Building It diary

I don’t have a manual or playbook for building a business nor have I ever started a business before. So this journey is foreign and really going to follow the plan that feels right. One foot in front of the other. I want to incorporate productivity, education and time for mental clarity each day. With that said, I have spent years listening to Podcasts, reading books and learning from others who have been successful and that motivates me.

Visualizing and Goal Setting

I find going for walks outside provides me mental clarity. At my previous company, we ran on EOS and clarity breaks were encouraged. When you are going from task to task and buried in work you can’t be creative and problem solve. So these planned breaks became part of my day so I could return and do my best work. You can read about the EOS philosophy on clarity breaks here. I get so many ideas, and resolutions for issues when I’m walking. 

On my walk this morning, I felt that new beginning feeling. The time of year has a lot to do with it. I left for my walk right after all three kids went off to their first day of school. I visualized where I would be this very moment one year from now. I want to be self-employed with three income streams that do not require me to trade my time for money. This goes back to my why, and it’s because I want to live my life prioritizing my family and my values over work. I have been saying this for a long time when people ask me what it is I want to do. “I want to make passive income!” The common reaction is for them to laugh and with good reason. Most of us are brought up thinking that we need to get good grades, get into a good college and find a great job working for someone else until you retire. That was my plan, and that is why I’m 43 and just starting this journey now. 

Business and Administrative Tasks

Today I did a lot of research, organizing and planning. In my full-time job I was used to using Outlook, Dropbox, Zoom, and I needed to look into some platforms that are free to use to run my business so I familiarized myself more with Google Drive, Google Calendar and synced up my Apple apps with Google. 

When my environment is clean and organized I am more productive and focused, so I started fresh in my office with a new folder and storage system and a deep clean. I also took care of some administrative tasks for our lake property that we Airbnb that I had been putting off so I could check that off the list and file those documents away.

My Website

I began to look at different CMS platforms to build a website. I was familiar with WordPress which was the CMS we used to build client websites at my previous company. I am not a developer and I don’t know website coding but I have experience posting blogs, making simple content changes and know my way around the backend of WordPress. I also looked at Shopify. I think an advantage of Shopify are the beautiful templates that you can pick from. For beginners, building out a Shopify website looks to be simple, straightforward and fairly quick. Both platforms are pretty similar in price as well. They charge a monthly or yearly fee to host the site for you. With that said, I ended up moving forward with a WordPress website. I knew I wanted to gain a deeper knowledge of the WordPress CMS platform so I knew if I chose it, I’d be forced to learn it. I was able to populate a Home page and About page in just a couple hours! I also picked the website URL and business name fairly quickly.

Digital Marketing Courses

I get really excited about new business ideas, and there have been times in the past couple year that I’ve been psyched about a new idea, I go all in, make lots of plans, buy a domain or course on the subject and end up losing steam. Last February, I was getting served all these Instagram reels about affiliate marketing, and how these people were making TONS of money every single day with little effort. I had heard about the digital marketing space and I knew quite a lot about it from Podcasts and other business influencers I follow on social media. In February I decided to buy a course. It wasn’t very expensive, under $40, and I thought if nothing else, I’m going to learn something. I made it through three of the 15 days of instruction and I ran out of steam. I was working full-time and raising kids and managing a full household. Truthfully I had no real accountability to finish. Today I went back and found the program and completed day 4. I’m committing to completing all 15 days of the program and even if I don’t use this particular program to get started as an affiliate marketer I will come away learning something. I also bought a course a couple years ago from another influencer I was following on social media. This one was actually really expensive, and I feel a little shame for investing in it and not completing it. So I set a goal for myself to also complete this second course in the next month.

How did today feel? 

In full transparency, today I had doubts. Several times I felt that sinking feeling like, “what am I doing, is this going to be all a waste of time?” I know these feelings of doubt are going to happen daily. This is all so new. I’m taking a huge risk and putting a lot of time into something that isn’t paying me back yet. But I’m also excited and inspired, so I will trust the process.