The Robyn Graham Show a Podcast for Christian Women - Become Calm, Confident, and Consistent

In the book, You, Me, and Anxiety, I am sharing my lifelong journey with anxiety so that I can help young women and their families navigate life with anxiety and discover hope. Life with anxiety can be better Life with anxiety is going to get easier to navigate. Why? Because You, Me, and Anxiety is available to help teens and their parents navigate anxiety. In the book, I share my life-long journey with anxiety and offer the tools and tips that I wish I'd known earlier in my life. I get real, and raw, and tell the not-so-pretty experiences of my life with anxiety while helping you understand anxiety, recognize triggers for anxiety, and the steps you can take to navigate your life with anxiety. Today is a new day in my life with anxiety On March 3rd, 2021 I signed a contract with Highlander Press. I knew I was being called to write a book and share my life-long journey with anxiety, but I had been dragging my feet. I wasn't sure where to begin, other than to write, and I was afraid. By chance, I met Debby Kevin, owner of Highlander Press, a hybrid publishing company. She thought we were having a coffee chat to get to know each other. I was having a coffee chat to seek information about her publishing company. When I told Debby about my book idea, she loved it, as she too has had family experience with anxiety and immediately recognized the value my book could provide. Soon after our conversation, I signed the contract, and intentional work began. Anxiety doesn't just go away The fact is, that even though I've learned tools to recognize triggers and navigate my anxiety, it has never gone away. It is part of my DNA. I could succumb to it and just use it as an excuse, but I refuse to do that and I don't want young women of today to either. No one with clinical anxiety can just get over it. Living with anxiety is tricky. The mind is incredibly complex. And when you add the complexity of the brain, genetics, and environmental factors all together, it is simply impossible to completely overcome and have zero symptoms of anxiety. Our society is so fast-paced and we are so inundated with temptations of comparison, and to be better, work harder, and do more that there is no way to completely ignore or just get over anxiety. Not to mention the ever-changing state of our world. But what we can do, is identify triggers and retrain our brains to handle anxiety in a positive way instead of letting anxiety control us. Action over anxiety is imperative to find joy The key to being able to experience hope, joy, and purpose as you live with anxiety, is to take action. In You, Me, and Anxiety I map out my 5 Cs Journaling Method. There are activities for you to do to recognize triggers, identify your fears, overcome shame, identify who you trust, tips on communication and relationships, the importance of forgiveness, why it is important to be curious instead of judgmental, how to give yourself grace, and how to use faith as a means of navigating anxiety. My story, my gift You, Me, and Anxiety is more than just my story. It is my gift to the world to hopefully create a ripple effect, a movement, for taking action over anxiety, to decrease the incidence of addiction, decrease the ever-increasing prevalence of deaths by suicide, help families build stronger relationships, and live more joyful, purposeful lives. You, Me, and Anxiety is now available on Amazon. When I originally sat down to write, I thought I was writing a book for teen girls. But I quickly realized that in order to truly make an impact I also needed to provide information and a tool for parents whose teens have anxiety. And of course, since journaling has been my main tool for navigating anxiety, I created a journal so that readers can take immediate action while reading the book. And, to try to inspire more people to take action over anxiety, I created merchandise with the action over anxiety logo. We have t-shirts, hoodies, bookmarks, stickers, and coffee mugs to start with. I'd love for you to head over to Amazon and buy the book and then leave a review. That will, of course, help with creating the ripple effect of more people taking action over anxiety to put more joy in the world. Read the full show notes and access links to the book and more. And don't forget, you can also download the free eBook on alleviating anxiety by developing healthy habits for a healthy mind.

