by Amy | May 18, 2017 | singing
When I ask this question, “Are you going all in?”, a lot of you would answer with an emphatic “Yes! Of course I am!” You may be taking voice lessons. You may practice on occasion or even perform with regularity. But I’m going to ask it again personally and see if it really resonates with you. Are you really going all in? When it comes to improving your singing and really making a valid effort in practicing and fine-tuning your technique or learning that difficult song or setting up that audition, can you honestly answer that you are giving your singing your all and putting your best foot forward when it comes to crafting your talent?
I ask this question, because I know how motivation comes in waves. I know how we can be so ON FIRE to do something great and be the best we can be. I know how it feels to be inspired by another great singer who has accomplished amazing achievements and be driven to do the same. We get serious. For a while. We may even land a gig during this wave of inspiration. And then, out of the blue, something happens. We get sick. A friend dies. Our car breaks down. We get a new job. We lose our job. We move. Our house is a mess. Our finances are in disarray. We meet someone. We have kids. A child needs our attention. And then everything we were once certain we were supposed to be aiming for goes by the wayside and sits until we can pick it up and handle it again. Months go by. Sometimes years. We wade through our days keeping ourselves busy with mundane tasks that don’t fulfill us. We feel like something is out of sync, but we can’t figure out why. And then it hits us. We haven’t been singing! That pursuit we once thought was WHO we were…what we were meant to do…has evaded us. At one time, however, thought it was our life breath. We knew we wanted to be better and hone our craft and eventually sing for the world to hear, and then life happened, and without even trying to do so, we put our voices on the shelf.
I know about the void of not singing all too well. After years of honing my technique and working steadily at my singing throughout my undergraduate degree in Kansas City, Missouri, I moved to Europe to pursue singing as a career. I went all in. But eventually, after months of auditioning and working with coaches and voice teachers, the toll of brutal criticism, trying to survive in a foreign country and being broke and homesick just flat out wore me down. Initially, I would practice religiously and never miss a moment to work on a piece of music or vocalize. But auditioning and the lifestyle of being a singer was something I really struggled with emotionally. Looking back, I had very few resources at my fingertips to overcome the weariness and fear-paralysis I was dealing with on a daily basis. In the midst of trying to survive in Vienna, Austria and pursue my singing profession, I eventually found a full-time job at an American university that allowed me to obtain my work and residency permits. This was a great thing! And I was very fortunate to have found this position as it allowed me to stay in Vienna and pursue my goals. And while working there, I eventually met my husband and fell over the moon in love! All of this was so great, and I was so happy, and my life was coming into order (or so it felt), but I soon found that my time for singing was dwindling. Where I used to have days on end to practice and sift through music, I now found myself working 10 hour days and spending my evenings with my new found love. Days turned into weeks and weeks to months. And gradually, without even noticing, I started to put my voice and career aside as I was falling out of the habit of singing. Until one day, I just noticed I felt different. Empty. Strange. Lifeless. I kept thinking, “What’s wrong with me?” I considered that perhaps that I might be depressed. And then, one day, I finally forced myself over to my piano and began singing. And to my surprise, it was like a balm to my soul. It was the drop of water in the midst of the desert. I had been needing this all along, but I was skimping on the one of the few things that fed me and gave me life and joy: singing!
So I am asking again: Are you going all in? And if you say you are definitely going all in, what are you doing every single day to make it happen? If not, what are some things you can do to guard yourself from losing steam when life happens or get back on track with your singing after you’ve been derailed?
