The hardest part is starting. Once you get that out of the way, you'll find the rest of the journey much easier. - Simon Sinek
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Simon but if I have to be completely honest, I kinda disagree with this quote. There’s no doubt that starting anything, especially entrepreneurship is difficult but a solid chunk of the people that I know have the most difficulty keeping up with their initial progress. To get extra specific, showing up online in their business.
Last week my friend
talked about the hesitation you might be feeling to show up in your business and online spaces. Check that out here before you continue reading this one!Now that you understand what’s causing that hesitation, I wanna give you some ways to make the act of showing up a little less mentally intensive.
Quite honestly, it comes down to one singular point which is that you should build for your laziest self. Sue-Jan first came across that quote from The Notion Bar and it really resonated with me. I have a handful of health issues that can really make some days much much much more difficult than others, and it can be super discouraging to wake up with a huge plan for the day and just not be able to get it done. Knowing that that has been my reality since about the time I started out in business, I built a lot of my processes to make life easier; both personally and professionally.
So here are some of the ways you replicate that in your life too.
Find Yourself & Your Message
Like I said at the beginning of this email, entrepreneurship is difficult. It is not an easy road to take at all and to be anywhere along the journey is something to be proud of.
I’ve seen entrepreneurs struggling on their journey and say or treat themselves badly but when they come across other entrepreneurs in similar positions, they have complete understanding and kind words of encouragement. I’ve been in that spot of pushing myself to do more with a bad headspace. It’s just not the ideal scenario. So try giving yourself the space you need to improve that negative headspace and give yourself even a fraction of the kindness, understanding and grace you give to others.
Give Yourself Grace & Space
Showing up online means you’ve got to put yourself out there, in the online space, in some form or fashion. It makes it so much easier to show up when you start out by being intentional. Even if you’ve started already, take some time to get clear on YOU! Start by figuring out where you want to start (or restart) your story and how much of yourself you’re willing to share. I know that it can feel like a ton of pressure at times. Realistically, you don’t owe the internet or your audience anything and by finding yourself and your message it makes showing up afterwards a lot easier.
Review Your Processes
Whether it’s your ideation phase or the physical content creation, I want you to start thinking about ways to make things simpler for yourself. There are tons of ways you can do that but here are some of the ways that I do it. Automations are your friend. If you can automate a process then you should do it.
Batch Create: Take each step of the process and do a bunch of it a once. The next time you’re feeling inspired, sit down for half an hour and just jot down all the ideas you have for your content creation. By working in stages, and building multiple pieces at a time, you’ll end up with multiple pieces of content with half the stress.
Template Absolutely Everything: If it’s one thing we know that’s true across all businesses, it’s that people are going to ask the same question ALL THE TIME! So make answering those questions easier for yourself. I do this in two ways. I add saved replies directly into my keyboard shortcuts. So I only have to type one short word and it’ll autofill with an entire answer. I do this for frequently asked questions, my bank details, my social media links and a bunch of other stuff.
(P.S. If you feel like you’ve been writing the same emails over and over again, I’ve built out a series of templated responses for all of the common emails a business gets. You can get your hands on those templates for free right here!)Automations Are Your Friend: If you can automate a process then you should do it. Here’s an example. I really dislike the back and forth when you’re trying to find a convenient meeting time with clients or colleagues. That’s why I use a meeting scheduling tool like Calendly to let clients automatically set meetings into my calendar at times that are convenient to me.
I hope that this really helps take some of the stress off of your shoulders when it comes to showing up online. I really can’t wait to see more of you in your digital spaces.
Thank you so much for reading and being a part of this collaboration with the awesome
. I hope you enjoyed reading a new perspective. What do you think, should I do this again?