Episode adapted from live training in The Female Entrepreneur Insider Facebook Group. Passion, Purpose, Perfection, Procrastination, and Paralysis will influence your ability to build a personal brand. To build a personal brand you must start with identifying your values, visions, and passions to find clarity around your purpose. Once your purpose is discovered, it's time to differentiate yourself from all others in your area of expertise. This is personal branding. I love alliterations and when you want to build a personal brand, it's easy to refer to the 5 Cs, 5 Ws, and now the 5 Ps. The 5 Cs are: clarity cohesive consistent content community. The 5 Ws are: Why What Who When Where The 5 Ps are: Passion Purpose Perfection Procrastination Paralysis Let's dive into the 5 Ps. You can learn more about the 5 Cs here and the 5 Ws here. What does passion have to do with your efforts to build a personal brand? When taking the initiative to build a personal brand, it's important to start by asking yourself what fuels you. In other words, what lights you up? What makes you feel excited? Who makes you feel that way? What are you doing or talking about when you get the overwhelming feeling of joy, excitement, uncontrollable need to act? Why is knowing your purpose important when you want to build a personal brand? Your passion along with your values and visions for yourself and your future help determine your purpose. What are the values you will not waiver on? Are there certain activities that you envision yourself doing now or in the future? Who do you see yourself working with? Somewhere these three things overlap, your values, visions, and passions, to lead you to your purpose. For example, when I was young, I loved to play school and I wanted to be the teacher. I liked to guide people and help them, to serve them and make life easier for them. Every job I've had since graduating college has had a teaching component. As a personal brand strategist and business coach, I am teaching and guiding my clients every day. That is what fuels me, excites me, and what I'm passionate about. It also aligns with my value of service. Having clarity around your purpose when trying to build a personal brand will help you communicate and connect with your ideal audience to convert them to clients. Perfection isn't necessary when you are trying to build a personal brand. Once you discover your purpose and initiate work on your personal brand, there is a tendency to fall into the trap of perfectionism. We are all guilty of it. But it's not possible to be perfect and there is no perfect time. When you believe you have to be perfect or that everything has to be perfect in order to put yourself out in the world, fear and anxiety will arise. When fear and anxiety arise, you experience self-doubt and procrastination. Procrastination will hold you back. Once you hit the procrastination phase, your business momentum will shift. Things will stay as-is. The necessary action won't be taken to move the needle forward in your business. You will start spending time analyzing and comparing instead of taking intentional action. Endless scrolling on social media can influence comparison and analysis. If you feel yourself falling into a state of procrastination as a result of trying to be perfect, social media will be the last place you should spend time. To build a personal brand you must be genuinely you and not trying to do or be what other people exhibit on social media. You do not want to end up in a state of analysis paralysis. Paralysis refers to a lack of intentional action when trying to build your personal brand. Once paralysis hits, the cycle of fear and anxiety speeds up, self-doubt increases, clients stop coming in, and time spent on analysis reduces the time spent on action to produce positive results. How to stop the negative cycle to build a personal brand and achieve business success? It starts with your beliefs and accepting what you can control and what you can't control. Your thoughts will create your results. How? We know that our thoughts trigger our emotions, our beliefs about ourselves, and our businesses. If you think you have to be perfect, how does that make you feel? Most likely, stressed, anxious, fearful, overwhelmed, confused, and unable to focus. When you have these feelings and emotions, what happens to the level of action that you take in your business or life? It diminishes. When you don't take action, you don't achieve results. So when you are struggling with the thoughts that everything needs to be perfect, ask yourself, perfect for who? Who do you have to be perfect for? Is anyone other than you expecting you to be perfect? Chances are, no. When you reflect on these questions you will inevitably come up with the answer that you yourself are putting the demand of perfection on yourself. Read the full blog post and access all links. Download the free eBook on how to build a strong foundation for long-term success if you need help getting started.