I ask you these questions, because I really want you to have a strategy for singing success. The world has enough so-so singers with no game plan. What I want you to have in your pocket, however, is a fool-proof method that keeps you on track and doesn’t allow you to venture too far before returning to the practice room and finding your groove again. For many of us, singing feels like a natural extension of ourselves. We can’t NOT do it. And when we’re in the thick of it and doing it, we feel exhilarated and know we can’t live without it. Others have said this about running (although, I’ve never been able to relate to that personally!) You may have chosen another profession to pay the bills and you may have chosen not to go down the road of starving artist, but I guarantee you, you do love to sing, and it brings something alive in you that nothing else, no place, no person, no thing could ever do. When we briefly step away from our singing to deal with life, it can become a subtle breakup. But it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to signal the end of something we love…where we carry the void of not singing with us for the rest of our lives like a martyr carries a heavy load. We can work it back in and rediscover our joy and take our portion of that balm that heals our souls and fulfills us in a way that many other pursuits cannot do.
Before I sign off, I just want to challenge you and encourage you today. I don’t know if you have been pursuing singing as a profession or as a recreation, or maybe you’ve never really pursued singing, even though you’ve perhaps desperately wanted to. But I want you to put one foot in front of the other and just do it! Make the time. Create the space. If you can’t do all the things you might have been able to do when you started, it’s OK. It’s like riding a bike. You don’t forget. Just ease back into it and start singing again. If you’ve never pursued singing and you know you need to, now is your chance! You’re in the right place, my friend. You’ll be a better person for it. And the world will be better for being able to hear you!
Go all in.
xoxo,
Amy
Do you want to get my 8 Proven Strategies for Going All In with your singing? Sign up here, and I”ll send you over a free printable download you can hang up on your studio wall! In addition, I’ll go into great detail with you about what I mean with each of these strategies via an email series. You won’t want to miss it!!
by Amy | May 11, 2017 | singing
When someone is beginning to learn how to sing or coming back to singing after a number of years, there are so many moving parts that it can quickly become overwhelming and cause even the most driven of singers to become faint at heart and confused. When a new concept is introduced, we work on it and work on it until we’ve finally mastered it, and in the back of an inexperienced singer’s mind, we think we’ve figured it all out. Until a new concept is introduced. I remember the feeling, for instance, after I had mastered utilizing my face mask, feeling so exhilarated that I had FINALLY figured out how to resonate without pushing…until my teacher began talking about vibrato and how it is important for the sound to resonate but also be free and able to vibrate. Oh, and then there’s that whole balance thing (chiaroscuro)! Ugh!!
I also remember struggling through voice lessons. I began singing at an early age, but most of my early teachers were mainly piano teachers or ladies who sang solos at our church. They weren’t necessarily “voice teachers” who knew the vocal apparatus and how my voice was supposed to function or how to teach me. One of my “voice teachers” was even half deaf, so I have no idea how she even heard me sing — let alone knew how well I was doing. Each of these teachers usually just helped me learn a song and would kindly pat me on the back and tell me I was doing a good job. In high school, I worked with my choir teacher a few times preparing for upcoming solo competitions, but I was never really exposed to vocal pedagogy until I went on to college.
Even in college, at the Conservatory of Music at UMKC in Kansas City, I studied with one very seasoned elderly woman my freshman year and was convinced that everything she said was biblical truth…until she let me go to take on more serious voice majors (since I was a lowly music education major), and I had to find another teacher. I worked with the teacher she referred me to for a year, and then realized I was getting nowhere vocally and switched teachers my junior year to work with the teacher I stayed with for the rest of my undergrad degree. Suffice it to say, each of these teachers had very different and sometimes opposing vocal techniques. I was driven, but I was also highly frustrated with the huge discrepancy in what they were teaching. I knew I had a lot of pieces of a pretty large puzzle, but I didn’t know how they all fit together.
