October, is right around the corner so I figured I’d write a quarter review type of post. This post is longer than my usual posts. You’ve been warned!
About the blog
Everything has pretty much stayed the same regarding the direction of this blog. It will take perseverance on my side, plus more sustainable resources and time management to revamp it the way I’d like to see it but the vision remains.
For those of you who are new here’s what I wrote regarding the mission of the blog:
Asummermoon.com is a personal journey blog that strives to Inspire action despite fear, lack of confidence, and lack of experience; Revive passion, despite trying to convince yourself that contentment and fulfillment belongs to everyone you bust your butt for and not yourself; and Empower the inner child inside, despite growing up in a society that does its best to stifle the very part of you that still believes in the power of dreams. This is an unedited statement; I simply wrote what was in my heart. I don’t know if every blog post will fit into a neat category or if I can measure up to what I strive to deliver but here is my starting point and I’m happy to have you along for the ride
So that’s that…
About Life
Again, I’ll share my theme and word for the year.
The theme for the year is: Reestablish, Connect, and Go Confidently
My word for the year is Confidence
As I’ve shared before in previous reviews, I center most of my goals for the year around 6 areas or slices of life: Personal, Social, Physical, Spiritual, Professional, and Financial. Under each slice of life I set about 3 intentions to work on at the start of the year So my theme is in essence the vision I have for the year and the slices help me organize the steps I need to take in order to realize that vision in a balanced way.
This 3rd quarter I was not very balanced, heck I think even regressed. My excuse was going to be that it was summer and I was tired, but that’s a lame excuse so now I’m plotting a 4th quarter comeback and will be about getting my ish together and moving forward for the new year.
Physical: I started doing a little yoga over the summer, and the deep breathing exercises helped…like A LOT! Unfortunately, my surroundings became unhealthier for me. It stifled my creativity and I felt my word for the year slipping away throughout September :-/ On the flip side, I was reminded that I couldn’t grow comfy in a house that didn’t feel like home and it became apparent that I may need to make some hard decisions in order to find a home to call my own. Looks like I’ll be moving sooner than I had planned!
Spiritual: Though I was pretty consistent with my prayer life and spiritual studies, my love walk was under attack and I didn’t realize it until things came to affect my social slice, which in turn affected a part my physical slice (my living arrangements). One thing I know to be true is that you cannot live purposefully if you’re walking in anger and unforgiveness. It hinders love, and I decided to always choose love regardless of how I feel or what others feel of me. At the end of the day my works, and the service the Lord has called me to do is far too important for me to miss my blessing due to lack thereof… and so I’ll be focusing in on this slice going forward.
Social: Well, because spiritual slice was off balance the social slice followed pursuit. Because I hate conflict and can become passive aggressive when backed into a corner, I’ve pulled away from people and pulled the plug completely on 1 of the 3 intentions I had set for this slice. To offset the feelings of…melancholy I suppose, I began focusing on other areas within this slice and have found myself reaching out to more people using Skype and Google+ hangouts and searching for local meetups with people who are both entrepreneurs and share other interests in common. I was surprised and delighted to find another sista anime fan in my church and now have a gal pal across the bridge who would gladly go to a comic con with me. My hun exposed me to dragon boat races/festivals, where apparently, a lot of techie guys hang (Go figure!) and due to his participation on a film festival committee my love for foreign films with fun company was revived.
Financial: I’m being forced to work more on accounting now that I’ve been assigned to help my teenage mentees with budgeting and all that numbers jazz. I was slacking in this department for the quarter and now I’ll have to sacrifice a weekend to do book keeping (bleh!)
Professional: I hired a business coach over the summer to help me get clear on some things regarding next steps for A & D Media. After working with her I decided that while she was awesome at what she did, she wasn’t the right coach for me and began looking for another. I narrowed my decision and will look towards working with a new coach this fall, (hopefully she’ll still have a spot open for me). I really began writing many things down that I wanted to work on with my coach; my hopes, my dreams, my vision for my business, I wrote out the areas where I struggled and felt stuck and feel really good that I’m bringing awareness and determination into our coaching relationship. Based on the advice of the previous coach I ended up hiring a copy writer to redo my LinkedIn summary, which I’ve also added to my Hire me section here on this blog stock photo courtesy of hubspot. I also decided it was time to get a professional headshot. I did more one on one networking meetings, which I enjoy much more than large networking events. And I’m looking forward to attending Fusion Tour next month.
I ended up conducting a survey and have begun work on new service packages for what I could handle and more partnerships for what I couldn’t handle based on the feedback I received. This was actually my highest revenue generating quarter this year so far and being that I renewed a long-term contract with a happy client, I’d say this was probably my winning slice…overall, lots of lessons learned and progress made. So, here’s to an even better 4th quarter!
Personal: I’ve not really taken a vacation this year and I could seriously use a full week get away! Because I’m planning both a fundraiser and volunteer trip to Kenya for next year, I thought to put a vacation this year on the back burner but somehow I still would like to fit a real vacation in before this year is over. I’m still working on personal productivity and time management and finding that work/life balance is a dream and I’d be better off accepting the concept of holistic work/life integration if I’m to have my sanity! On the fun side even though I only planned to get a new headshot for business, I lucked out by reaching out to some old acquaintances who are really blowing up on the hip hop scene and though my style and profession aren’t what they normally target (my pop locking and wanna be b-girl breakdancing-girl days are long gone), they hooked me up and I had a full out photo shoot for my birthday. Click here to see some of the shots from the shoot (I opened the album to public view for a few days).
So, that’s my 3rd quarter review of the year, thanks for reading to those of you who stuck around!
Also, now that I’ve worn my heart on my sleeves (again), I’d love to hear about you and what you’ve been up to these past 3 months.
Until next time…
Image Credit: Fiona Childs