Fear and anxiety can hold you back from building the business of your dreams. If you want massive growth in your business, you need to overcome fear and invest in yourself. Want to see massive growth in your business? We all do! But first we have to overcome the fear that is holding us back. The keys to doing so are surrounding yourself with supportive like-minded people and investing in yourself by hiring a coach. Fear in Entrepreneurship will hold you back from massive growth in your business Fear can literally make us or break us. It can lead to procrastination, which can lead to paralysis. Fear is not something we experience only in our business, but also in life, in so many ways. Suzanne uses the analogy of a roller coaster as an analogy for fear. Often as entrepreneurs, we forget how far we've come, especially, after fear has held us back along our journey. Actions to take to overcome fear to achieve massive growth in your business For Suzanne, the first step in overcoming fear meant connecting with others who are on a similar journey and are as focused on helping her as she is on helping them. To provide a mirror for each other to see how great you are doing because you don't see it yourself. Sometimes, we have someone else to remind us that we have accomplished so much. When we support ourselves with others who will remind us of the things we needed to be reminded of. Second, Suzanne connected her procrastination and concerns with imperfection with depression and anxiety along her journey. Once she saw the connection and was able to name what she was experiencing, she realized she had to get help to overcome the underlying problems, depression, and anxiety feelings. It is so important to recognize our emotions. Robyn emphasized that as women and entrepreneurs we lose sight of what we have accomplished because we are so focused on what we still must do. An exercise that can help you recognize all that you have accomplished when feeling down about your business An exercise to do when you feel like you haven't meant your goals is to make a list of all the things that you have done. Start with 25 things that you have done well and that has helped your business. Include all the things you've done effectively and well, that have made an impact, including the distractions. Discovering when help is needed to overcome fear so that you can achieve massive growth in your business Suzanne shared her experience with a panic attack that landed her in the hospital. It is important to note that there is never shame in seeking help, in fact, it can be freeing. When you have mental health challenges, you and your significant others can't navigate them alone, and you can't just "get over it". Robyn emphasized that she has a chapter in You, Me, and Anxiety that addresses the concept of "get over it". Download Robyn's free eBook on Building a Strong Foundation for Business Success. Suzanne emphasized how much more she knows, how much more confident she is, and how much more she can help her clients through her experience with coaches and investing in herself. Our beliefs about ourselves are so fundamental to what we can accomplish Robyn mentioned that with clarity comes confidence. And when you have confidence in yourself, your clients are going to have more confidence in you. Likewise, when you have confidence in yourself you will trust yourself more. When you trust yourself, your audience and clients will trust you. Confidence is something that when in a place of fear, you think confidence isn't achievable, but when you get the help you need, you can become confident and convert your audience to clients. Read the full blog post and access all links.

Let's talk about navigating entrepreneurial anxiety. If you are an entrepreneur with anxiety, you may be struggling in many facets of your business, the first, creating a personal brand. Other areas anxiety may be holding you back include being present on social media, creating videos, writing blogs, scheduling sales calls, and building relationships. It's also possible that fear resulting from anxiety is keeping you in a cycle of procrastination. How to change your thoughts as an entrepreneur with anxiety I just provided a summary of my 5 C's of journaling method for navigating anxiety. To learn more you can read, You, Me, and Anxiety. But something important to note is that if we want it to, our faith can come before our thoughts. We can look to faith to influence our thoughts. