Welcome to my 6th post documenting my weekly struggles, goals and achievements in business and life.
This post is a day late but that's only because I got so deep in my creative zone, building something new, that I just couldn't find the strength to pull myself away from it! #creativeproblems
Keep reading to hear more about it!
But first...
WHY I'M DOING THIS
- To help keep me accountable by posting my goals publicly.
- To give me a better sense of control.
- To give me something to work towards.
- To keep me motivated to keep improving.
- To help me learn more about myself, blogging & business (I LOVE learning & analyzing!)
- To help me break things down and simplify my to-do list, so I don’t feel so overwhelmed (the goal is less stress, right?!) For my goals, I'm giving myself 3 things to accomplish in each category in order to keep things simple. All I have to do are these 3 things and once I finish them, I'm done for the week and I can go do whatever I want.
- To give me an outlet to talk about this stuff ( I LOVE talking about business and blogging but I don’t have too many friends that can relate, and the ones that can are usually BUSY buildin’ their own thangs…)
- To help me with my monthly income report.
- To give me something to look back on to see how far I’ve come.
- To hopefully help inspire and motivate others who are going through the same struggles (and maybe help us connect if we don’t know each other yet?!)
STRUGGLES
The top 3 struggles I’m currently working through this week.
Blogging/Biz/Money
- I have started the rebrand of Whipped Dream, which I am SUPER excited about, however, I have been approached by someone who asked if I'd be interested in teaming up and working on this idea together as business partners. Working with others is part of my new, big idea for the new business, however, this is a bit outside of my comfort zone because I don't really know how all of those logistics would work. I've been doing my own thing and doing EVERYTHING myself for the past 4 years. How do I delegate work? How do we divide up the money? What about legal contracts? How do I let go of having full control? I'm a bit unsure whether this is something I want or not. I guess I'll have to do a little more research and work on the back end development part.
- Social media. I was making quotes to be posted daily via Buffer on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, but have lost the motivation to create them due to the rebrand process. I think I want to stop posting for a little while until I figure things out; it doesn't make sense to spend time making these. But I'm also afraid of losing followers or people being confused because I'm inconsistent and I keep changing things up with my brand. Meh.
- Starting to really think about going forward with this AirBnB idea I've been sitting on for almost 2 years now. I have heard great things from numerous friends about how they make money renting out a room in their place. And my boyfriend, Matt, is also really interested in this idea because he's always looking for new ways to invest and make money. Plus he already does some real estate investment type stuff on the side, so he has some experience in this area. My idea was to get a 2-bedroom apartment and rent out the other room on AirBnB, in order to try to live potentially rent-free and save some money. However, I wasn't sure how hard it would be to get a place that allowed me to do that. But then Matt suggested that maybe we could work out a deal where he would buy a place that I could live in so that I could do my AirBnB idea. We've been talking more and more about this, and are now planning on looking at 2-3 bedroom places. It's pretty interesting and exciting, however, there are a few details I'm a little nervous about... 1) Having to coordinate with people. Do I actually want to add another thing to my to-do list? I want more passive income. 2) Having to live with people who I don't know, and who don't know me and how I like things. I'm pretty protective of my space and working from home means I need it to be quiet. I don't know if I'm going to get someone who's quiet and I don't want to have to explain to people over and over again why I need them to live quietly. Matt says I should be able to deal with it if I get to live for free... but that's not the point! Not having to pay rent isn't going to change what I have to live with on a daily basis. 3) What if things don't work out between me and Matt? Are we going to stay cordial over matters? There also needs to be some legal binding contracts put in place because you never know! 4) If I hate all of this, I'll have to move again... which always sucks.
