Start where you are, Use what you have. Do what you can.
-ARTHUR ASHE
Confession––I’ve been a blogger for 12 years. I have built beautiful website blogging templates under my creative muse, taraocity, I have come up with numerous themes, geared to the Gen X life of a new stay at home mom, a social media and marketing maven, and lately, a mompreneur as co-owner of a hand-craft distillery.
But none of those posts from those days made it up here. And I no longer wear those hats. Because so much more was going on under the surface, and I wanted it to always feel like as best as I could…..like me.
I have stopped and started and stopped again to post content, my voice into the universe finally. I escaped to the blissful world of blog research (sure, reading blogs and watching YouTube is research and development––even if you don’t actually get to the point of writing). I watched the early days of my 2008 tribe of blogging kindreds sail into the emerging world of social media turning their blogs to brands, identity into bonafide influencer, while I continued from the outside peering in, hopeful this time I would take my leap. I was a blogging nomad, and not in the globe-trekking cool way, just a blogger without a blog.
Why did I stay out in the fringes when I was no different than any others?
Was it because I was afraid….
….I didn’t know who I was at the time, and let alone what to write about?
…..I didn’t have the photography and design skills and tools to make eye candy-popping editorial content as those blogger/influencers I loved to follow?
….I wasn’t good enough to even write let alone build a business on my passion?
Does this sound familiar to you with your dreams? Are you afraid to start because you think you can’t til you arrive till you have it all planned out perfectly and a life that resembles Instagram? Or that you have an endless supply of resources at your disposal? Or that you need to have magical superpowers to finish what you started?
The answer is surprisingly….you do!
Start where you are.
The plan is to START. That’s it. Right where you are. You are living aren’t you? No matter what it looks like, you will never be in the same place as you were before you started. Even if you fail at first, you will get better and will see success.
Use what you have.
I thought I had to have all the latest and greatest to do the quality of work I dreamed of making. And you know what? I already have everything I need. My own personal entourage:
- My content creator- a notepad to sketch ideas, Google docs, Grammerly, etc.
- My photographer/videographer -my iPhone
- My graphic designer and photo editor Canva, PicMonkey, etc.
- My advisory and marketing team – Google
Not to mention your social media tribe that you connect and collaborate with along with your customer.
Do what you can.
You are not, let me repeat––NOT, going to gain instant rewards for your effort. I am sure when I read this post months from now I will look at it puzzled over what was I thinking writing this. It’s ok because what I don’t see today in the future I will most definitely see how far I have come from here to there.
So let me ask you, what dream have you put up on the shelf and are you ready to embrace that now is the perfect time to START?
Please share yours in the comments below or email me directly at taraocity@gmail.com.