After I graduated with my undergraduate degree in Music Education, I went to study voice at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria for 8 weeks during the summer of 1999. There, I was exposed to even more teachers and theories on vocal production, breathing and performing. I loved all that I learned and soaked it in like a sponge, but I also realized again just how different various people taught and couldn’t make heads or tails on what I was doing correctly or incorrectly. This experience in Graz led me to pursue a Rotary Scholarship so I could go back to Europe and study with the best teachers the world had to offer (or so I thought). What I quickly realized while there, however, was that these teachers were even more diverse in their approach to singing, and I was, once again, even more confused. I think, by this time, I had studied with roughly 10 teachers in a period of 7 or 8 years. This will do some damage to your psyche and your soul! But I persevered…
After spending a few years studying and singing professionally in Vienna, Austria, I was ready to get serious about my vocal progress and go back to the States to get my master’s in vocal performance. I knew if I was ever to have a career as a singer I needed to sort through all the confusion and make sense of this mumbo jumbo in my head. After getting married to my husband in Vienna in 2004, we decided to move back to the States where I, again, began studying with various voice teachers and pursuing singing as a profession. In 2006, I began my master’s program at the University of Texas at San Antonio with a professor who helped guide me through all the voices in my head and sort out all of the correct and incorrect information I had received over years of studying voice. It was then and only then that I was finally able to put the pieces of the puzzle together and develop a proven technique that was healthy and uh-um anatomically correct. I’ll explain that in a minute…
You see…you don’t have to take voice lessons for long to discover that there is so much nonsense and flat out false information in this profession. Did that statement surprise you? Well, it’s true. There are a lot of phonies and fakes within the “noble profession” of teaching singers, and my goal is to see to it that no one else out there has to experience what I have had to experience as a budding singer. To be brutally honest, because, let’s face it, that’s all I can be…there are wayyyyy too many singers out there who end up becoming teachers, but they have no idea how the voice actually works! It’s so bad that many people tend to refer to the vocal faculty at well-known, renowned music conservatories as the “graveyard for retired singers”. For some reason, you could have absolutely NO background in vocal pedagogy as a teaching professor, but if you happen to have a long resume of solo performances to your credit, you are coveted in the university profession. It’s sad, and there are some exceptions, but it’s true. What’s also true is that these retired singers/now teachers, while well-meaning, are many times still very ego driven, and in my experience, their background and fame and experience outweigh their ability to detect a vocal issue and find a technical way to resolve it. Rather, they talk down to students who aren’t as prolific or perhaps don’t possess the natural ability to sing like they do. How many times have I sat in a lesson I paid good money for listening to how great the teacher was or a story how “back when I sang…we used to…and one time the conductor did this or that…and, well, it looks like our time is up! That’ll be $60!” I realize there are more and more efforts made nowadays to counter this ongoing problem, but in many cases, both at the university level and privately, this issue still remains in full swing!
I realize it may seem I’ve gone off on a tangent and gone into too much detail, but that’s ok. I hope I’ve helped you understand who I am and what I have gone through as a singer so you can learn from some of my misfortune. I’m here to make that journey with you and help you become your greatest you! And if I have to share some not so amazing things in order to accomplish that, it’s fine with me!
So…(big sigh) after going through all of that over a period of roughly 10 years, I came out on the other side with 10 Rs for Successful Singing. That’s right! I’ve complied an easy go-to checklist to help you stay on track as a singer and not get caught up in how to manage all the moving parts simultaneously. I go into these 10 Rs in detail in my Unveil My Voice course which will launch this September 2017, but because you took the time to read this long post (poor you!), I have included a little cheat sheet here and will dive into it over the course of a series of blog posts.
Thanks so much for stopping by and being a part of this amazing community of like-minded singers! I hope you take the time to subscribe to this blog so you can continue receiving information.
xoxo,
Amy
by Amy | May 10, 2017 | singing
So many people out there have amazing singing voices, but if they never take the time to hone their vocal skills and learn vocal technique, they are one of the millions of wanna-be singers who are limited to singing in their bedroom, shower or car and potentially never sharing their voices with the world! How sad is that?
Worse than never sharing their voices with the world, however, are “wanna-be” singers that share their voices with too many people before they are trained and ready. As much as I love to advocate putting yourself out there, I firmly believe that singing for others after the cute age of 12 needs to done in a manner that is thought out and prepared for. We live in a generation of YouTube and Facebook where many people are showcasing their “talent”, but I think it’s always a win-win if those people have been consistently training their voices and fine-tuning their skills prior to singing for the world.