Life
- The noise problems around my apartment is coming back with a vengeance. There are extremely loud trash trucks that come through my alley multiple times a day. My neighbor and his motorcycle. Cars flying through the alley. The CrossFit Gym across the way. Dogs barking. People talking outside late into the night or super early in the morning. It's all driving me NUTS! I seriously want to move somewhere more hidden away so I can concentrate! I've been getting more involved in Facebook groups and have been asking people for advice on how they work through this stuff, which has been extremely helpful. Someone suggested I might have misophonia, which totally makes sense because I have always been sensitive to certain sounds, especially when I'm trying to sleep or concentrate on something. Someone suggested trying Noisli to help drown out neighborhood noises, which is helping, however, wearing headphones or earbuds hurts my ears after a while. #ijustcantwin
- The gym. I've been going to the gym earlier than I usually do, which has reminded me why I stopped doing that about 6 months ago. If I go between 3 and 8pm, there's a lot more traffic, the parking lot is full so I have to fight people for spots, and there are just so many people in the gym that I can't get on anything I want to use. I don't want to have to wait for things to open up because it throws my whole gym rotation off. For example, I need to start with squats but sometimes I can't get on the squat rack right away, so I either have to stand around and wait for like 30 minutes or I have to do my entire leg routine before I can get to my squats, and by that time my legs are more fatigued so I'm way less likely to hit my PR goals for that day.
- Sleep. I keep going to bed so late and getting up so early! I seriously sleep about 6-7 hours a night on average and I know I need more than this. I just hate going to bed! And then I wake up early and I can't wait to get to work on whatever I'm currently working on (not that this is a bad thing! BUT for my health it might not be the best!) I need to try to get to bed earlier.
GOALS
My top 3 goals for this week.
Blogging/Biz/Money
- Finish designing my new logo for Whipped Dream.
- Make progress in the business plan and see if it's worth it for me to have a business partner.
- Finish the website prototype.
Life
- Only go to the gym outside of the hours of 3pm and 8pm.
- Squat 175lbs for 5.
- Try to be asleep by midnight.
ACHIEVEMENTS
What I’ve accomplished since last week.
Blogging/Biz/Money
Make significant progress on rebranding Whipped Dream (logo, website, services and content.)(I actually did this! And I am so excited about it! I created a mood board, I started redesigning my logo, I worked on my brand clarity and brand identity, I started developing my business plan, and I started designing a prototype of how I want the first page of my site to look.)- Write a blog post about my new logo and rebrand for this blog (which I completed about 2 months ago.) (Did not happen. I was too busy working on the rebrand of Whipped Dream.)
- Set up a Lead Pages account. (Didn't happen.)
Life
- Do 2 days of deadlifting this week to make sure I start doing them more often and to practice my form. (Only did one day.)
Cut my calories down from 2,000 a day to 1,750 a day and see if that makes a difference.(I am gaining weight but seeing and feeling a change in my body composition... which means I'm making muscle and burning fat!)- Hit 175 lbs. for 5 reps squatting. (I did 170 for 5.)
Extra Stuff I Did That's Worth Mentioning
- Created 7 quotes instead of 10 using Adobe Illustrator to be posted on my Whipped Dream social media accounts once a day instead of twice and scheduled them out through Buffer.
- Pinned those quotes onto my Whipped Dream Pinterest board.
- Worked on some client website work.
- Connected a lot more with people in Facebook groups (Blog + Biz BFFs and Creative Superheroes), which has really become a great resource for feedback and ideas! One post I posted (about my idea for something big I'm creating) had a huge response with lots of positive feedback, which encouraged me to move forward with this idea.
ONE THING I'M GRATEFUL FOR THIS WEEK
I'm grateful for how far I've come over the past 4 years. There have been so many ups and downs but I'm really starting to appreciate all the lessons I've had to learn, all the changes I've made and all the growth I've made! I really feel like I'm finally aligning with myself as well as my goals in life. I feel like bigger things are about to happen in the near future and I can't wait to see what I can create and who I can connect with out there in the world!
Well, that's what I've got going on this week. I think these posts are definitely helping me keep myself accountable and motivated and so I will definitely be carrying on with them! 🙂