Simplifying Everything & A Few Rants KDS: 109

Well, it might seem like my best-laid plans for the podcast have gone sideways, but I assure you it’s anything but. I won’t go into much detail about life with this episode, but the last couple of months have been super busy with family stuff, and I’ve been quietly working behind the scenes and, for lack of a better description, have been “burning the boats.” This episode is for anyone who has or has had that niggly feeling in their gut for far too long about making a change in their business. It could be niching down, a pivot to something entirely different, focusing on a different audience, or adding something brand new. Whatever it is, my goal with this episode is to both inspire you and give you a few things you can do to get the ball rolling. One thing to remember: this is going to look completely different for each individual. Don’t compare your pivot to anyone else’s. On one hand, the burning of the boats feels like it’s been years in the making. On the other hand, I made this decision fairly quickly because of the level of focus and structure I’ve implemented.Burning the BoatsThe first time I burned the boats in my business was when I pivoted from “The WPChick” to my personal brand. This was back in 2018, and I knew it was time. In fact, it was probably time a few years prior, but I didn’t have the clarity or the courage until 2018. During the last few years as The WPChick, I felt very limited. I didn’t want to:Create any more how-to WordPress tutorialsDo anymore client work, no more websitesContinue creating content about plugins or themes

I changed my tagline on my site to “A Place Where WordPress and Marketing Collide,”… which I loved, but at the time, the WordPress space was so anti-marketing (God forbid you made a living in that space outside of service work), and I didn’t feel like dealing with the trolls (I had my fair share in that space). What I loved doing was creating content and marketing. The more I learned about marketing, the more I enjoyed it. In many ways, I held myself back when I was The WPChick. Because there was such a self-righteous anti-marketing stance, I avoided trying things or going deeper with marketing strategies. I’d do the surface work and get some results, but not the results I truly wanted. I tried to please everyone but myself. If I could go back and tell myself anything, it would be to only pay attention to people who were already where I wanted to be. Here’s another way to look at his:

Never take advice from someone you wouldn’t trade places with.– Darren HardyI’ve spent far too much of my life worrying about what other people think. This might come as a surprise to people who don’t know me very well or to those who I haven’t allowed myself to be vulnerable with, but I’m over it. This is probably one of my favorite things about getting older… as you start to realize that your time on this earth is actually finite and you may have less in front of you than behind you, you realize it’s time to stop playing small. Or, as Brené Brown shares in her article, ” The Midlife Unraveling,”…

I’m not screwing around. All of this pretending and performing—these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt—has to go. Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your...