How To Consume Advice For Your Business & Blog
There is so much advice out there for bloggers and business owners online. It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed, bombarded, and unsure of which advice to take on board and which to leave behind. A little advice can work wonders. It can leave us feeling informed, empowered, and motivated and really aid us along the way in our blogging and business journeys. On the other hand, too much advice can leave us focusing too much on learning and not enough on doing, and can ultimately distract us from our own core goals and values.
I create Jennypurr with the intention of informing, encouraging, and motivating fellow bloggers, creatives, and creative business owners to take positive and practical steps forward, yet I’m so conscious of the fact that for advice to be helpful it has to be both shared and consumed in a healthy and mindful way. Today I want to share just four simple ways I think we can all consume advice for our business and/or blogs in a way that is positive, practical, and useful for us along the way. Too many times fellow creatives, bloggers, and my coaching clients tell me that they feel overwhelmed by all the advice out there and I think it’s up to us to consume more intentionally and protect ourselves along the way. This post is for you if:
You've found yourself feeling overwhelmed and inadequate after consuming too much advice: If all you feel right now is that everyone else seems like they have everything together while you're struggling to make any progress at all, you probably need to dial down the consumption and start investing more of your energy into your own business and blog. Advice should be there to help us, inform us, and maybe even challenge us, but not to leave us feeling worse off than when we first started.
You're struggling to put into action any of the advice you do consume: You're reading anything and everything out there, some of it just a repeat of what you've already read, and some of it may even contradict each other, leaving you feeling even more confused. If you're struggling to put into action all of the advice you're consuming, this post is here to help you prioritise what matters and actually start making it happen.
You're struggling to move past the learning phase into the doing phase: The learning phase is great. I spent most of 2014 in the learning phase, where I experimented as much as I could before I took the leap this year into actually doing the work I feel inspired to do. If you're full of great ideas but you're scared to take that leap because you don't feel ready yet, this post is here to encourage you to start putting all that awesome advice to good use.
Don’t consume everything and anything: If we consume advice for our business and blogs from too many sources, we’ll ultimately find ourselves overwhelmed and unable to put anything we’ve learned to good use. The problem with consuming too much advice is that it can keep us too much in the planning stage and hold us back from taking the leap and doing, as we believe there is still so much more information out there that we need to digest before we’re ready. My best advice is to choose just a few sources that you really respect, connect with, and have already found to be positive for you and your own business or blog. Whether it’s practical and implementable advice and resources that can help you grow and move forward, or insights and encouragement that keep you going along the way, choose wisely what you let into your creative space and process.
Consume from sources with similar values: One of the best ways to decipher which sources to go to for blogging and business advice is to see if their outlook aligns with your own. For example, Jennypurr’s core values are all about challenging our creativity, being brave with our blogs, creating with purpose, and doing work that feeds our soul as much as it does our bank balance. I’m all about purposeful and practical strategy and if that doesn’t align with someones intentions and values for their business and blog I would hate for them to waste their energy over here as I think it’s so important to be guided by our core values with everything that we do.
When you’re taking on board advice, I’d recommend staying curious about the core values and intentions behind it. If it’s both one you can trust and connect with, it’s probably a good source for you.
Make advice work for you, not the other way around: If you leave with one takeaway today, I hope it can be this: make advice work for you, not the other way around. Advice is best used when adapted to our own needs and circumstances. Advice is limited to who shared it and their own experience and knowledge base, and if we really want to utilise it we have to explore how it fits into our own business and blog and how best we can use it ourselves. When you stumble across something that inspires you into action, motivates you in your own path, or is one of those a-ha moments when you finally grasp that one thing that was holding you back, take the time to really explore how it fits into your own blog or business. Don’t try and fit yourself around the advice you’re consuming, instead take the core elements that have inspired you into action and find a way to make them work for you.
And the best way to use advice? Use it as a jumping off point to explore, experiment, and learn on your own.
Start doing: Advice can be a double edged sword. It’s great for leaving us feeling inspired and more equipped to take on all the challenges running a blog or business can bring our way. But it can also leave us feeling like we still have so much more left to learn before we’re ready to take that leap. The best lessons are learned by doing ourselves, and although it’s great to have a helping hand along the way, we have to first commit to getting started.
So start doing. If I’ve learned anything it’s that we have to stop waiting until we feel ready. Most of the time it’s wise to take a somewhat informed risk - we probably shouldn't leap in without anything to prepare us, but waiting too long means we can miss out on really utilising the time and opportunities we have available to us right now. Trust that you know enough of the basics to just take that leap, and give yourself permission to be a beginner. I said to a client just the other day that my work with them isn’t to tell them how to do things, but to instead empower them to know that they’re already capable of doing the things they want to do and ultimately help them to build purposeful and practical plans of action and strategy along the way. That’s exactly my intention with this blog and it’s how I’d want to encourage you to approach any advice you consume around the web. Trust that you’re more than capable of doing everything you’re dreaming of. Staying curious is awesome - I’m a big believer in a lifelong commitment to learning and growth. But advice is only worth consuming if you’re going to put it to good use in a way that works for you.
I would love to know your thoughts and experience of consuming advice for your business and/or blog?
How We Can Work Together
I work with bloggers & creatives to help them feel focused and find confidence in their blogging process. Whether you want to connect with your ideal readers and clients, give your creative business a better online presence, launch your blog from scratch, or transition your online presence into a business, I'm here to help you make it happen. Find out more here.