Another scenario I often see is people with extraordinary voices who are limited in their vocal ability simply because they don’t learn the fundamentals and consistently work on their voices and implement the things they’ve learned into their voices. As they say, “Knowledge is power,” and the simple act of getting serious about one’s voice can open up a world he/she never knew existed.
Because of this, I’ve compiled a quick list of 10 REASONS WHY YOU NEED VOCAL TRAINING:
1. You feel like you’ve got a good voice.
If you personally feel like you have a good voice, chances are, you do! That might sound strange, because we all know of people who love to sing (think Florence Foster Jenkins), but they have absolutely NO business doing so. But that is a rare exception. Most of us have a natural affinity toward things we’re good at. In other words, we are magnetically drawn to activities we can excel in and we resist activities where we struggle. It’s human nature. So, if you feel in your heart of hearts like you are good at singing, then you probably are!
2. Other people praise your singing.
Again, what goes through most of our heads is the preliminary auditions for American Idol where the guy walks in and gets booed for even being there in the first place. And there’s always some comment like, “My Grandma said I was the best singer she’s ever heard.” This is not what I’m talking about though. If quite a few people (besides your Grandma) have commented on your amazing voice, chances are you have an amazing voice. And if so, you need to take that voice seriously and get it trained!
3. You look longingly at professional singers and think to yourself, “I want to do that!”
Admiring other singers is one thing, but if you are constantly drawn to their level of ability, vocal range or skill, and in your mind you think to yourself, “I want to do that!” or “I could do that better than her or him!” then chances are, you should! And don’t be fooled into thinking those professional singers you admire didn’t start somewhere — just like you! They aren’t lucky or gifted or blessed any more than you are. Chances are, they went through the process like you’re going through and came to the realization that they needed to make a commitment and they were determined enough to achieve their dreams. So can you!!
4. You sing whenever you have a spare moment. In fact, it’s all you do!
Do you sing in the shower? In the car? In public? In private? You may even drive people around you crazy with all your singing at times. You are constantly walking around with a song in your head and a skip to your step. Well, that probably means you LOVE to sing and you should be taking it seriously. It’s easy to look past these characteristics in ourselves when it’s all we know, but I would imagine that most people don’t usually have a song in their heads. But if you do, you’re probably someone who enjoys music and singing and all things related. This is what is unique about you and it’s something you need to pursue!
5. You express yourself through song.
Musicals and operas don’t seem silly to you: People singing their thoughts on stage and dancing to the tunes they are singing. It doesn’t seem silly because this is your every day life! You always have a song for an occasion. You sing when you are happy. You sing when you are sad. This is how you express yourself and who you are. Songs with words seem like they are meant just for you and they touch you in a way that no other form of communication touches you. The world can seem crazy and make no sense whatsoever, but you turn on a special song or start singing the lyrics from a song that comforts you, and all of a sudden, everything makes sense again. Crisis averted. Confusion resolved. Clarity regained. You wouldn’t even think about living a life without a song to express your feelings and who you are and you can tell someone specifically what songs you love and what the lyrics to those songs are.
6. You have an area of your voice you need to work on.
Just like there are professionals who are trained to do accounting and professionals who are trained to build homes and professionals who are trained to cut hair, there are professionals who can teach you how to work on specific areas of your voice and get over or resolve vocal issues. Most likely, you wouldn’t try to cut your own hair or build your own house unless you already had experience in doing so and knew what you were doing, so why would you leave it up to yourself to figure out things that a voice teacher could resolve in a matter of a few lessons — or sometimes, a few minutes!
7. You love singing but you struggle to hit high notes, low notes or sing for long periods of time.
Again, these are things you need help with and can’t do by trial and error (unless you want to seriously wear your voice out), so it’s best to leave it to a professional to show you how to do these things properly and avoid heartache, frustration and potential damage to the voice. These are things every teacher should know how to teach you, so don’t go it alone.