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 5:7 to "cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." We can certainly pray and give our anxiety to God. He can help us navigate anxiety if we trust Him and allow the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts, guide us, and give us patience and wisdom. In Philippians 4:8 Paul writes "Finally, brothers, [sisters], whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. If we follow Paul's advice, we will think more positively and hopefully have fewer negative thoughts that result in limiting beliefs, deflated emotions, and inaction. Yes, anxiety will cause negative, fearful thoughts to creep into the minds of anxious entrepreneurs, but if you are an entrepreneur with anxiety, you can take action to start controlling your thoughts. It isn't easy and it takes time. You have to make this a daily practice. Using the 5 C's journaling method alongside prayer is empowering along with the other strategies I'll mention shortly. Start flipping the script in your mind. When a negative what if pops up, change it to a positive what if. I think you'll see a change in your anxiety levels and you'll definitely see a change in your productivity and results. Here are a few things you can do to help you navigate your anxiety on your journey of entrepreneurship. Stop mindless scrolling One of the best things you can do to decrease anxiety as an entrepreneur is to stop comparing yourself to others who are steps ahead of you. In fact, stop comparing yourself to anyone. You are on a journey of one, a journey of you. God has placed this calling, your purpose, on your heart. He knows that you have the talents, gifts, and abilities to accomplish what he's called you for. Be compassionate with yourself, the way you would be compassionate with your best friend. Set realistic expectations, not expectations based on what you see people doing online. Implement the 5 C's journaling method for anxiety Catch Challenge Change Control Confidence Step away When you are feeling anxious, step away from your work. Give yourself time to reset. Go for a walk, read a book, listen to music, get creative, pray, meditate, call a friend whom you know will be a positive light in your day. Set manageable goals Be realistic and compassionate when you set your goals. Start with 90-day goals, not annual goals. Break your 90-day goals down into three parts, one per month, and then break those down to three big tasks per month. Doing this will help you stay focused on smaller tasks, get to scratch them off your to-do list, and not become overwhelmed by increased anxiety, which may result in more procrastination. Create healthy habits The healthier your lifestyle, the healthier your mind will be. Eat a healthy well-balanced diet Exercise Drink plenty of water Get 8 hours of sleep each night Journal Meditate Do daily devotions Download my free guild to alleviate anxiety by creating healthy habits for a healthy mind. Practice Gratitude Creating a gratitude practice will help you navigate anxiety. How? Because you will begin to see all of the blessings you have, all of the things you've done right, the people who are supporting you or hiring you, how brave and talented you truly are. The more you practice gratitude, the more your brain will begin to see the positives around you and in your business and life and you won't go to that negative place of what-ifs as quickly. This takes time and practice, but it really does help you see the positives even in the worst scenarios in your business. Case in point. I have recently been on a PR frenzy because my book, You, Me, and Anxiety is publishing on March 15th. A local paper picked up my story. The article went out and there were errors. I could have focused on the errors and been extremely disappointed that the article wasn't perfect. But I chose to be grateful that the article was published, and more people are going to learn about me and the book, which means more people will have help with navigating their anxiety. And, I took that moment to thank the writer and asked if she could change the digital article. She did. Sometimes, if we can just stay calm and be grateful for the moment everyone wins. Ditch perfectionism Perfectionism is going to lead you to procrastination, which will lead you to paralysis. Sometimes, perfectionism begins with comparison, but often, it starts with anxiety and the innate need to do everything perfectly to avoid negative consequences. Realize that as entrepreneurs, we all do things wrong. And that is the beauty of entrepreneurship. We make mistakes and learn from them. We fail and must pick ourselves up. But if we never make mistakes or fail, we aren't learning, we aren't growing, and we'll never fully know what it's like to succeed. No one expects you to be perfect. Courteous, yes. Professional, yes. Authentic, yes. But perfect, no! Read the full blog post and access all links.

