Learning When to Take a Step Away to Rest, Refuel, and Refocus.

Taking time for myself is something I have been neglecting big time. Have you ever just felt bogged down, like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you can’t seem to get any rest so that you can refuel and refocus? That is where I have found myself these past few weeks.

Working from home is wonderful, but now it is starting to take a toll on my mental. Let’s not mention that I also do everything from here as it serves as my office for all of my entrepreneurial endeavors. I cannot wait for the day that I am financially able to have me a private space with an office and makeup studio away from my home. That is one thing I am truly believing God for.

Recently I have started a 21 day fasting and prayer with my church for the month of August and honestly, I have not been as focused as I should be. I finally had to sit down and figure out the deterrents to my focus so that I could eliminate them. There have been three main deterrents to my progressing which are organization, facebook, and stewardship.

Phase I: Let’s Get Organized

Organized space is something that I thrive on. I like for everything to have a place, which you would not be able to tell if you had seen my room at my mom’s house. LOL!!! I know that now she is so happy that her cleaning drills and skills are truly assets that she successfully passed down to me. Recently, I allowed my space to get cluttered and so I finally decided to do the two things that would get me back to normalcy and functionality; one, deep clean everything and two, ensure that every day I do all of the small things to keep everything organized and in its place.

It’s so easy to take off clothes and lay them across the bed instead of hanging them up or put your shoes in a pile or even have items all over your free counter space. Don’t even get me started on not making up the bed every day. These were things I was letting becoming a habit. I had to break that quick because where there is organization; there is peace of mind for me. My mom use to always say, “How you keep your space is a reflection of your mental and emotional state within”. I hate to admit it, but she is absolutely correct.

Now that my space is cleaned, organized, and maintained, it was time to move on to phase two of my “self-care” plan. Dun dun dun, deactivating Facebook.

Phase II: Deactivating Facebook

Facebook has been apart of my life since it’s inception. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, LA it was my primary way to reconnect with all of my friends and acquaintances after evacuating. I miss the days when it was a platform for college students. Now any and everyone can get on there. Although I appreciate the beauty of social media and all the amazing things you can utilize it for, it also can become the killer of joy.

Social media has a way of making you always feel like you are behind in life. People continuously post all of their triumphs and rarely post their process or trials and tribulations. Now you’ve found yourself wrapped up in the disillusionment that everyone has the perfect life with all the money, success, and love and you are a complete failure.

Frankly, I found myself falling prey to the curse of comparison, which I preach against regularly. However, I too have that flaw. I decided it was time to take a journey that will eliminate distraction and have laser focus on pursuing my purpose wholeheartedly, so I deactivated facebook.

So What Now?!

Now, I know you are probably thinking, what about your business pages? Well, I have a secondary page that I created and I made that page an admin for all of the business pages that I have so that I can maintain content creation and engagement. It’s a dummy page with a few friends, like under 20. Lol! People are starting to find me though.

In this time of self-reflection and focus I have three primary goals. The first is carve out my morning and night routine and stick to it. Secondly, I want to focus on mastering consistency, content creation, and engaging with my audience. Lastly, I want to perfect my time management and keeping a schedule that enables me to take my blog, podcast, and makeup business to the next level. This is going to take some real commitment, so I may not revisit my primary page for a few months or until the first of the year even.

Laser focus and time management go hand and hand with my last step, which is stewardship.

Phase III: Stewarding My Life

Stewardship is the one thing that can make or break you. If you don’t steward your money right, you will always be broke. If you don’t steward your time right, you will always be in chaos, etc. Let’s just say I have to step it up in both. I have to buckle down and spend wisely, pay off debt, save, and then eventually invest.

Money Goals!!!

My first goal is to pursue a money mindset. I don’t want to be limited in my thinking when it comes to money. I want to have a more than enough mindset and attitude towards money instead of a lack and never enough though pattern. This is going to take some time, but I’m ready to put in the work. I’m going to start this journey by investing in a few books that will help me alter my relationship with money to a positive one that produces success.

Limiting frivolous spending and foregoing activities that require financial investment for awhile is also going to be key. I’m not going to stop living life, instead, really plan for the splurges that are most important to me and cut out the ones that are not. I’m also going to save in small ways. I don’t care if it is just $5 or $10. I’m giving myself a weekly budget and once that is gone, then it is gone.

I have a monthly budget, but it is time for me to track all of my spendings and quit just praying that the averages in my mind will somehow account for it all. This takes discipline and I’m going to do it because billionaire status doesn’t just happen unless you inherit it of course and unfortunately, that is not the case for me.

Stewarding my time is the other major puzzle piece. I am literally a multitasker and sitting down in one place too long gives me anxiety unless I’m asleep. I can think of a million things in less than a minute and often underestimate how long it will take me to do all one million things. I have to do better if I am ever going to secure these brand deals and start a Youtube channel in addition to maintaining all that I currently have on my plate.

The Time Management Plan

In order to do this, I am going to utilize my planner properly. I have not been managing my time well and COVID-19 restricting me to the house in order to avoid becoming ill is not helping. Working from home, building my brand and businesses from home, eating, sleeping, etc. all from home. I mean being at home is a blessing and all, but my goodness, I’m ready to go on vacation and see different scenery.

All in all, I have made some strides in my fitness and prayer life, so that is good, now it’s time to put together the other pieces of this stewardship puzzle. If a mom with 3 kids and a husband can do it, so can I. That’s not to say that you have to have that to be super busy or overwhelmed because I’m that way many times without that, just giving some perspective. Single people have full plates too. Remember that!

I hope that you gain some inspiration and perspective from my personal journey. If you have any pointers for helpful tips for me, please feel free to leave them in the comments. I’m open to all the help and suggestions.

Until next time lovies…live your best life!!!