8. You are terrified to sing in front of anyone.
That’s right. You should get vocal training if you are scared of singing in front of someone. Why? Because a good teacher and nurturing singing community will help you overcome your fears. The fear alone is not enough to keep you from getting vocal training. Or it shouldn’t be. We all have fears. Most of the students who have walked through my studio have been terrified of singing in front of me the first or second time, but after a few times, they began to feel comfortable, and as a result of being comfortable in front of me, they were on their way to becoming comfortable singing in front of other people too. Baby steps!
9. You want to sing in a choir, a band or a worship team, but you just don’t have the confidence to start.
All of these things are amazing tools for singers to learn and grow. I always suggest that my singers begin with singing in a choir, because this is where you learn musicianship and all of the fundamentals of being a great musician. In essence, I truly believe that choirs are where we find our true voices. Once we have done that, we can move on to other things. But if you are hesitant to jump into a choir or just don’t know where to start or how to prepare for an audition in order to actually get involved in one of these groups, a well-informed voice teacher can give you the confidence and tools you need to take that first step!
10. You want to challenge yourself.
I truly believe that learning to sing is one of the most challenging, yet rewarding, endeavors you can do for yourself. There are so many wonderful non-vocal rewards to singing too, like being disciplined, having accountability, achieving a goal, developing confidence, overcoming fear and I could go on and on. Learning to sing is such a wonderful gift you can give yourself. Our voices are a part of us and are capable of doing so much more than we ever thought possible. I have literally seen shy people come out of their shells and overcome their fears. I have seen newly divorced women open up a whole new avenue of self-expression and healing. I have seen men and women alike explore their passion and surprise themselves with what they are able to do. Sometimes it’s life-transforming. Sometimes it’s career-transforming. But it’s always a wonderful investment in oneself and it brings about pure joy for those who take the plunge and do it!
This list certainly isn’t exhaustive. There are many reasons why YOU should consider vocal training, but I wanted to get you thinking!
If you love to sing and think you might have a shot at it, it’s time you start taking yourself more seriously and take some form of vocal training! You won’t regret an investment in a life skill you will always be able to use — whether professionally or personally!
Have a great day!
xoxo,
Amy
by Amy | Apr 12, 2017 | business organization, mama work
My goal over the past month has been to chronicle the steps I’m taking to get my online courses off the ground. Each day I work on my online courses, I’m writing down what it is I’m doing, how I’m feeling, what I’m getting stuck on and all the bells and whistles that go into making this happen. My point in doing this is to show you, my dear readers, all of the necessary (and unnecessary) steps that go into creating a (hopefully) successful online business.
To spare you from having to read post after post of each little step I’m taking, I wanted to just share with you an excerpt of an online journal I’m using to track my progress in Google Docs.
This is what I have so far:
Thursday, March 30th, 2017 –
Spent wayyyy too much time messing around on social media and wasting time, but was able to get cracking on this course “Unveil” so I feel pretty good about where it’s going. Module 1 which is the intro module that sets the tone for the entire course is nearly complete as far as content that will go into it. That feels good and gives me a strong vision for what I will hopefully accomplish when I work on this course again in the near future. When? I will work on this course on Tuesday, April 4th.
Tuesday, April 4th, 2017 –
Today I’m working at Cuppa Austin. Have a headache due to sinus pressure. Don’t feel rested and feel restless with all that I need to do to catch up. Need to focus on one task and just see it through to the end. Need to get Convert Kit opt-in set up and schedule content for Reveal. Please Lord, let me get focused so I can start making money at this business soon. I need desperately to get focused and produce something.
I’m ending today’s work feeling very excited. I finished the practicing module. I need to go back tomorrow and read through it and tweak it and add detail and refine the modules and lessons I’ve written out so far, but for now, I feel good about its progress. I was focused today, despite my initial headache and distracting disposition. I am hoping to keep flowing like this throughout the week and be ready to actually develop the slides and video content the week after next. It is really crucial that I get this content written out, so I can start taking snippets of it and using it in mini tutorials, blog posts, podcasts, and freebies. I have to have this content done before I can begin creating this community and getting followers. So this is good progress.
