Marathon
A lot of Virtual Assistants offer “social media management.” As a business owner I’ve come to realize why: it’s not fun to do. Well, at least for me. But it is a necessary evil. You need to create an online presence and following to help legitimize your business. Because who wants to hire someone who is unestablished and appears to be green no matter how much knowledge and experience they may actually have. But consistently (some may say relentlessly) creating engaging content and often is damn near impossible.
I’ve researched and also have purchased a years worth of social media ideas and brainstormed ideas to only come up with…man, maybe I should hire a Virtual Assistant to do my social media OR I could give this task “the best I got at that moment.” Ergo, the creation of the SESTIVA Self-Affirmations Series.
This series is only two posts deep and I don’t even know what the future of it will look like. But since I’ve learned that every.single.day. of business ownership is completely different that what works best for me is to just schedule block a spot weekly with “socials” and I take a moment to pause.
During the pause I get to sort of do a check in, give a pep talk to myself, or give deeper thought to current obstacles. But really what it ends up being is simply a conversation with myself. I find that I’m talking to the younger version of SESTIVA and me. Because we now know more and the younger version of us could sometimes desperately use that knowledge. But since past me and present me are still the same person/company it all ends up looking like self-affirmations. You’re talking to yourself now but you’re really talking to yourself from your past or sending a message to your future self. They’re all still you. Self-affirmations are like the ultimate time-travel.
So this week, during “socials” time I was able to relish in some of my recent milestones. I’m feeling awesome. I’m feeling confident. I’m feeling proud of myself. Once the foundation and ground work was laid (and re-laid more intentionally) for SESTIVA, I made some goals for myself and put them in place for 2022. And I failed. But I kept going, and I knew they were stretch goals. But it’s okay, because those goals were all arbitrarily set by myself. So at the new year I said to myself “that’s okay. But you need to decide what 2023 is going to look like.” And I changed some of my notes on my mirror and I changed my screensaver to simply say “Build it”. So January 1, 2023… it’s a new year. A new attempt. Maybe 2023 will be the one. Just keep working towards your goal. Progress is progress. And we’ll just see when we make it across that first finish line.
Sidenote: The end of 2022 I put myself into a lot of new spaces to see what felt right and what didn’t (job interviews, protests, advocacy work, volunteering). And what I got out of it more than anything is that I want SESTIVA. There is no “I can go back to work if it fails” because that’s not what I want. And of course I could, but for me, failure on the things that I want (and that allow me to live the life I want) are not things that I am going to settle on. Especially if they’re within my own power. A new found belief in myself. So as Dory says, just keep swimming.
So for “socials” this past week it felt like time for another SESTIVA Self-Affirmation series. And so I wrote “Even if you're taking baby steps, eventually you will finish the marathon if you just keep going.” Because in March 2023, I hit that 2022 goal. Three months “late” and I had thought it was going to need another year or two possibly. But what it needed was me. Believing in myself wholeheartedly. No questioning.
So I’m happy to say that I am officially a self-employed individual making full time pay. Milestone reached. Achievement Unlocked. Now, don’t get me wrong. I still have to cover business overhead and operating costs and the profits still have more than enough room for improvement. But as I have found myself saying to my inner circle, “I’m happy, considering I created it all out of thin air.” And the best part, for me, is that I’m a legitimate financial partner in my household again.
You are your own best cheerleader. So talk nice to yourself. Talk positively to your past, present, and future versions of yourself. Self-affirmations are helpful. I personally like these ones. Once you believe in yourself, others will be willing to do the same.
Finally, I can not thank my husband, Steve, enough for his ultimate trust and blind faith in me that I could do it. He just knew that I could do it even if he doesn’t really know what is that I do on any given day. Steve has carried this household financially for about two and a half years so I can work towards this dream of mine. And I’m so glad to be able to hold my own again financially for the family. And lastly, I’d be remiss to not mention that if you don’t have a solid foundation and support system then you can’t build anything past that. You simply can not do things without the support of your loved ones. So a final thank you to my friends, family, and most of all Steve… for always being all the things for me: husband, coparent, sounding board, investor, supporter, and best friend.
