My Resourceful Year

This morning I took down our family wall calendar in the Kitchen but I found myself flipping through it.

My plan for 2017 was to leave my corporate job. I remember starting off the year giddy with excitement and a tinge of terror. Was I really doing this?

In March I put in my notice and in April I left. So, yes I really did do it. But from April to December I embarked on the greatest adventure, starting my own business.

2017 was filled with information gathering, processing and trial and error. I will never forget week 1 when I found out I was the IT, marketing, sales, analytics and customer service departments. I'm happy to report that none of this made me cry. It made me hungry! I wanted to learn all I could about every facet of mynew business. There was an entire world of information out there waiting for me!

It was an AWESOME year!

If you haven't figured it out already the fear that gripped me in January left me and was replaced with a new passion, learning as much as possible as fast as possible.

As much as hiring a team to do marketing, social media, sales pipelines and even IT work sounded amazing it also sounded lazy. (plus I didn't have the money for all of these departments, a blessing in disguise).

Things I Learned in 2017

Always one to share, I have embedded links to step by step guides to how I did each task. Simply click on the images in each topic to learn how to do these tasks.

How to install a printer

My first business task that took me 3 hours. I felt so accomplished when it was all setup. It was a symbol of independence for me.

Printing my own postage

This seems mundane but it was another step to independence and a simple way to save myself time and money.

Blogging

The thought of writing a blog exhausted me. How was I going to have something to write that people would want to read? What would my topics be? What was the thing I enjoyed talking about the most?

Career!!

I chose to begin blogging once a week with career advice, utilizing my mistakes and learnings. While writing took time it also invigorated me in a way I'd never imagined. It became my therapy and classroom to the outside world.

Storytelling Through Themes

I'd been on social media for quite some time inspiring people with quotes and short narratives but I'd never strung my thoughts together in any sort of cohesive way.

In January I began a weekly theme that started with daily quotes and morphed into a 4 part weekly blog series. Using the weekly theme I shaped my blog posts around the acronym CARE (career, awareness, recipes and enrichment).

Building a website (resourceful people have resourceful friends)

I started the year paying someone to create and run my website for me. The website wasn't me at all, I had no abilities to update anything and my blog was separate from the site. I needed more control over the design and the updates.

One fateful day my best friend, Nicole, called to ask if she could help me design a new site, one that felt more like me. This conversation became the catalyst for so much more.

Nicole introduced me to an online tool, built a simple framework for me and then bam, I had a website and blog that represented me and gave me the creative control I was searching for. (Check out the site Nicole created for her school here)

Creating and editing videos with music, transitions, cut ins and titles.

I knew I wanted to teach but I wanted to give people the ability to learn on their time in an easily accessible way. So, in August I turned the camera on myself and began filming videos on how I launched my business, interacted with customers and kept track of it all. This took me down the rabbit hole of video editing magic.

Imovie was loaded on my Mac but I had no clue how to use it. I turned to youtube to learn everything Imovie. Within a month I created an entire library of teachings. A new idea also emerged.

Launching an online course

Excited about my new video editing knowledge and enjoying my blog I decided to mesh the two by creating an online course. This course would take everything I valued and teach it to others. Not simply a how to Do guide but truly a how to THINK guide.

Want to learn more? Click here.

Creating Worksheets To Help You

I created several ebooks and, what I like to call, fill in the blank blueprints to help you take what I share and easily apply it to your own life. I curated my 2017 free worksheets below.

• Career Goals Simplified

• Leader Speak Language, the words you need to be using to become a leader

• From Doer To Leader

Life Coaching

Finding so much love and purpose behind career advisement I decided to further add to my offerings by becoming a certified life coach. This 100 hour certification gave me a broader set of tools to help my clients breakthrough limitations and set simple action plans in place to create small changes and quick wins.

Creating a online booking site for my business

After seeing the demand for my life coaching business I decided to make accessing my schedule easy for anyone and everyone to find.

Creating an online booking system was simple and helpful because it sees my online calendar and knows when I'm free and when I'm already booked.

My life coaching clients are growing but I do have a few spaces left if you'd like a free session to see if one on one coaching is right for you. Click on the words free session above to grab a day and time that works best for you.

2017 was a year for learning. 2018 my plans are around giving all of this information to you and I hope this little post did just that. ;-)

#howtoguide #theresourcefulseries