Tomorrow I will go back and tweak a bit, but then begin the hardest and longest module which is the 10 Rs of Successful Singing. My goal is to be done with the bulk of the content by end of week. If I do this, I can begin to break it down and create content based upon it.
Yay!!!
Tuesday and Wednesday, April 11 & 12, 2017 –
Yesterday (Tuesday) I woke right up and was ready to hit the ground running with working on my course. I completed the first module and started immediately with the module “10 Rs of Successful Singing”. I got through the first two lessons and it felt like it really flowed out of me. I enjoyed it and felt like I had a new spark lit under me in doing so. Today (Wednesday) was a bit of a different story. I struggled to get out of bed after a night of being kicked by Georgia in bed. She was super restless from about 1:30am onward (I think), so I finally took her hot fleece pajama bottoms off and she settled down a little. I got up at 5:15 and dragged myself to the coffee maker and got out the door by about 6:15. When I got here, I got caught up looking at pictures of my friend, Camilla, who just passed away from breast cancer and feeling sad and side-tracked thinking of her and how quickly her life vanished away. but then I just snapped out of it and jumped in. Funny how you can think that you are not inspired or motivated, but the actual DOING OF THE THING can make you motivated. Your flow sometimes comes regardless of the right circumstances and feelings. I love that about creating. We never know what we can make of something, even in a less than optimal situation. For instance, sometimes my best workouts are those that I didn’t feel like doing, but I got my sports bra on and workout clothes and put on my shoes and got on that treadmill anyway, and I ended up feeling amazing and exhilarated afterwards. Some of my best days are days when I didn’t want to get up, but I did it anyway, and I ended up having a special encounter with a close friend or was inspired in a way I didn’t think was possible. Some of my best singing days are days where my voice started out raw and raspy, but I warmed up and worked through it and began making some absolutely glorious sounds. Some of my best teaching has been on days when I dreaded that first student arriving at my house, but the student came and we worked and made amazing progress that got both of us fired up and energized. And some of my very best creative days are the ones where I thought I had everything in me BUT creativity, but I started working and things started pouring out of me like a never-ending, creative fountain.
This morning, I spent a good deal of time just chasing my tail, but I still managed to get quite a bit written out in my online course, nevertheless. That inspires me. That propels me to get up early again tomorrow and get back at it. It feels like such SLOWWWWW progress, but it’s progress, and I’m proud of it.
Since my kids will be out of school for Good Friday this week, tomorrow (Thursday) is the last day I really have to get some things done in my business. And guess what? I have a hair appointment and a therapy session. I know! Go me!!! But I do plan on allowing myself some space in the wee early morning hours to wrap some things up so I can hit the ground running like a champ next Tuesday!
Tomorrow, I’m going to continue playing around with customizing my Convertkit opt-in box for both sites and create an email sequence for both sites. After I create the email sequence, I will then create my freebies to entice people to opt in. At that point, I will need to go ahead and set up LeadPages, I think, in order to get more email subscribers.
One of the biggest things that keeps tripping me up here is what to do first. I really think I need to create an email sequence first, and then create my freebies from there. But I’m not sure. I plan to host my pdf files on amazon.
So much to learn! Right?
The other thing I need to do, in addition to getting set up with my email sequence on Convertkit, is go ahead and bite the bullet with some big purchases. Right now, I need a good lav mic, and I already have one in my shopping cart with Amazon. I also need a Blue Yeti mic to start podcasting soon. And I need to get a good computer camera to do live video on my computer. I also need a desk top tripod for my iphone and a ring light. Let’s see, what else? So much I need to figure out!!
Lord, help me prioritize all this and get it down soon. I feel like I’m treading through quick sand right now, but I know, at some point, this will all come together and I will know what I need to do!
over and out…
Nothing crazy, out-of-the-ordinary, but this is where my head currently is.
Thoughts?
