Month: October 2020

Tips for Staying Motivated on Your Journey to Self-Love

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Over the last few weeks, I have been experiencing what we call a creative funk here at themusingsofmara.com. I’ve talked about my process of dealing with creative funks in a post before, and one of the ways I deal with this is go to straight to the reason I create content: my audience! I asked my followers on Instagram what kind of posts did they want me to write. One of good friends and supporters wanted to know how to stay motivated while working on your self-love, even when it feels like you’re not seeing results quickly enough. I thought it was a great topic.

I’ll be honest, lately I’ve been struggling with my own self-love. My body-image has especially been a struggle since moving and the pandemic led to me gaining a good amount of weight and snacking wayyyy more than I was when I was going to a gym 4x a week. However, aside from that, I like to think I’ve come a long-way on my self-love journey in the last few years. In undergrad my self-talk was not kind at all. Now I catch myself when I am mean to myself. I’m going to try my best to explain how to stay motivated on your own journey to self-love.

Do something small related to self-love every day

I think when people think of cultivating their self-love, they think it needs to be a bunch of work every day. While that may make your journey progress faster (or not, it differs by person), you can also change your mindset by doing one small thing every day. For example, I have this fitness journal and one of the daily prompts in it is says “Today I love my body because _____” and then you fill in the blank. I notice when I’m adamant about filling this out every morning in like 5 mins, I have more positive outlook on my body for the rest of the day and overall.

Realize that you can’t rush it

There is no proper timeline for achieving self-love. There is no finish line. It is a lifelong journey that also works in cycles, at least that’s what I believe. By rushing yourself to progress, you will only frustrate yourself and create more negative feelings about yourself. Be patient with yourself and understand that you are trying to do a lifetime of negative self-talk and limiting beliefs. It will take time and that’s okay.

Track your wins & progress

The best way to stay motivated is to make note of your progress, no matter how small! Even if it seems like something that’s not noteworthy, write it down! For example, if you notice that you’ve gone a whole day without a negative thought about yourself: write it down! If you notice that you had a negative thought but then you countered it with a positive affirmation, write it down! If you remembered to say your positive affirmations every day for 3 days in a row: you guessed it, write it down! You will stay motivated if you realize you actually ARE progressing. Don’t undermine that progress and see where you need work.

Follow people/accounts that make you feel good about yourself

I’m obsessed with Instagram accounts that have positive quotes and illustrations related to self-love. If you follow me, you know that I’m always sharing these types of posts on my IG stories. As someone who spends A LOT of time on social media, it’s so important for me to create a space that makes me feel happy and work towards self-love and it’s just as important for YOU.

Realize you’re only human & won’t be perfect

Give yourself grace during your self-love journey. Some days will be better than others and as I mentioned earlier, there is no proper timeline for self-love. Striving for perfection stops progress. Achieving self-love ongoing process and you are human so you might not always be perfect at it. Do it anyways and be disciplined in doing so. If you are disciplined and do something related to self-love every day, you will be amazed at how far you will come in a year.

Fostering self-love is hard but completely worth it. You may feel like you aren’t moving towards self-love fast enough, but that’s not true! You’re moving at the pace necessary for your own journey. You’re doing amazing sweetie! Don’t worry.

Please refer back to this blog post whenever you need to and share it with your friends!

4 Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Deciding to Collab with a Brand

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Hello readers! It’s been a little over a month since I shared my last post (sorry!) I know y/all probably get sick of me and my excuses, but this semester has been a wild one. Virtual law school did not come to play with us this Fall 2020, okay?! So much has happened since then but two super exciting things that have happened include me ending my recording hiatus for my podcast, Handle Your Scandal. You can find my most recent episodes here and here. Additionally, I landed my first paid Instagram post with a company! I knew I wanted to land one by the end of 2020 so landing one two months before the year ended has made me so happy. I’m hopeful to have more paid opportunities in the future.

My paid post led to one my friends and fellow creative to ask to write a post on how I decide what brands to work with. I think this is such an important question. When it comes to being an online content creator who is either paid or gifted products to post, you have a responsibility to be super selective about what companies you decide to promote. In order to help you do that, I will give you a few questions I ask to navigate that decision-making process.  

1. Does this company align with who I am as a person?

If a company does not align with me as an individual, then I won’t work with them. Period. There isn’t really much more to add to that. Hopefully you know who you are and what you stand for. Don’t work with companies that conflict with that, no matter how much they are offering.

2. Does this company fit with my online brand?

Being clear on your brand is so important before you start working with companies, especially if there are certain aspects of yourself that don’t necessarily fit with your brand. For example, my brand is all about motivating millennials and gen z to live a well-balanced life. What I consider a well-balanced life includes making time for school/work, our own wellness, fitness goals, and personal development while I also run a blog. I also have other things that help me achieve this like drinking coffee/matcha, working out, and more. There are certain parts of my life that don’t really align with my brand. If I was to suddenly talking about being the perfect girlfriend or something like that, my followers would be confused. I keep this in mind and won’t really do anything related to relationships in my content because that’s not what my brand currently is. I could easily change that in the future, but for now, it’s not that. This means I maybe wouldn’t collab with a dating app UNLESS I felt that it would be useful to my audience, which leads to the next question I ask myself.

3. Does this company/product align with my audience and help them?

While it’s good to be clear on your brand, sometimes things outside of your brand could potentially help your audience as well. My audience (on instagram and my podcast) is made up of mostly women who are between the ages of 20-35. While a company might not align with my personal brand, it still might be something that could potentially help my audience. If something does not align with my brand at all, it would have to help me audience in a tremendous way in order for me to even consider working with them.

4. Would I use this product if I wasn’t getting paid to do so?

When it comes to gifted products, I’m a little less strict because I feel more comfortable telling my followers “This company sent me this and I tried it out, here’s what I think” as opposed to “You should definitely try this product!” If I know that I could not see myself using something if I wasn’t getting paid or something in return for it, then it I will not work with that company. Being authentic with my audience is extremely important to me and one of my top priorities as a content creator. I will not promote something to them that I know I don’t like/wouldn’t use.

These are some of the questions I ask myself before I decide to work with a company. If you struggle answering any of these questions because of lack of clarity in your own brand, then you definitely need to get clear on that before you want to get paid to post anything. Lacking clarity in these areas means that your brand needs some more work before you get to that stage of being an online content creator. You gotta crawl before you walk and walk before you run. If you are able to figure these things out, you will have no trouble knowing what companies you want to work with (and what companies you want to avoid.)

I hope this post helps you figure out exactly how to determine what companies to work with. When I was offered my first paid post, I was so excited! However, it’s important to remember your values and integrity as you navigate the influencer marketing world.

Do you have any more questions about deciding which brands to work with? Would you like to see more posts like this? Let me know in the comments.

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