is hard to stay consistent, but that is alright!
We are in our 20s, and beyond, we do not need to fit into a strict narrative of what others are doing. What’s most important is self-discovery: what foods make me feel good and is super yummy? What ways do I move my body that makes me feel happier? How can I put in some joy into my daily life to romanticise it more?
It is all about filling your cup, and working on what makes you feel your most empowered self, and that will ultimately ooze into how well your online business goes simultaneously.
number 2
HOW YOU FEEL.
This one is related to number 1, but is more about the emotional/mental side of our personal life.
In our 20s, it can be hard to navigate through our emotions and thoughts, in different areas of our life. I mean, we have:
- Relationships: romantic, friendship, family, the relationship with ourselves.
- Self-discovery: learning about ourselves, how we want to live our daily routines, what gives us joy, what doesn’t, how we want to fill our free time.
- Work: entering the workforce and realising you need to GET OUT, but whilst you’re growing your online business, you need to just survive but also try to not have it depress you or stress you too much either.
- Our online business: we are all Bloggers, content creators, online business owners, no matter how small or big! We have a vision, we have a plan, and we are learning, and growing into more successful versions each day.
- Adulting: learning about tax, paying bills, doing house choirs, having to parent yourself, knowing nothing will get done unless you do it yourself. Relying on yourself for all the things you least enjoy, but need to do.
- Fun: this one feels like the one that occupies the least of my time, but wish it would occupy the MOST, which is time for fun in our life! It feels like once I entered a few years into my 20s, fun became harder to find time for. BUT, this is the youngest and healthiest we will ever be, so even if we only have 5 minutes, we can have a mini dance party, or do an indoor hobby, or go on a short walk or solo-date (practicing more of this!).
There is probably SO MUCH MORE I have not included, but this really brings perspective that we need to be super self-compassionate, and easy on ourselves.
It can be hard to try and be perfect in all areas, and many times, there may be something that gets in our way, whether it be emotional or mental, and we need to take care of ourselves EXTRA on those days, and that is when sometimes our online business may need to take a second for us to get back to, because our wellbeing and happiness is most important; everything else will follow.
Even if you still try to put your Blog first, for example, you will find your focus clouded and you feel as if you cannot concentrate or you can’t find the energy; even if you just slept through 10 hours straight!
(Here, I learnt that it is most useful to create and schedule content ahead of time so we can always have our businesses running for us, even if we may have other things going on).
Disclaimer: it is okay to go off-track sometimes! I personally had about a week and a half where I didn’t post on my Blog, here, and it felt wrong of me not to because I knew my Blog aligns with what I want to accomplish. At the same time (!) there were a few personal things going on, that needed my attention more. This is where I found the art of batching content ahead to be useful, to prep for occasions where this may happen – we live and we learn new ways to get better at managing our personal/business lives.
number 3
LEARNING CURVE.
Sometimes, there is not anything going on personally, but it is simple a learning curve we still need to experience.
We may be doing all the right things to ensure we are fit and ready for business, but we are still not as knowledgeable as what we need to be.
If you find yourself thinking you’re doing everything possible so your Blog, or online business, is the most successful, but you’re not seeing any changes or traction yet, then it may be one of two things.
- You still have a lot of learning to do; whether that’s on how to market your business, maybe it’s SEO, optimising to rank on Google, maybe it’s the content diversity, and so on.
- You just need time.
This one is easy to figure out!
Look at what you are doing in your online business, and take 5-minutes to go on either Google, Youtube, or even Tiktok, and search up how to improve your Blog/online business.
- If you find a lot of what other successful people, in your area, are doing is not what you are doing, or isn’t even KNOWN to you, then you need to take some time to do a lot more learning in your craft.
- For this, I believe we should always learn no matter at what stage, in our business, we are at, but this may simply indicate you have A LOT more to still learn before seeing significant changes.
I personally feel like each time I believe “oh I’m doing the things I wasn’t before”, I feel super proud (as we all should), but then I do literally ALWAYS find something I can do better, to improve my Blog, to make it as useful, but also nice to experience, for all of you. See what I mean?
number 4
GIVE IT TIME.
Now, we are at our final destination of our harsh reality talk, which is time.
This one is one most girlies do not want to hear, because we are so ready to just quit our jobs, and not waste anymore of our 20s doing things that don’t fulfil us, BUT sometimes we do also just need to give our content time. By this, I mean time:
- for our content to be seen
- for our content to rank on Google
- for people to connect with our content
- to build a genuine community of people who connect with our brand
Things do take time, and I mean we never really know how much time it will take us, which is very mentally challenging to keep going, BUT is a necessary part of the journey.
Sometimes you are doing everything possible, but you just enter a phase where you don’t have as much of a learning curve, but you enter an era of having to just keep pushing, keep going, because the day will come where all the traction will start picking up, and you don’t want to quit before the day comes!
My personal mantra: I’d rather take a while longer to get there BUT KEEP GOING AND GET THERE, vs trying, quitting and consequently knowing I’ll never get there.
If anything, let it serve you as comfort that it is NORMAL to not see traction in your first few months of business. For example, for Blogging, I’ve heard from quite a few Bloggers that they literally saw nothing in their first year! Lowkey made me feel a bit discouraged because I am planning to achieve my financial freedom in 2024, as I’ve shared with you all here. BUT, I still believe I can shift the narrative (and will share it with you all once it happens so we can all get there together!).
So, don’t let the analytics discourage you; just normalise it but know it won’t stay like that forever or much longer even! Also, don’t compare your journey to others; there are Bloggers who make it much sooner but they might also not work a 9 to 5, or have other ‘advantages’ that can help them.
Push through, keep going, and you will be certainly getting there sooner than later!
final thoughts
Just know we are all going through it, and it is super normal to have doubt sometimes, specially with all the questions of “is blogging dead in 2024?” or “can I be profitable online if I’m an introvert?” and I’m here to tell you yes! I might write some posts on these, so check-out my Blog here, to see!
What matters is making our Blog as amazing as possible for our community, and focusing on ourselves and being the best version of ourselves, for us, and also for our business.
Everything else will follow.