It isn't just a DIY source. Pinterest is a search engine and powerful tool to drive traffic to your website. Using Pinterest for business is an excellent and time-saving way to get more clients and more sales! How to start using Pinterest for business Step one is to create a business account. Then you must decide who it is you want to serve. You need to have a very specific niche that you are targeting. To begin, do a keyword search on Pinterest. Search for a key phrase that your ideal client might be searching for. Pinterest will then begin filling in the rest of the phrase and then you can use that longtail keyword in your posts. Rachel used the example of intermittent fasting. You don't have to use the exact phrase; you can include the words within a sentence or phrase. The key phrase needs to be very specific. Robyn emphasized how the practice of using longtail keywords is going to help with blogging and SEO as well. When using Pinterest for business create Pinterest boards and pins Pinterest boards It is important to use longtail keywords as Pinterest board titles. Pinterest has metrics that is used for pulling content. It will pull content based on the board titles first so the board title should be niche specific. Pinterest pins Marketing is testing. Test different types of pins for blog posts to discover what your audience is responding to. Rachel recommended using the Advanced Marketing Institute Headline Analyzer when selecting titles. Use this tool for testing the emotional marketing value of the title. Use this to create the title on a sales page, opt-in page, or email and your pins. There are multiple types of pins you can create. Static pins, which you can easily create and duplicate in Canva, test color combinations, and test animated pins too and see what your audience responds to. It is best to have a bold color on the post and bold text to stop the scroll. What are idea pins? Pinterest is a search engine. In the past, it was a platform used to take traffic off Pinterest and to your website. They created communities that were like Facebook groups, but then got rid of them. Now they have idea pins which are like Instagram stories. Rachel isn't sure if it is going to stay or not. You can repurpose Instagram stories for idea pins. The downside to idea pins is that people can't click on them to go to your website. However, the views on idea pins are much higher so they will help boost engagement with followers. The key is to provide value and have a call to action like "here are a few tips, go to this easy URL to see the last two tips". Read the full blog post and access all links. Download the How to Build a Successful Business eBook

How this Entrepreneur is Empowering Women Through Fashion and Stories As women, we have so many similarities. A love for fashion is one of them, as are so many of life's challenges and experiences. Jill Strickland Brown is empowering women through fashion to help them embrace their stories and journeys and feel confident and beautiful. Empowering women through fashion is a gift Jill Strickland Brown shares with her clients, friends, and everyone she meets. She accomplishes this through her clothing boutique and her recently published book, Behind the Button. Women supporting women When given the opportunity to connect with someone like-minded, don't hesitate. Reach out, connect, build relationships, and support one another. This is key to future female empowerment. When empowering women through fashion, Jill helps build confidence When we don't have confidence in how we look, we don't have confidence in how we feel. This leads us to not put ourselves into the world to make a difference. Jill's purpose of empowering women through fashion emerged Originally, Jill set out to sell clothing. However, her purpose emerged over the years to help other women feel confident to go forth and do the good they are meant to do. Over the years she's realized that we as women are all threaded together and are more alike than different. Read the full blog post and access all links. Download the How to Build a Successful Business eBook

Launching a program, course, or even an event can be taxing. But if you have a pre-launch strategy with good pre-launch copy the official launch can feel like smooth sailing. Having a pre-launch copy strategy can save you energy and help you convert more of your audience to buyers during the official launch. Is copy the magic bullet for your business? People often think that copy is the magic bullet for getting new clients. But it's really a combination of things, your website, your social media, the offer, your marketing strategy, and your copy. Why is pre-launch copy important? Brenna started noticing that people are putting time and effort into launching but not into the pre-launch phase. She saw an opportunity to take the copy and launch experience she had and add her strategy skills to help people create the pre-launch content they need to get a conversion. It isn't only the over-arching strategy, but the ability to map it out effectively. If your message isn't consistent you will cause confusion and lose people. Every step and every message has to be aligned for an effective launch. Read the full show notes and access all links. Download the How to Build a Successful Business eBook Schedule a complimentary strategy assessment with Robyn.

What are the keys to overcoming shame? Shame and abuse can hold you back and result in living with worry, fear, and anxiety. One key to overcoming shame is faith in God and self-acceptance through His grace. Overcoming shame can seem impossible. One has to recognize shame is at the root of the experiences, feelings, and thoughts before action can be taken. How do you recognize and overcome shame? Anxiety is, in part, a physical manifestation of unresolved emotions and one of those emotions is shame. Most people don't recognize shame unless they truly sit with it. People may harbor negative thoughts about themselves and it takes recognizing those thoughts to change them and overcome them. Using faith and acceptance from God to overcome shame, trauma, anxiety, and worry Gina emphasized that if she is a child of God, she can't be the awful person that she thought she was. She learned that her body and mind were responding to sexual and emotional abuse and that she wasn't crazy after realizing she was unconditionally loved. Gina used affirmations of Bible passages to remind herself of what God says about who she is. Fearfully and wonderfully made. More beautiful than rubies. These Bible verses are good affirmations for women to use as entrepreneurs. Instead of worrying, and sitting in a place of fear and anxiety, how can we accept God's love to overcome these thoughts? Gina uses visualization or imagination to remind herself that God is with her and loving her. The question becomes are you receiving God's love? Sit and open your palms and just receive. It's a choice We all have a choice to receive God's love and acceptance and peace instead of sitting in a place of worry. People may think they are not worthy of God's love and peace. The story of the prodigal son is a great reminder of God's grace and acceptance. God is always happy when we come to Him. Read the full show notes and access all links. Download my guide to alleviating anxiety and developing healthy habits for a healthy mind.

