a website & community for women who write & blog
A year ago today I was at the Clubhouse on Highland being honored by Girls On the Run Birmingham as one of the city’s “Women Who Inspire.” I walked through the door and was greeted with handshakes, hugs, and a hot pink sash that read. “Inspirational.” I draped it across my body noting the nice contrast with my grey dress. I smiled as my proud husband took my photo for the obligatory Facebook and Instagram posts.
But I felt like a fraud.
I didn’t feel inspirational. I felt like a mess.
It’s Sunday, October 2 and I’m at Nissan Stadium in Nashville surrounded by thousands of people. We’re all here for one reason: Beyonce’s Formation World Tour.
This is it. There are 90 days left in 2016. October is here and we’re in the final quarter of the year. And as a football fan I love a good 4th quarter win. But this month if you see me strutting around holding four fingers in the air, it may not be for my favorite football team (Roll Tide!) but for myself and for the ladies of See Jane Write. I am declaring that this quarter is ours! Here are four things you should do today to claim that fourth quarter win.
This weekend I attended reCreate, the annual women’s conference held each fall at Church of the Highlands. One of the speaker’s at this year’s conference was Andi Andrew, who founded New York City’s Liberty Church in 2010 with her family. In 2015 she launched the She Is Free Conference.
One of the messages Andi gave this past weekend was all about seeds. So often we pray to God for gifts and we expect instant gratification. But instead of God giving us what we desire, fully grown, God simply gives us the seeds and it’s our job to tend to the soil of our hearts so that the seeds can bear fruit.
As I sat in my home office with a notebook and my favorite planner before me, preparing to set my goals for this month, I heard a voice whisper to me. That voice said: “Don’t lose yourself.”
No, I’m not presumptuous enough to say that this voice was the voice of God. I believe this voice was my inner warrior woman that speaks to me often and helps me survive circumstances I can’t control and the consequences of my own foolishness, too.
And so, as I set my goals for August, I kept those words in mind.
Losing myself would be easy to do this month. This month the 2016-2017 school year begins, which means I go back to juggling my full-time job with all my part-time hustle. So in the midst of it all I have to make sure that working on my side hustle doesn’t result in treating myself like a side piece.
I can’t lose myself in teaching. And as much as I love my blog and my business, I can’t lose myself in See Jane Write, either.
Instead, I must find myself by writing for myself, while also making boss babe moves.
Here are five things I’m going to do this month and perhaps you should give them a try, too.