Lilian
Feb 18, 20236 min
When I made the decision to start my business as a freelance copywriter and marketing strategist as a college student, I did so because I really wanted to build my portfolio to show brands looking for in-house marketing and writing professionals what I could do. I wanted to build my skills, learn from knowledgeable industry professionals and prove to brands and to myself that I could develop a portfolio.
The freedom I found developing my own business changed my mind about getting an in-house position. It allowed me to embrace being an entrepreneur and forge my own path on discovering the types of projects and brands I wanted to collaborate with, and build experience learning about other industries and their needs.
Working as a copywriter, social media strategist and later, a publicist, I dedicated my career to crafting compelling brand stories for clients to grow their brands, building fun social media campaigns to increase fan fervor, and launching publicity campaigns to help indie film, food and tourism clients gain mainstream and international recognition.
I celebrated clients showcasing their talent at festivals such as San Diego Comic Con, and Toronto International Film Festival, landing interviews in mainstream media such as PopSugar, CBC, BBC and beyond. I didn’t realize it then, but in the back of my mind, I was trying to ignore the fatigue and the burn out that threatened to overwhelm me.
Why did this happen? Because I didn't prioritize my mindset and mental health as an entrepreneur. I spent over a decade believing that I had to strain myself to work on weekends, answer emails ASAP, and compete as a service provider to lowball pricing my skills, in order to get any work at all.
As a result, I was burnt out and exhausted daily, as my anxiety made a good night's sleep nearly impossible. I developed a chronic digestive illness that had frequent flare-ups, causing me to lose even more sleep, and my enjoyment of cooking and baking. I didn't love running my business anymore, and I wanted a change.
When I came to that epiphany, I knew I needed help and that impartial, outside perspective to tell me what I needed to change.
From the moment I started working with my mindset coach, I came to a few realizations: 1) Running my business according to the status quo was draining my energy and my joy. I believed my only option in the industry was to be a service provider because most PR agencies and publicists in my industry were service providers. I couldn’t see any other options, until I started working with my mindset coach.
My mindset coach reminded me that I had over a decade of experience working in publicity and public relations that I could utilize in a different way. As a service provider, I kept hearing the same stories of price negotiations, entrepreneurs not getting the campaign results they wanted because they didn’t have the confidence or education to advocate for their needs, lack of promotion and more. And I wanted to do what I could to change that narrative.
Because of that, I believed it was time to refresh how I ran my business, to conserve my energy, embrace that joy again, and focus on providing that education to give entrepreneurs and brands that knowledge, and skill to help them gain the confidence to make public relations work for them.
By becoming a PR coach, I also 2) came to a realization about my need for control. So much of my stress, anxiety and chronic illness flare-ups were because of how I couldn’t let go of my need for control, my desire to affect the results of campaigns, and my concerns about financial stability.
Letting go of my need for control over things I didn’t have control over, gave me the freedom to focus on what I could do on a daily basis.
Instead of obsessing over my lack of control over things like the response to the social media content I shared, I took a different approach, deciding to focus on the value I was sharing and the impact I was making.
Instead of worrying about audience responses or whether I would gain hundreds of discovery calls from the content I was putting out there, I focused on the educational value I was putting out there, with the belief that the content would resonate with those entrepreneurs who were ready to hear it and willing to learn.
If it was my goal to educate entrepreneurs and brands on the power of public relations, and to help them push past limiting beliefs and their mindset blocks regarding the PR myths, I knew I couldn’t do that if I was still afraid of losing control, obsessing over results or responses to my content.
If I was going to educate them on how to ‘walk the walk’ on developing a healthier mindset surrounding PR and marketing, I needed to show them how I ‘walked the walk’ by talking about my own mindset philosophy.
As I let go of my need for control, my daily mindset philosophy surrounding work and tasks was reframed from ‘I need to finish 20 things on my to-do list to be productive’ to ‘If I do one thing today, I’ll consider it a win, because I accomplished something.’
Having that freedom allowed me to factor self care into my work days, embrace pacing myself through tasks, and find joy through them because I could devote the time and energy they deserved.
My physical health also improved, as letting go of my need for control helped me decompress, letting go of stress, and anxiety, which resulted in better night’s sleep, and fewer flare ups from my chronic illness.
Reframing my mindset didn’t mean I no longer felt those moments of panic or a loss of control. But unlike my first decade in business, I now have the tools I need to help me push past those moments of mindset blocks. I meditate, use self hypnosis tracks made for me from my mindset coach and I have a set of mantras I use including:
-I have enough time to pace myself through this task because I started early. There’s no rush.
-I’m consistently providing educational value through my content and my workshops. It’s not for everyone, it’s for the people who are ready to hear it, so I don’t need to worry about everyones’ responses.
-I believe in the value and the power of what I do-and how it can change lives and businesses, because it’s changed mine. It will resonate with the people who want that education, empowerment and to take charge of their own brands and careers.
-Building relationships takes time, but it’s that time that will make the partnerships we build over the course of working together much stronger.
3) I also learned how to let go of my fear of being vulnerable, in order to share my story of my experiences as an entrepreneur. I spent years being afraid of sharing how I pushed back against cultural traditions and a lack of support to build my business, of how resilience has been a part of my life since birth, and how I fought for the life I wanted to live, in spite of so much uncertainty, because I had been judged before. I had been condemned to fail, browbeaten, criticized and controlled on the choices that I made.
But in reframing my perspective to acknowledge that my audiences were not the people who had judged me previously, and they were following me because they wanted to hear from me, allowed me to feel safe getting vulnerable about my journey, and why it’s shaped my current business approach.
I learned that sharing what you do won’t help you build genuine rapport with audiences because there are thousands that do what you do. What will build trust and credibility between both parties is for them to learn more about you. What inspires you? Why do you do what you do? How do you do it and why do you believe in it? People want to buy from people they trust, and in order for them to trust you, they have to have your story resonate with them.
I found freedom in talking about how I rebelled as an entrepreneur, both personally and professionally, how I battled health conditions and lack of financial stability. I could share my own narrative about how recognizing my own physical and mental limits allowed me to shape my business in ways that supported me, instead draining me, as it had done for years.
Through my mindset work, I recognized that many of the scenarios I had believed in that had previously held me back, were not fact, they were driven by fear and my desire for control. And in sharing my story the ways I saw fit, and focusing on providing value and a positive impact to clients and audiences alike, I rediscovered the joy and the energy that had been missing in my business for so long.
It’s my hope that by reading this article, you learn how burnout and fatigue can develop when you don’t prioritize your energy and your joy, how to reframe your mindset to focus on what you can control, and let go of what you can’t, and some ideas on how to develop your own set of mantras to push past mindset blocks as they come up.