We all face roadblocks when working on something new. And to top that off, there are so many external expectation on how things should be done that can be hard to block out - especially when it comes to social media and running a small business!
Last year when I was working on bringing Soul Spheres to fruition, I started working with spiritual business coach, Laurén Janelle. She was instrumental in helping me move through some serious blocks I was facing - namely impatience in the process of taking my baby business and starting to share it with the world.
Journeying Beyond Unrealistic Expectations
I kept wanting my baby to be an adult and that expectation just led to an insurmountable internal battle, because babies can't be adults, because they're, well....babies.
So I started to treat my baby biz more like a baby and celebrated the small steps it was taking with my nurturing which felt much better.
However, one place I continued to struggle was being consistent with TikTok/Instagram, and I all but let it go this year and have continued to be conflicted about it....until very recently.
I was lucky that Laurén came back into the picture and started a community I joined and in our very first group meeting, she said to us, "Don't do shit you don't want to do" and it finally got me thinking, why am I pushing myself in this process? I don't want to do it!
Sometimes it takes other people to help shake you up out of your thinking and if I can help someone else through my story with this struggle then it will have all been worth it. So let me share with you from beginning to end how I worked though this challenge around social and how I'm now thinking about it differently.
I love seeing your comments to please share how this resonates! I do my best to get back to everyone <3
How Soul Spheres was Re-Ignited In Me
Where it Began
Last year when I re-started my jewelry brand/blog, one of the reasons that sparked it all was me saying to my husband, "Man if TikTok had been around when I started my jewelry line 10 years ago, imagine where it would be now!? Maybe I should try again?"Mind you this was not because I was excited to get on TikTok. I was excited to have a thriving soul-centered jewelry business that was impacting lives around me, helping me be self-employed, and it was me thinking TikTok could be a get-popular-quick method with people who resonated with my idea.
Then about 5 minutes later I'm said, "No, that would be insane" (because I had/have so many other things going on).
...But then about 2 weeks later I couldn't let it go and found myself in the midst of coming up with a handle for TikTok LOL (go say hi @keepingspirit)
Creation and Setting Goals
I started sharing the idea for my jewelry and building a small community and shared different things about healing from anxiety that I had learned in my 20s. Meanwhile I built my website, started this blog after learning how much that helped with SEO and organic traffic, and put in the hours to get my suppliers all in place. I would boost videos on TikTok now and then as my goal at the time was to build my email list to 500 which I was successfully able to do before my launch.
But during this time I was getting SO frustrated with not being able to grow organically on social and feeling like no one cared about the idea, my videos weren't good enough quality (did I need a new phone!?? Better light!?), I wasn't (pretty/cool/interesting) enough to be successful on social, or maybe TikTok wasn't letting me grow organically because they knew I would pay?
...this is also when I met Laurén and was able to get much clearer on my purpose.
...this is also when I met Laurén and was able to get much clearer on my purpose.
Things were going better in general and I was feeling less pressure and was generally keeping up with social media as a thing I felt I had to do to stay consistent.
Unreal Success (Literally)
Then in December I had a video finally take off and get 30k views! I was so excited! I felt like finally I was seeing that if I stuck with it, it would eventually come to fruition.
But then I realized that somehow this video had gotten promoted - for $200!!
I do NOT ever purposely promote this video and more than being frustrated by the money that was spent without meaning to, it was the huge let down of realizing that this in fact had not been organic and felt like I was back to square one in a way.
Since that happened, I all but gave up posting to social because I realized I just needed a break. But here we are, 7 months later and you know what? I still have no desire to pick up my phone to record.
I do NOT ever purposely promote this video and more than being frustrated by the money that was spent without meaning to, it was the huge let down of realizing that this in fact had not been organic and felt like I was back to square one in a way.
Since that happened, I all but gave up posting to social because I realized I just needed a break. But here we are, 7 months later and you know what? I still have no desire to pick up my phone to record.
No Joy, No Way
The process with being on social just does NOT bring me joy - and if you remember from above I never wanted to be on TikTok in the first place because that in of itself seemed great, I wanted to do it because I was thinking, rather sillily that it had potential to be an "easy" way to get my jewelry in front of a ton of people.
I realized that I don't enjoy it enough on it's own to care whether it's working or not (working meaning, getting to people who find it useful, growing my viewing, following and helping me make sales on my website).
This means I'm not enjoying the journey! And I know the journey is important!
So what am I inspired to do regardless of the outcome?
I'm inspired to write, record more podcast episodes, share my jewelry with those that resonate with the message, connect on a deeper community level, and spend my time studying more about hypnosis and EFT. Oh and I love doing fun & creative things like collaborating on my latest photoshoot (peep the website updates!).
This is all what is truly important to me. These pieces make my journey fun and satisfying in a way social media never has.
Does this mean I'm never going to post to social again? No. But it does mean that I'm not going to unless I am feeling really called to do so. It has to have that spark of enjoyment in the process for me to do it!
Now regardless of the outcome, I know I'm going to have fun on the way.
⭐ Some Questions for You
What are your goals right now?
What are you doing to reach your goals?
What parts of your process do you love? Which do you dislike?
What ways can you rework things so you can spend more of your time in alignment with enjoying your journey towards your goals?
1 comment
I stopped twitter 2 or 3 years ago. No more of that ritual. But before quitting altogether I started journaling first thing in the morning instead of going right to the news. Also have some daily spiritual practices that start as ritual and end freeform that seem somewhat repetitive but produce the desired effect (openness mainly). I just read an article in The Guardian on flow state last week that cited this article: “Rituals decrease the neural response to performance failure.” I only skimmed it once but my takeaway was that it was mainly about wearing your lucky colored shirt, or things that athletes do before competing, etc. that help them stay in flow. I asked Chatgpt to summarize it for me if I wanted daily rituals like journaling and it gave me things your useful questions here point to – how to make them a daily ritual. like it says that daily goal setting can help maintain a focus on progress rather than setbacks.
About your post title: Don’t Do S&t You Don’t Want To Do – I love it. I had a powerful dream image of finding a pearl necklace in my S&t last night. TMI but it seemed hopeful because I often contemplate the shoulds in my life and feel constricted around them. But there are pearls to be found.