Hey everyone! On my goodness can you say the year is going by too fast! It’s already August and I cannot believe we are almost finishing up summer and soon getting into the fall season. I hope you are enjoying the summer months and keeping aligned with your self care priorities.
In July, I had the “10 Courageous Acts Challenge” which I extended to you and hope you participated in this challenge. And I hope it helped you take some uncomfortable actions and step outside your comfort zone because that’s where the magic is. 🙂
So I wanted to share with you some of the actions I took and what I learned from them. I chose to focus my courageous acts for my online business, SelfCareHappy.com, specifically, increasing my audience outreach to continue to support women with their self care priorities.
I’ve got to be honest with you. I completed eight of the ten acts in July. But I’m not going to say this is a failure. I will press forward and complete them. The point is moving in the direction of your goals. Progress not perfection! So in the beginning when I was brainstorming, I easily came up with several ideas to take action on. But, then I came into a stumbling block and just couldn’t think of the last 2 things to do to complete the 10 actions challenge. Hat tip to my business coach who suggested a few actions which I liked and will take action on (they are marked as pending). So here’s an overview of the challenge:
What actions I took:
- Completed my first Facebook Live video. (yikes!)
- Shared my weekly newsletter with at least 5 people to support them with their self care priorities.
- Joined a new online group.
- Submitted 2 blogposts with an entrepreneur group I’m a member of to cultivate meaningful relationships and to support each other.
- Reached out to a local business entrepreneur (in a similar business as me) to collaborate with. (oh wow)
- Applied to guest blogpost to 2 different online businesses.
- Invited at least one person to my Facebook Business page. (uh-oh)
- Researched several self care/healthy living online businesses; read their blogposts that interested me and actually engaged with them by leaving a comment on their site.
- Do market research to better serve my audience. (pending)
- Do a blog post featuring contributions from different self care experts. (pending)
What I learned:
I was terrified in completing some of them. I had a lot of self talk like…….why did I even create this challenge?.…..could I even do the challenge?……I won’t be able to come up with 10 actions……and on and on. I noticed I did the easy ones I did first; of course, the ones that terrified me I left for last.
Emotions I felt during this challenge:
Positives: energized, happy, satisfied, momentum, it’s not so bad, confident, relieved, powerful, liberated, growth, strong minded.
Negatives: terrified, uncertain, nervous, anxious, uncomfortable, second guessing, making excuses, procrastination, self-doubt.
It was not easy but I pushed myself. Wait, let me back track……in deeply thinking about if it was “easy” or “difficult”…….really, what does “easy” or “difficult” mean? I look back on the challenge and now that I’ve completed it (well, most of them), I can say unequivocally they really were not difficult. In fact, the truth was, Light Bulb Moment…..I was afraid of the unknown. That’s what it really was. Any of the actions were just actions; but as soon as I put a name to it, whether it be “easy” or “difficult” then it became that. Thinking made it so.
Overall, it was a great experience. And I’m glad I did it. One piece of advice I’d like to share…..Just do it…..don’t over think it. When I get uncomfortable with an action to take, but I know I really want to do it, I have a saying I tell myself that helps me just do it.
I say: 3…2….1….go! And then I just move and do it. It helps me with everything where I have some fear, uncomfortableness, and uncertainty. Maybe this will help you too when you are in such situations. Try it and see!
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
~ Anais Nin
I hope this piece inspires you to be more courageous! If this post resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. Just share your comments below. Also if you think there are people in your world who would benefit from receiving my self care tips, please do forward or share this post.