SHOP THE POST

I’ve had many people ask me recently to explain how to start a blog or an online business and how to be a successful influencer in 2018!? What a question! I am honored to be a source of influence to you my faithful readers and I am so grateful that you show up to enjoy the content I create! I’m so grateful for your support and your comments and your questions! I am here to serve you!

Here are 5 KEY elements I believe will help you have a successful blog. I pray that this posts blesses you, equips and propels you to what God is calling you to do!

1.- PRAY, Surrender & ask yourself WHY you want to, x.y.z.

If I’m honest, I didn’t know what I was starting when I prayed that God would give me direction for my life, back in 2013. My prayers were kind of a shot in the dark in a very difficult season of my life, if I’m completely vulnerable with you, I didn’t know if my prayers would be heard or not. I prayed that God would use my story to help others find him. I also prayed for new shoes, photoshoots being in more movies and using my talent and ability for HIS glory. I prayed that little girls who’d gone though the same hardships as me, would be inspired by my story. I am in awe of what God has done through my broken prayers! He is no respecter of peoples. If he can hear my prayers I believe he’ll hear yours! You can boldly come to God and lay your requests knowing that if you’re also willing to do the work, he will begin opening doors for you that you can not open yourself!

My very first tip is: Pray up and surrender all your desires and dreams to your Heavenly Father and ask for his guidance. If you still feel like moving forward, establishing and writing down WHY you want to start a blog will be the best thing you can do for yourself! I believe it has to be a very convincing WHY that is outside of making money and getting free stuff (although I am so grateful for those to aspects, they aren’t enough to fuel you when the going gets tough). What does get you through is a VERY strong and convicting WHY.

My WHY: To create art that inspired women to know Jesus and love themselves as I had started to discover how to. This why for me, has gotten me through the deepest valleys of my blogging journey!

2.- Confidence & the Illusion of Perfection

Know that your confidence is in Christ and not in yourself. if you’re seeking for your worth this blogging / influencer world will eat you alive. Your confidence is in God and your worth is too. If you question your worth, make sure that you do the work to know who’s you are FIRST so that you can serve the people you’re being called to serve through your blog out of your worth and not for it! I would also say that this is one of the BIGGEST reasons my blog is a success. I didn’t wait until it was perfect to hit publish. I have learned and accepted that perfection is an illusion grasped by those who struggle with fear. I feared so much that I wasn’t enough, so whatever I created I didn’t want to share because I just needed to make it “perfect” No more! Every step of the way from 2014- till now. My book, TV segments, music recording, being in a movie. All those things I was able to experience because I divorced myself from the idea that me or my art had to be perfect in order to have an impact. NO one really likes perfection it leaves no room for Christ. He is the only perfect being on earth so I’ve stoped trying to be something I will never be and I have embraced progress over perfection! We can always practice and get better. No baby said, “Ughh, this talking business is too much. I’ll just still here, mute, for the rest of my life!” We drooled and babbled our way through at first, but do we talk like a baby now? No!

Progress! You will get better the more you do something!

3.- Failure & Pride

Be willing to redefine failure! Since failure is a part of success, you need it to discover and to learn. Ask yourself; Are you afraid to fail? If you are, write down a new definition of failure for yourself that will allow you to make mistakes without beating yourself up. If you don’t see failure with the same belief system as before, making mistakes won’t make you feel as ill as before. If you believe you’re a failure if you make a mistake, notice that is not the truth about you. Failing is living intentionally! In fact if you’re an adult and you’re willing to fail, you’re pretty much more courageous than those who don’t put themselves in a place of vulnerability! Doesn’t make you better than them, just different! Failing just means you found one (or a thousand) ways to not do what it is you’re trying to do. I love this quote: “Every adversity brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage.” Napoleon HIll

In the terms of ego and pride. Know that neither your failure or success is yours. If you’re wanting to put your art or value into this world, submit yourself to God and do it so HE will get the glory and not you. Trust me that in humility to God is the safest place to be because sometimes you’ll make some amazing posts/value/content and you’ll be temped to think you did it on your own. But you didn’t! God gave you the gifts that you have to GIVE to others for HIS glory and his purposes. There are certain things only art can heal. There are certain things only beauty can encourage. I do believe we are ALL beautiful and have talent and gifts God wants to use to inspire and gives other’s hope! So put your art in his hands. You’ll especially want to because on the times when you fail and you do experience feelings of rejection or people don’t like or notice your stuff, you won’t be swayed as hard by the blows of pride and ego. Be a mighty blogger/ artist/ influencer because that’s what God is calling you to do, not for the applause!

4.- Writing Down Goals / Vision

I can’t say enough about sitting down and asking God for vision for the next 5 years of your life! What ever you see (even if it seems ridiculous) put it down on paper or make a collage on a vision board that you will see continuously! God is so mighty if he is giving you vision he will be faithful in his timing! Also write down big audacious goals that you can measure and then write action steps (things that you can do TODAY towards the goal) SO many people don’t get mobilized in their dreams because they don’t have the HOW figured out. It seems too overwhelming and daunting. Break it down to bite size pieces.

So if you’re goal is to get a blog up and running; write three things you can do today to get you toward that goal; One, you’re already doing, reading some insight and inspiration is action! Don’t underestimate the power of small beginnings and tinny victories daily compounded make for a huge impact in the long run! It’s not what you do once in a while that will matter, it’s what you’re doing most every day, that will determine where you’re headed!

5.- Show up consistently

Just show up consistently. Do it even when you don’t want to and the feelings of extreme excitement of starting something new have waned off, (which they will) Thus why #1 is so important! Whatever your goal is, It will take time. It will require you to feel uncomfortable. I will require work. It will require perseverance. It will require sacrifice. But “You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you (Philippians 4:13)” ! I believe in you and so does God! He won’t leave you! The discovery of who God is and the person you’ll become, is worth it all!

BONUS:

Redefine what Success means to you. You already are successful right now! You are fully loved and fully known. You are enough. Now, who do you want to be in this world?! Your success is in God not in that you create. You are successful if you have the courage to start the blog. But you’re also successful and enough, even if you don’t. Just a matter of what legacy you want to leave and how much you want to learn and evolve and grow! You are more than capable everything you need is right there with you. You already know what to do. Just go forward in faith! God won’t leave you!