I’d love to hear your stories as you journey through your online business and figure things out along the way.
by Amy | Mar 18, 2017 | business
If someone would have told me years ago that practicing every day would make me an incredible singer, I would have never believed them. Something in my mind would have said, “Oh…that might work for someone who has a lot of talent or money or time, but not me.” As much as I wanted it to be so, in my mind, this dream just didn’t seem possible for me. I thought that other people were fated with being successful singers. I didn’t think I had a space in that arena. As much as I wanted it to be so, I didn’t have the confidence that my actions had the potential to actually make it so. So I created my fate by that belief…that false belief. And I quietly, subtly submitted to the role of side-liner, singer sub, onlooker, supporter and cheerleader to all my colleagues and friends who were succeeding at it. But I was rarely ever the one to actually have the success. “Gosh…that’s sad, Amy!” you might be thinking. Yes, but where in your own life have you played the same role? And don’t get me wrong: I have very little regret. I was happy there (or so I thought) in that space. But I can’t help but always wonder, “What more could I have accomplished if I would have just changed my beliefs?”
Funny how life comes full circle. Now, I am a mother of 3 kids I need to nurture and instill these beliefs into. I am in the process of restarting my vocal studio with a completely different business model that requires lots of risk, lots of time, and inevitably…lots of money. On February 4th, as you all may know, I decided to take the plunge and quit my full-time job in order to pursue this endeavor of creating online vocal courses and going ALL IN with my business. It hasn’t been easy. Money is tight in our house. Actually, incredibly tight. Before I quit my job, I decided I’d still work the same hours I was working at Apple, from 5am to 1:30pm Tuesday through Friday, so we could keep the kids in the same routine they were already familiar with. But this ultimately means I’m still missing seeing them off to school and spending days coloring and having dress up tea parties with my 3-year-old princess since she’s still in preschool 4 days a week so I can get this off the ground. Since my last day at Apple (over 6 weeks ago), I’ve invested in two online courses that teach me how to create courses and get in front of the camera in the most professional way possible. I am learning the ins and outs of WordPress and Canva and my hosting company, Bluehost, as well as Convertkit and Buffer and all the nuances of social media marketing. It’s a HUGE learning curve, but I’m dedicated to practicing and learning day-by-day. Sometimes I make monumental leaps and other days I make incremental progress, but something has clicked with me that has never clicked before: My dedication and commitment to this process of learning and getting this all down and working on it every chance I get is causing some SERIOUS MOMENTUM. I am experiencing baby successes that are leading to toddler successes. And I’m pretty sure these toddler successes will one day graduate from Kindergarten and become 1st grade successes. And a year from now, I’m POSITIVE I’ll look back and say, “Wow, Lady! You’ve come a long, freakin’ way!!!” Cuz that’s how I talk to myself. I call myself “Lady” and say “freakin'”. 😉
All that to say, when we are dedicated to the process, and working on it every day, incremental success becomes inevitable. It’s the same with fitness, our abs, our guitar, or our finances. Whatever we spend lots of time on, playing around with, reading up on, asking others about, tweaking, adjusting, trying…PRACTICING…we’ll eventually master. Will we master it to the level where we’ll become world famous and make millions of dollars? Who knows. But we will never know unless we commit. And as you know, the reasons behind our commitment have to be super clear and super strong. We have to know where we’re going and identify the processes that will get us there the quickest. It is imperative that we understand this and recognize what we’re doing at every step. But it is even more important that we make some kind of progress every single day. Most people get defeated because their efforts are scattered and random. And then they wonder why they’re not seeing results. We always want to see immediate results for our actions, right? But true success rarely comes in the form of immediate results, if ever. We know this fundamentally, but when someone doesn’t respond to our blog or Facebook posts or even our paid ads, we can’t help but take it personally and get discouraged.
So today, I’m charging you. Commit to the mastery of the skills your are learning. Commit and put all those eggs in that basket. You may not see the outcome and reward in doing so for months or even years, but you will eventually reap the benefits of your commitment to practice and get better along the way!
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