COMMUNITY + CONTENT

I'm super blessed to be a part of a "mastermind group", a handful of women all endeavoring to do business + life online. We meet once a week and talk about our goals, our struggles, our questions, our things. My husband thinks the name "mastermind group" is silly -- which makes me want to say it all the more. 

One week we were talking about the ever growing issue in our lives: How do you respond to all the things? If you're a blogger or a business lady or a friend or a mama or a sister or the president, you've probably felt it to some degree. It's just the nature of our lives these days. You engage in real beautiful life for a few hours, only to look at your phone and see x-number of instagram comments, x-number of emails, a handful of missed calls or text messages, and you feel behind. 

It's a funky thing when bloggers start addressing their ability to respond or engage and the last thing THIS blogger wants to do is sound self important. I'm not the president. I'm not a New York Times best-selling author. My shop isn't like Amazon. But, nevertheless, I sometimes feel overwhelmed with the need to respond and my lack of ability to do so. Whether it's twitter, this blog, emails, instagram, facebook, text messages, whatever. 

Anyhow, that day in our mastermind group (haha), my friend said something super wise. She said, "I honestly feel like we can create good content or we can be great responders. We can't do both." I completely and utterly agree with her. 

That day I decided that as a blogger, as a wife, as a mama, as a friend, as a shop owner -- I'm going to create good content. Well, I'm going to strive by God's grace to let Him use me to create good content. It's hard for me, as a community-loving-girl, to just say "responding to people isn't my top priority", but that is what I'm having to say in this season to be an engaged content-creator in my own life. 

All that to say: if you don't see me present in the blog comments all the time or I take a while responding by email and then only send three sentences, if I don't reply to every instagram comment or facebook status or tweet, if it takes me three days to answer text messages, I'm telling you now -- it's not because I'm a jerk. It's not because I don't care. It's not even because I don't WANT to. It's because, in this season, creating content at the kitchen table with my kids, on a date with my husband, behind the laptop as I write and design, or sitting at coffee with a friend is what I'm called to right now. 

I will respond. We'll always respond if there is an issue in the shop or an important question or a heart wrenching email that needs attention. And I'll steal away the moments when I can for the other things. But I'm giving myself the freedom on a whole to create content rather than live a life of responding. 

And I want you to have that freedom too.