This is not something that I am saying to you to get you to click on this post.
This is not something I only thought about for a week.
In fact, for about a month I had pretty much thought I decided to be done with Cherishingflo and CherishingfloMedia alike.
Let's talk about it...
Being an influencer can take a lot out of you. You are being your true self on a camera and sharing it with the world. You are trying to keep up with trends without seeming inauthentic. My brand involves being a girl boss and living life on my own terms (hence, my e-book: How To Do What You Love)... but sometimes life be lifein and I don't feel like I am truly living up to this.
Imposter syndrome got me bad... then I couldn't ignore that my influencer page has declined in its engagement by a LOT. I felt like people didn't care about Cherishingflo anymore. I couldn't stay relevant. I couldn't stay on top of things. It started to impact my confidence and made me not want to create content.
None of this even touches on the business side. I am responsible for people's livelihood (my business team). So when I lose clients or the business has a bad month, my anxiety reaches an all-time high and I start worrying about whether or not I am going to let everyone down.
I started thinking that maybe I wasn't cut out for this. Who cares if I love it? Who cares if my team actually enjoys their work with me? This mindset started greatly impacting the business. I started finding myself not as confident in my Discovery calls. I wasn't scheduling content in advance anymore or consistently marketing my services.
The enemy literally began attacking my mind and I let him. I stopped praying. I stopped manifesting. I stopped waking up in the morning. I no longer had a morning or night routine. I was in the world's longest rut. From about the beginning of April until the last week of July... I could only bring myself to do the bare minimum and sometimes I couldn't even bring myself to do that.
Then finally ... I said I am going to close it all down. I will just get a regular job.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I received 4 affirming messages I know came from God.
Message 1: There's this very successful 17-year-old I follow on social media. Of course, she had no idea that I was on the verge of quitting. Weeks prior to her responding to it, I had sent her a message telling her how proud I was of her and her success and how inspiring she is. She responded at the perfect time. She sent a voice message but the synopsis was that she had been watching me on social media and found ME inspiring. My story and all I had to offer... she had seen me talk about it and thought it was inspirational and that lots of people get something from my growth. This literally brought tears to my eyes as I forgot... even when I am down, I am inspiring someone with my perseverance which is why I started my brand in the first place. To inspire other women to live life on their terms.
Message 2: I had a Discovery Call with someone who was referred by a previous client. During this call, she said that my previous client said and she quoted "Rikki is an inspiration as a young black woman and that alone is why I wanted to work with her, but the fact that she does such a great job as a social media manager and works so well with us is icing on the cake. You should definitely reach out to her". It reminded me that I am good at what I do and people are noticing that. People recognize the value and imposter syndrome keeps trying to make me forget that.
Message 3: My mother and I were talking about prayer and everything and she asked me how I was praying. At first, I was like "What do you mean, how?" ... but as my mother explained what she meant I started realizing that I was half-assed praying and not believing in what I was praying for. I wasn't walking as if it was already so. I talk all the time about mindset and walking as if you are successful already and I was speaking negativity regularly in my own life. I stopped putting the work behind my prayers and I am a firm believer in Faith without work is DEAD.
Message 4: I posted something on Instagram and two minutes later I got a message on Snapchat from a YouTube subscriber that was like "I see you finally posting on Instagram again, you gonna come grace our presence on YouTube orrrr". As soon as I saw the message I realized God was talking to me and had been for over a week.
These four messages came within 8 days of each other and I realized I have been in my own way. I have not been proactive. I have allowed negative thoughts to make me consider giving up on Cherishingflo. My baby. My brand.
My engagement may have declined on Instagram, but I still have loyal subscribers and followers who are waiting for me to show up. I have people who are waiting on me to just... be me online.
SO WHAT NOW?
Well, I took some time to apologize to myself. Repent to God for not doing my part in his calling for me. And now here I am... apologizing to you guys. I don't care if there is just one person out there reading and watching me. I won't give up because you are who I am doing this for.
I do this for my supporters, for my team, for my family... and yes, for myself.
That's all for now. Just wanted to share something personal with you guys. Thinking of making it a series. Diary entries... what do you guys think?
