Ep. 051 The Importance of Self-Discovery for Virtual Assistants

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As virtual assistants, we spend a lot of time in the online space, surrounded by messages from coaches talking about personal development and self discovery.

I’ll be honest: I used to roll my eyes at stuff like journaling and oracle cards. It seemed self-indulgent to me and I couldn’t understand how spending time reading self-help books would do anything to actually help my business.

Well, obviously, my thoughts on this have changed. I now know that investing time in self-discovery is not just a luxury for egotistical people, it is a necessary practice if you want to build a business and a brand that will grow with you and feel aligned.

I’m Sharon Nissen, a virtual assistant mentor and the creator of The Support Squad. My mission is to help women build happy online businesses and find more ease, joy, & profit. Today, I’m going to share why I believe that self-discovery is important for all virtual assistants and share some simple practices to help you start your self-discovery journey.

Creating a Brand

The more you get to know yourself, the more clear your vision for your brand is going to be. 

 I think a lot of virtual assistants skip this step. Instead of taking the time to deeply understand themselves, their goals and how their story impacts their business, they pull parts of other people's brand and try to make it all work together.

 By taking the time to uncover the deeper parts of yourself and to understand how your journey will relate to your ideal client, you're gonna be able to build a personal brand that will be able to work with you as you grow.

Empathy 

Knowing our own internal struggles helps us to understand the struggles and needs of other business owners. 

We talk a lot about sharing our expertise and how important that is in our marketing, but at a core level, what's most important is that you are relatable to your ideal client. 

And by getting to know yourself and spending time with yourself in that way, you'll be able to uncover the pieces that are really gonna resonate with other people.

Building Confidence

Building confidence through self-discovery is a two-part process.  

First, you might find a little bit of a breakdown in confidence.  

As you're uncovering these hidden pieces of yourself, it can feel really uncomfortable. You might find that uncovering your weaknesses and dark places leads to somewhat of a breakdown of your self-image!

But the second part of that process, after you've done the breakdown part, is that suddenly you emerge like a butterfly. 

Imagine a caterpillar going into a cocoon. They turn to mush and then they reconfigure and emerge a beautiful butterfly. It's all the same pieces, but put together in a more beautiful way. 

If you take all of the parts of yourself and break them down, you'll learn how you can downplay your weaknesses and you'll be able to really and truly recognize your unique strengths. 

The people that you see online that are the most captivating, the most confident, the most radiant -  it's not that they haven't had hard times in their lives, or that they haven't been through things. I guarantee you that all of the coaches and mentors that you look up to are people that have invested a lot of time and sometimes money into their own personal healing.

Finding Fulfillment

I see a lot of virtual assistants get really hung up in the minutia of their business. They struggle to find clients, they don't know what to post on social media, etc.

But when you are super clear about your own desires, your own purpose, and your goals, you're going to be much more inclined to seek out the things that fulfill you. When you are truly seeking out clients that fulfill you, you're automatically going to attract the right kinds of people 'cause you're coming from a place of true intention. 

That is something that can't be taught, strategized, or taken from someone else. Your own personal desires and dreams cannot be replicated by someone else, you have to go inside.  

Inspiring growth

When you start on a self-discovery journey, you start to realize how much you are capable of. 

By looking at the things that you've overcome and recognizing your deep strengths, you’ll begin to realize that you can continue to push for so much more. 

Meditation

When talking about meditation, we talk about clearing the mind, but what actually happens is not so much that your mind becomes totally clear, but that you become much more aware of the thoughts that drift through your mind.  

When you're making the intention to clear your head of any thoughts, it really becomes clear what you're focusing on - what your underlying worries are, what your underlying anxieties are, what your hidden desires are.

Meditation can look different for everyone. For some people it's really just as simple as sitting, closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing. For some people, guided meditations really help.  

Journaling

After I meditate, I like to journal. When I am noticing the thoughts that come into my mind and dismissing them, it's important to me to process these thoughts that seem to be appearing in my head.

Oracle Cards

Yes, they are a little more on the woo woo side, but oracle cards are not fortune tellers. 

I love pulling a card at the beginning of the day because it helps me to give a framework to how I can view the day. It's not telling me my future, it's just giving me an intention for the day, and I find that super helpful.  

My current FAVORITE deck was actually created by my client, Brittney Carmichael. It’s called Shine from the Inside™ and has the most beautiful illustrations and affirmations. You can purchase it on Amazon here.

Retreats

Going on retreats, or even just taking intentional time away from your daily life is so important because we can't find clarity if we are always in the same place. We can't create movement in our lives and businesses if we never leave our house.

And it doesn’t have to be fancy! By retreat I mean leaving your comfort zone and going someplace different. Even a walk in the woods can be helpful!

Reading and Listening to Podcasts

Reading gives you a chance to connect to yourself in a way that zoning out in front of the TV doesn't. And try listen to podcasts when you can! 

I recommend mixing it up. If you are only listening to online marketing or online business-related podcasts, it will put you in such a state of analysis-paralysis. You're not going to feel clear on what the next step is because you're going to have so many voices in your ear.  

Make sure you're taking time to listen to things that are just interesting to you and fun to you, and you might find things out about yourself that you're interested in that you didn't even realize. 

If you want to dive deeper into our thriving virtual assistant community, here’s what’s coming up in the membership this month:

Our theme is Personal Branding and international business coach Amanda Kolbye is sharing strategies for establishing and evolving a captivating personal brand.

To help you on your journey of self-discovery, this month one of our bonus goodies is 30 journal prompts made especially for virtual assistants.

I’m also going to be sharing a simple Content Planning System that makes it super easy to batch and repurpose content that illuminates your personal.

And of course, we’ll have 2 live group coaching calls and you’ll get access to all the past content in the membership area.

 Get instant access when you sign up for a free 14-day trial.

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