“Personal branding is about connecting to and embracing who you are and no matter what, being true to your heart and soul. Then getting out there and rocking your brand.”
This last year has been a quite journey – a bit of an adventure. Many times when I wanted to get off the planet or hide in the hills. Knowing that these lessons are here to test and help me grow, hasn’t always helped. Of course hiding is not an option. Personal growth is the only way to achieving lasting change.
As we grow, we change and as we change we grow.
Some of the problems come as you change, your brand message can become confused. You can become confused. Who am I? What do I do? Why do I do this? Could be some of the questions rushing through your confused brain. The thing is that unless you are prepared to take your life and business by the short and curlies, no one else will and you will remain stuck.
Standing at a crossroads and wondering what next is great. Feeling overwhelmed is great. Feeling conflicted is normal. The key is to recognise that you are on the cusp of something great and take action (and keep taking action – small steps work for me).
Contemplation before the detox
After contemplating things, reflecting and doing exercises either given to me (thank you Tamsen Garrie) or my own, the conclusion I came to was that I needed to clear the decks and get on with a personal brand detox.
Personal branding for me is not the pretty colours, logos, brochures, website and words that the outside world sees. Well, yes it is, but it so much more. It is also about the inner you. Get the inner you sorted, and your brand will shine through. Get your YOU brand sorted, and then rock it out to the world.
How you can start
- Get clear on what a personal brand is, what it means to you, what having one gives you and how others will know who you are when they come into your vibrational field – your energy.
- Connect to the inner you – detox the inner you so that the outer reflects your essence and vibration.
- Detox your outer world so that your messages are clear, values led, are connected to your soul purpose and are authentic.
- Discover your story and your inspirational message.
- Create your personal branding plan for your success. Then rock it out.
- Live and breathe YOU.
- Try things, remember there is only feedback. Learn and continue
Brief intro to my personal brand detox
Ready to give it a go?
- Ask yourself, are you at a crossroads, could this be what you need right now?
- How committed are you?
- What has to happen to get you started?
Join in on the adventure, be the change you want to see in the world.
What I have done so far
Inner me
- Bought the Human Design test (https://www.humandesignamerica.com/chart) and read this along with some other tests I have done over the years.
- Meditated each morning and evening for 10 – 15 minutes with the 1 Giant Mind app.
- Journaled each evening. Said what I am grateful for, what made me happy that day, what I have achieved and four things I will do the next day.
- One of my detox things is to make more interesting veggie things. I made hummus and a beetroot dip. Tonight I am making bean burgers. It is far too easy to slip into opening the fridge and just have cheese and salad!
The outer me
- Did a what do I do exercise (thank you Tamsen Garrie). I did this without putting job labels on anything. It became very clear that I love sorting messes out, creating processes and then mentoring/supporting people through the shark-infested waters of life and business. I meditated on this and considered what this revelation meant to me. How would this impact me going forward?
- Commissioned some illustrations for my website.
- Started writing some new content for my website, and being very clear about what my message is.
- Resumed editing my book – Leading the Eveolution and set a launch date.
- Publicity pictures were taken, which was great fun.
How can you start?
- Easy, decide you want to.
- Get your mindset focused on your success.
- Be committed and motivated to stay on track.
- Find an accountability buddy – talk every one to two weeks or more.
- Make a list of the things you want to change or improve.
- Split the list by inner and outer work.
- Start the outer work with a brainstorm of what do you do and why, remember to rate everything out of 10 and put the over seven items to one side. Reflect on these. Ask what does this mean to you?
- Start the inner work by picking one thing you would like to change. E.g. drink more water and meditate for 10 minutes twice a day and do that for a week and then add in something else.
- Do a what are my values exercise and reflect on these.
The key to brand success
You are a swirling mass of energy, where the passion and purpose of your YOU brand pulses through you and your brand’s personality. In a perfect world your inner and outer world would beat in time as one heart pumping blood around the system, each part acting out its role to keep your brand alive.
The bottom line is you are in the business of nurturing yourself, delivering promises to yourself and value to your tribe. For one moment consider how you, the brand asset, works to enable that to happen.
The key to your success is to find your purpose (your ‘why’) and to make sure you create and are in the right environment for your personal brand to flourish. Then let your passion and purpose shine.
Why brand?
The simple truth is if you do not take the time to craft, manage and nourish your brand, by default someone else will and you will feel disconnected and ungrounded. To my mind understanding brand is a little like reading the first page of a well-crafted book. Unless you get a sense of person and setting in those first paragraphs, it gets relegated to the shelf to collect dust.
Some questions for exploration:
- What is your brand identity?
- What do you believe about your brand right now?
- Why does it do what it does?
- How does it nourish your soul?
- How do you nourish the inner you?
- What are your core values?
- What value do you offer?
- Why does your brand exist?
- In what kind of environment do you flourish?
- Why does your personal brand seek to occupy space in the minds of your tribe?
- What is your personal brand doing to create a lasting effect on you and your community?
Ready for a personal brand detox adventure? Great tell me what the first thing is you are going to do?