I have to admit, even since deciding I’m going to challenge myself to a 30 day blog challenge, so many writing ideas have come to me. So to the second point in yesterday’s post, so far that’s working!

Wanting to write more made me think about how I was writing and sharing in the past. I used to share quite a lot, actually, so I started wondering, why’d I stop? And there’s actually a few reasons.

Have you ever sat down to carve out your goals? I start out by letting myself dream about what I want our life to look like in the future. And I mean really dream. There are no limits. If our life could be everything we ever wanted it to be, what would it look like? That’s where my goals start. Then I ask myself, how do we make that happen?

So when we set up our goals, our life goals come first, and my business goals are designed to align with those life goals. One of my personal goals is to be present. I don’t like to be so tied to my phone that instead of actually having face to face conversations, I’m glued to a screen.

I became a lot more intentional about that several years ago, putting down my phone while having dinner or keeping it in my pocket when I was just spending time with someone. It means texts sometimes don’t get answered for hours but it also means that the person or people I’m with are truly getting my attention. For me, it makes my relationships more full. I really value that.

Even though I had been posting more on social media, which had been a business goal of mine, I started to feel like I was constantly thinking about stories I wanted to share and it felt like I was literally thinking about it all the time. You know how you can get lost in thought and aren’t really present? That’s where I was at.

I didn’t like how much of my real life that seemed to take up — thinking about what stories I was going to share on social media instead of living them in real life. I wanted to find a balance.

That’s a bit ironic, too, because part of writing is seeing a story in everything, and I think I’d gotten pretty good at doing that. Still, I wanted to take a step back and reevaluate. How could I be both present and see the stories?

Another reason is that sharing on social media and blogging are a part of business strategy, but I really didn’t want to feel like I was only doing it for business purposes instead of doing it because it felt true to me and because I actually wanted to share.

Writing about my photography clients is so easy for me because it really lights me up! When I’m telling my husband about a wedding or session I did, he says I get so excited, and it’s obvious that it’s something I’m passionate about.

But sometimes posting because you feel like you “have to” doesn’t really feel authentic. I didn’t want to feel like that, I wanted to find a balance that genuinely felt good, like it was something I wanted to do that also wasn’t taking over my life.

These days there are lots of people saying that if you have a business you HAVE to have xyz…an Instagram, a website, a blog, a podcast, and so on. But I studied business in college and have been researching for years what works and what doesn’t, and the research just doesn’t always agree with needing social media or a website. It truly depends on the business and the goals. I’ve met thriving businesses who don’t do social media well (or at all) or don’t have a website.

Lastly and most importantly, I’m currently in my mom era. I’ve dreamed of being a mom for basically my whole life. After being afraid that I was getting too old to see that dream become a reality, I’m not taking a second of this blessing for granted.

Our sweet baby girl is six months old and I’m soaking up as much of every milestone as possible. So everything I do now has to fit in around being a mom. That’s been one of the biggest challenges of being a mom: I want to be present for my baby and for my goals.

Now that I’m getting back into finding stories and writing about them (through blogging, at least), the blogging journey definitely has a bit of finding balance in it all.

Thank you for being here and allowing me to share my heart around this. 🙂 Talk soon!

xoxo,

Cindi