Life can transform when you heal your inner child and have gratitude - find your path of oneness. When we recognize our inner child and the experiences we've had on our life's journey as having been done for us, we can heal, find a path of oneness, and transform our lives. The past and the experiences we've had on our life journey lead us right to where we are meant to be today. If you have been feeling less than or stuck, or that you are on the wrong track, remember, God has a plan for you, and everything you have and will experience, good and bad, are part of his grand plan for you. The unrecognized deep-rooted seeds of childhood In her 20's, Ellen felt like she'd transcended her past. But what she didn't appreciate were the seeds planted and deeply rooted within her that told her she was unlovable. Although her adult brain told a different story, deep inside her she felt unlovable and this fact informed everything about her journey. Discovering what your inner child is telling you When Ellen works with her clients she listens to them and overserves patterns in their choices and experiences. The patterns that emerge in our lives are the gold of therapy. They are actually our greatest gift. Themes of abandonment, perfectionism, low self-esteem, she hones in and the next question is to discover where this feeling of abandonment began. The patterns always have roots in our childhood. It is important to address the challenges we experience in life. Ellen focuses her work on addressing the challenges and not seeing them as problems. What we have are opportunities to learn. to learn to love ourselves more and experience greater self-acceptance. So what exactly is inner child work? There is no standardization of what inner child work is. But for Ellen, it means bypassing the cognitive thinking frontal lobe of our brain and tapping into our subconscious. She calls it our heart, but you could call it the hindbrain or primitive brain. This is where the pain of childhood rests. The point of inner child work is not to make you believe that your childhood was bad. Even if you had a joy-filled, loving childhood, we all emerge from childhood with pain, things we need to work on. It is important to look at experiences with gratitude instead of a victim mentality. We can take our experiences and use them to serve others. Our experiences can be seen as opportunities. It is important to recognize the victim mentality versus the opportunity mentality. Pain and suffering versus gratitude and opportunity. Read the full show notes and access all links. Download my guide to alleviating anxiety and developing healthy habits for a healthy mind.

This bonus episode is from a life training conducted in The Female Entrepreneur Insider Facebook Group. If you'd like to watch future trainings live, join The Female Entrepreneur Insider Facebook Group here. When thinking about time management, how much time do we actually have, can we manage it, or is it about prioritizing it? It is realistic to think that time management will bring success? Is time management actually possible? Time management, if there is such a thing is certainly unique to each individual. We all have the same 1440 minutes in a day. Likewise, we all have 96 15-minute blocks of time in one day. It is a necessity to give 32 15-minute blocks to rest. Sleep is so important for physical and emotional health as well as for productivity. That leaves 64 15-minute blocks of time to do life, work, and build relationships. Time management and choice. How you use this time is your choice. You get to choose how you spend your time and what you do with the time you are given each day. Notice, I didn't say you get to manage how your spend your time, I said you get to choose how you spend your time. Time is not manageable. We all have the exact same amount of time every day. Whether we have enough time or not is dependent on the choices we make and how we choose to use the 64 15-minute blocks of time. You can accomplish a lot in 15-minutes if you choose to use the minutes wisely. Losing yourself in the scroll on Instagram is not going to produce results. But, using 15-minutes to write a blog post, create a list of content for the week, schedule appointments, listen to a podcast, exercise, pray, get fresh air, or make a healthy meal, will produce positive results. Read the full show notes and access all links. Schedule a complimentary strategy assessment with me today.