I don’t know about you, but I want my girls to live in a world where we show ourselves as well as other the kindness that we all so desperately long for.  In today’s episode, I want you to push yourself to find little ways that you can show a little kindness to yourself, your family and other bloggers that are on a similar path as you.  No one understands how lonely and frustrating that blogging can be better than another blogger.  Lift each other up!

IE 99: Show a Little Kindness

 

Before we dive into today’s episode, I want to be sure you know that I am currently accepting applications for both my Builder and Scaler Masterminds for 2019.

My mastermind groups consist of 6 women who meet together with me, virtually, 2-3 times per month. In each of those sessions, we have 2 women who get a turn in the hot seat. The hot seat allows these women to come to the group with a specific question about their business and wanting guidance and help for their next steps.

I am often told that one of my superpowers is putting women together in a way that benefits everyone. I tend to put women from different niches in a mastermind together as I find that the ideas flow so much better that way. If you can get ideas from your target avatar instead of people who are in your same niche, you have new strategies to put into place in your business.

If you are interested in growing or scaling your blog, be sure to fill out an application today and let’s take your business to the next level in 2019!

Have You Forgotten Yourself?

If you are listening to this episode on the day it’s released, the date is December 3, 2018. I’ll be honest with you, the older I get, the more nostalgic I get. And since my birthday is December 4th, I am really feeling it right about now.

Watching my girls grow up right before my eyes is not the easiest thing in the world. We didn’t have an easy time having our girls so they are a special blessing in our lives and something that I never want to take for granted.

I’ve talked before about how my goal in starting my business was to be able to spend more time together as a family. I was tired of being away from my girls for so many hours every day. And I still feel that way. But I have learned something about being a business owner: it’s far too easy to spend hours on your business and hours on your family…and totally forget about yourself.

So for all the moms, the wives, the sisters, and the best friends out there, I want to share a few tips that I’ve learned the hard way on how to not only care for your business and your family and friends but also how to care for yourself. As we move into a new year, I want to challenge you to make self-care and kindness a priority in 2019.

Spread Kindness

I can’t get over how much mean behavior I see from women online. We say things that we would never say face to face. Instead of being kind to each other, we backbite and accuse.

I don’t know about you, but my young children have conversations about what to do if there is an emergency at school. Things like, “Are we supposed to shelter in place or evacuate the building?”

These are the kinds of things our kids have to worry about simply because of the world we live in.

With these kinds of stressors in our real, physical lives, we need to put our kindest selves out in the online space. We don’t want to become trolls who hide behind our screens while saying vicious things to each other.

In 2019, and even today, look to build each other up with the words that you type. Find someone to encourage and lift up.

What Is Your Why

One of the things that we as women business owners face is being all the things to all the people. It’s so hard for us to say no to any request we get.

If you started your blog to have more time with your family as I did, what do you do when your audience wants a ton of holiday content but you don’t have it all created? Do you kill yourself to attend all the kids’ school holiday events, get your own house decorated, do all the fun things with your family, and create tons of holiday content to satisfy your audience?

Well, it depends. What is your why?

You Deserve a Reprieve

If your why is spending more time with your family; if you started your blog so that you wouldn’t have to miss all those special times with your kids…then maybe you need to back off of the content creation some during the holidays and enjoy that time together.

Guess what? The world won’t end if you miss a day of pinning or you only put out 2 blog posts instead of 3. Nothing will happen if you take a step back and focus on your why.

You deserve some time away from work just the same as anyone who works a 9-5. I can promise you that anybody who is working a day job doesn’t think that the entire company will shut down if they have to take a couple of sick days. The same goes for your blog!

If your audience knows you are on IG stories several times a day, then maybe you will get some DM’s of concern if you go silent for a couple of days. And you know what? That’s okay! You can answer those people or you can decide not to.

You as a human being need time to rest and time to spend with the people you love the most. The best time to take that reprieve is during the holidays when people expect others to be with their families more. Expectations are lowered during this time of year. We get that people have things that they need to do that don’t come up during the rest of the year.

Some of you are like me…card-carrying members of the workaholic club. If that’s you, measure your stress levels. If taking time off stresses you out, know that and do what’s needed to head off any stress from being away. Just a few minutes of checking in may be all it takes to keep your head in the game.

When Your Why Shifts

As I’ve said already and many times before, my family was my why when I started my blog. As I accomplished that goal, my why changed.

Now I keep going to serve other women who are where I was when I started. Women who are trying to build their own businesses while keeping their own why at the forefront of everything they do.

I want to help them show the young girls in their lives that women can own businesses and still have a life to show for it. I want to help them overcome obstacles to success so that their daughters and nieces can see and learn that we as women can not only be successful but we can overcome anything the world throws at us.

Putting It into Practice

Now that I’ve given you some thoughts on how we should be treating others and ourselves during the holidays and the year to come, I want to challenge you to take action.

I want to challenge you to show kindness online. But more specifically, I want you to show kindness to another blogger. Give them a compliment or share a resource that you think would be helpful to them.

Follow them on social media and take the time to comment. Send them a link to something that’s been really helpful to you and would help them. Ask them if there is anything you could do to help them. Reach out to them and have a conversation.

Listen, I know what the holidays are like in the blogging world. It’s 4th quarter and we feel tremendous pressure to get our stuff out there and for it to be perfect. Let’s offer some kindness to others in our same shoes knowing that we faced days of discouragement and that they likely do as well.

As we close this episode, I want to ask you a favor…a bit of kindness from you to me. I would love for you to leave a rating and review on iTunes for the podcast and when you do, be sure to use your Instagram handle as your username. This allows me to tag you on IG when I share your review in my stories. That then allows my followers to find you on IG and follow you as well.

Thank you so much for listening to the podcast and for following along with everything I do. I appreciate you so much and wish for you and your family the very best holiday season.

Action Steps:

• If you liked this episode of Influencer Entrepreneurs,  please subscribe and leave a fabulous review!
• Mark your calendar for the weekly free trainings every Tuesday at 11am EST over on Jenny’s Facebook page and Instagram Live
• Join the conversation on Instagram by using the hashtag #WWJMD and tagging Jenny when you’re listening to the podcast.  She’ll send you a personal message whenever you tag her.