Such an important part of creating your brand or your online presence is a continuous flow of content. This is influencer/social media entrepreneur 101. I possess the skills it takes to be this person for others, but I can assure you that I am not applying these tactics to my personal growth at the moment (dies inside). But with that being said, I can tell you that this (sitting my ass down and writing) is the first step to breaking free of my dark cloud.
As I think back to being a well-behaved, timid child of the 90s, I loved reading and I always thought that it would be pretty amazing to be able to write books. As time went on, I never grew out of the comforting feeling of reading and the creativity of writing. However, years of negative self-image, lack of motivation, and overall daily struggles have been lost in brain fog. You guys know this place, right? The area of your brain that you wish you could play in all day if you didn’t have to be stuck at your joyless day job? I digress.
Being able to relate to my audience is pivotal to my aspirations with writing. My goal today is to detail some of the steps I have taken with advancing my writing. This is an ongoing learning experience for me, and I have faced a lot of dead air when it comes to receiving support from those around me. I don’t mean to paint the picture that my supporters see me as incapable. But I do think that words are powerful. I bring this up because I think even small, negative actions/reactions can deter a goal. A short response to someone’s unhindered dreams can potentially dampen their ability to accomplish that dream. It is always important to stay grounded, but you also need to believe people can grow. I think we should keep this in mind when we are reflecting on making our way up the ladder to achievement.
What it's like waiting for someone to encourage you...
Focusing on tangible traditional professional writing, I do not have a lot of experience. This is important for me to acknowledge. If I was giving you a how-to on freelance writing, this would probably be the first piece of advice I would give. Understand where your current capacity lies in your niche. Whether it’s writing, graphic design, marketing, whatever your industry is, it’s vital to stay aware. Drive and motivation will push you through the learning stages, but you need to know where to start!
To speak frankly, after I established that I am at toddler-level with freelance writing, I had to ask myself “How do I get better?”. If I ever want to become a full-fledged grown-up freelance writer, I better hit the pavement.
When I was at the starting line, all I had in my backpack for my journey was a 5-year-old account I created on upwork.com and a handful of screenshots saved on my phone from copyblogger.com. See, I had these dreams stored in the back of the brain cupboard!
Boots to the pavement, I logged into my upwork.com account and started browsing open jobs. If you don’t know what upwork.com is and you are looking to do work from home jobs or any entrepreneurial opportunities, please go there now and create an account. Diving right into it, you should start making a profile and searching for open jobs in your industry.
Next, I checked out some other resources to help me create a portfolio. Google offers free classes that you can browse through https://skillshop.exceedlms.com/student/catalog. If you are putting content on the internet, I think learning as much as you can about Google searching is probably forever in your favor. They offer certifications from Google Analytics to YouTube. I am trying to learn as much as I can about SEO and SEO content-driven writing so I decided I needed to start learning as much as I can. I have completed two analytic certifications so far!
I have a lot of free time right now and I’m rolling on the motivation train lately, so I branched out even more. There are available courses on edx.org. They offer programs from MIT, UC Berkeley, and other universities. You can take some of these classes for free just to learn or you can pay to get a course completion certification. Right now I am taking an Academic and Business Writing course because that sounds about right, right? Additionally, as a struggling, single mom I find some of the best perks are learning for free and learning when it is convenient for me.
Hopefully, I can encourage you all to finally be able to find peace with your place in the working world. I have wasted a lot of time and energy on providing a service on behalf of a supervisor, or their supervisor, etc. It’s so very, very important that you believe in yourself. Although I don’t recommend the WAY I ended up here, I’m grateful I did.
I’ll keep ya’ll posted on how this pans out! I’m already exceeding my expectations. I am proud of my accomplishments so far and I have hope for success!
Love Forever,
Selina
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