tips for writers, bloggers, business, life -- volume 2

This is a continuation of a series I started a few weeks back – tips for bloggers, writers, and business ladies. You can find them here.

Truth be told, this is much, much more than a writing, blogging or business principle for me. It’s a life principle. A spiritual one, even. I find the kind of people I relate to the best – the kinds I want to learn from the most are the ones who aren’t scared to look back and say, “That didn’t go well, huh?”

In life, I’ve learned that I’m seriously missing out on growth, on learning, on living out God’s lavish grace if I can’t look backward and simply know – I made a mistake. On the other hand, if I’m so utterly cautious that I refuse to try things that I might not do a good job at, I will miss out on all kinds of adventures. Even failed adventures are adventures, you know?

In writing – sometimes you gotta just write. Tell the story. Try and explain the deep thoughts even if you think know one will follow them. Describe the setting. Maybe it’s not long enough and maybe it’s too long. Maybe everyone reads it and maybe no one does. You might spell all the words wrong or never get to the point or lose your readers in the first paragraph. But you did it and then you can look back and say – “here’s what. I should have done _______________ instead.”

In business and ministry – if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying enough things. If you keep your area of expertise so small that you always stay an expert at it – good job, you’ve limited yourself to what YOU can do and possibly missed out on the vast opportunities of what God could have done through you. In His power and ability, instead of yours.

Let’s don’t be ladies who are so tidy and buttoned up that we don’t let God’s grace get it’s full story told. Love hard. Mess up. Apologize. If you have a pit in your stomach about something you said or did a month ago or a day ago that you’re explaining away with “it was a miscommunication” or “I guess I could have done that differently”, run from that. Call it what it was. A mistake. Learn from it. Grow from it. Say you’re sorry and walk in grace.

For me, this looks like pulling a kid aside after a rough day and saying, “I took my frustration out on you. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” It looks like quitting doing blog design even though it’s fun and financially profitable. Even emailing my clients and apologizing for not handling their business well. It looks like writing an eBook in 4 days in the midst of my first trimester nausea and instead of walking away from it, refusing to write anything else substantial till I go back and edit it and make those words count.

If you’re sitting safely inside your own human boundaries, break out.

Try. Fail. Redeem. Live. Write. Love. Try. 

to be an influential blogger/writer - volume 1.

I didn't expect the surge of strategic energy that is coming through my brain since the Influence Conference. I was the life girl and Hayley was the strategic girl. I barely even got to hear any of the strategic sessions, which I was super bummed about. 

However, as Hayley and I have been processing, as we build The Influence Network and commit to never watering down the strategic or the gospel - we've got to both walk in some humble fearlessness in both. And sure enough, just being around all those wise ladies rubbed off on me and I've come home ready to embrace my strategic goals and crazy ideas. 

And for me - the base of my strategic stuff is always going to be the blog, the writing. The prints are our business, the mentorship a sweet outlet, the network an extension and a prayer of what I believe God is doing online, but this space is always the starting point. It's the face of it all the meeting place. It's the table cloth that I set the table of all my other strategic stuff on. 

So back to basics I go. I want to write true content. I want to practice my craft. Build a community. Impart grace, Inspire, Share Design, share a Peak into our life, & Spur women on in their endeavors. 

As I write new rules, or ask the Lord to write new rules, in my life influence and online influence - I thought, why not share them? And here's an important one I think. There are lots of rules about blogging, lots of rules about being a writer - but this is one that is talked about less and broken more. It's a hard and fast rule for me, but you weigh it out and see where you settle on it. 

If I'm going to write. If I'm going to speak. If I'm going to encourage or spur - I'm going to do it from a place of personal growth, change, and conviction - not a desire to see others change. It's more genuine. More honest. More impactful. And your hearers will be more eager to hear. 

It would be quite easy to sit on the internet or read the paper or watch the world and want to use your words to make it change. But when you close the laptop, the book, stand up and live, fail, win, regret, hope, dream, fall, lose, hurt, and experience - your words mean that much more. 

Live, grow, and change. And write about that.