Believe it til it’s Real

Photo by Katrina Wright on Unsplash

I published my first article on LinkedIn, "2020 is a Gift", on December 1, 2020. It wasn’t something I necessarily wanted to do but felt I needed to do. As a former HR leader, many friends and colleagues come to me for career advice, especially as it relates to job searches. The first thing I suggest is updating their LinkedIn profile and start putting out content. Here’s the thing, I wasn’t “walking my talk.” For those of you who follow me, you’ll know that “walking my talk” is extremely important to me – so much that I started a weekly video series called Walk My Talk.

I got called out.

When going off on my normal tangent of how to increase exposure online, someone asked, “What type of content do you put out, Julie?” I laughed and said something like, “I should probably take my own advice, huh?” So, I did…almost immediately after that conversation. In that moment, my motivation was high and I wanted to keep the momentum going.

Within that first article, I challenged myself even more with a “Yes, AND” statement, committing to publishing an article each month…

“YES I’ll write a LinkedIn article to offer a perspective and give my profile visibility. YES, I accept that not everyone will resonate with my message. AND, I’m going to commit to posting 1 article per month (did I say that out loud?!).” 

I’ll admit, when I first typed the commitment, my heart rate picked up and I immediately deleted it. I didn’t feel ready to make that type of commitment. I didn’t think I had that much to say – or rather, that anyone would care what I had to say. But then I thought, what’s holding me back? And the only logical answer I could think of was ME. I took a deep breath, retyped the words and chose to BELIEVE I could do it.

After the first few months, ideas started to come more easily. I noticed too that the more content I put out, the more confident I felt. It was an amazing shift! I even remember a conversation with a person in my network who commended me on my LinkedIn “blogging.” BLOGGING?! I never considered myself a blogger, or even a writer for that matter. I was simply posting articles. Talk about a TOTAL shift in mindset!

I’ve now started a blog on my website and this is officially my 15th post. I plan to continue this commitment in 2022.

Here’s the thing; I have no idea if people like my content, or even read it. The remarkable thing is that either way, it doesn’t matter. The fact that within one year I went from being afraid to posting anything to now having a blog with regular content is the win.

I made it real, because I believed in myself. What do you believe you can do in 2022?