admin, Author at Striving For Felicity

9 Things A Boss Lady Has That You Don’t

Don’t we just all want to be a badass Boss Lady that rocks her life? I know I do. So the question we have to ask ourselves is: What does a Boss Lady have that we don’t … yet?

If we can answer that, we are one step closer to our end goal of being a girl boss. Now, we only have to plan out the steps necessary to get those things as well and then take massive inspired action.

So, are you ready for the first step? Let’s discover the things a Boss Lady has, but you might not have yet.

1. A vision for her life

One thing that is very common among Boss Ladies and high achieving people, in general, is that they have a vision for their life.

Their next goal isn’t just the next holiday or birthday or Christmas or the like.

Sure, a Boss Lady looks forward to these things, as well. But these are rather small scale goals compared to her vision in life.

A Boss Lady knows what she wants out of her life. She already plans for 5 or even 10 years ahead.

This doesn’t mean she has scheduled her day to day activities for the next few years. But she knows she wants to hit a specific income goal, she wants to build a business, or buy a house, for example.

She knows whether or not she wants to make an impact in life and how that impact might look like.

By knowing the general direction, her life goes in, a Boss Lady can take inspired action every day to get closer to that goal.

She isn’t merely dreaming but actually planning.

So what about you? Do you know what you want out of life? What legacy do you want to leave behind on this earth? What big successes you’d like to accomplish?

If not, no worries. You can’t rush these things. But you have to keep thinking about them and trying out different things in life to create your vision.

Also, something that helped me immensely was personal development content and hearing about other people’s vision for life.

9 things that successful women have but you don't

2. Multiple streams of income

A Boss Lady has numerous streams of income. Why?

Well, despite cherishing luxuries and financial freedom, a boss babe refuses to be a victim to recessions, depressions, or anything else that could pull the financial rug from underneath her feet.

Relying on just one source of income – and an active one like a job at that – is like balancing on a one-legged chair.

You might manage to live comfortably like that for a few years or even a few decades. But it remains a precarious situation because the slightest disturbance could bring you tumbling to the ground.

And most likely, not only will she be affected but also her family.

So instead of continually worrying about losing her job or hoping for it to remain until retirement, a boss lady strategically puts herself at ease through multiple streams of income.

3. An abundance mindset

I can’t afford that
Money doesn’t grow on trees
All opportunities are already taken
Not everyone can be rich

Yeah, those are thoughts a Boss Lady is banishing from her mind as quickly as she can if they even appear at all.

Boss Babes believe that the universe is abundant. There are always more than enough opportunities, money, ideas, and overall good things out there for you.

Once you genuinely start to cultivate an abundance mindset, you’ll be surprised how your perception of life will change.

It’s like that constant tightness in your chest eases up and you suddenly start to see more and more business opportunities out there.

Life can truly be happening for you if you only let it!

4. A mentor

A Boss Lady appreciates the power behind being taught by an expert.

She knows that very often, she can’t see her own limiting habits and needs someone from the outside to show them to her. Someone who can guide her to the next level.

So instead of trying to work out everything by herself and waste a lot of time, she invests into an expert than can help her.

5. Time as a priority

What I mean with that is that a Boss Lady uses her money to gain more time.

She invests in painters instead of painting the room herself just so save a bit of money.

She flies business class because the comfort allows her to work during the flight and sleep so that she has more time once she arrives at her destination.

She pays someone to go shopping for her groceries.

Maybe she eats a lot of delivered (healthy) meals to save time for cooking.

Now, I get that you need money to start with to invest it into gaining more time.

But sometimes, ordinary people value money unnecessarily high compared to their time.

Let’s take, for example, those people who drive miles for some cheap offers or cheaper fuel. Not only does that cost them tons of time but also the fuel, which very often results in the “offer” not ending up much less expensive at all.

The next time you want to go hunting for discounts, ask yourself if this reflects a time/money ratio you are comfortable with.

Once you start to ask yourself, which action prioritizes your time the most, you will make very different decisions.

Read also: 15 Ways To Spend Your Time Wisely

6. Assistants/Employees/Tools

Yes, you need money for that, too.

But you might be surprised to see how affordable it can be to have someone, who walks your dog, buys your groceries, does your taxes, etc.

A Boss Lady values the power in delegating. She knows that specialization reaps bigger rewards than broadening one’s efforts.

Sometimes that assistant might be a technological tool.

For example, I started using Anki to studying a few months ago. You wouldn’t believe how decision-saving that is!

Instead of having to plan out my revisions in addition to planning out the new subjects I have to learn. Now, I only have to open Anki, and it tells me exactly which flashcards I need to repeat to keep remembering them.

And I didn’t even have to pay a thing for Anki!

So look at your life and try to find areas where you could outsource a task to make your life easier.

7. Successful and like-minded friends

A Boss Lady is aware of the influence the people that surround her have on her and her life.

If they are like-minded girl bosses, they will empower her, build her up, inspire her, collaborate with her, advise her, celebrate with her, and just overall support her.

But if your closest friends and family have a limited mindset and don’t believe that you can truly create the extraordinary life of your dreams, you are going to suffer.

On the better side, you might just not be able to share your dreams, goals, and successes with them because they wouldn’t understand and just infuse you with more doubts.

If things are worse, then they will even hold you back, ridicule you, or also try to keep you from succeeding so that you won’t grow out of their reach.

I hope you can see the immense impact your inner circle can have on your joy and the achievements you make in life.

So, with whom do you surround yourself?

8. More ideas than she can work on

Because a Boss Lady has cultivated an abundance mindset, she discovers many business opportunities or other ideas she’d love to work on.

Yet, of course, there are only 24 hours in a day. So, unfortunately, she can’t realize all of them.

That stands in stark contrast to most people, who tend to be not very inspired to work on any kind of project. An indicator for that is the sheer amount of “?? things you can do when you are bored” content out on the internet.

9. A reading list that seemingly never decreases in size

A Boss Lady is obsessed with growing her knowledge on so many subjects.

There is always a course she’d like to buy or a seminar she’d like to attend or Podcast she’d like to listen to or a book she’d love to read.

Therefore, it isn’t astounding that a Boss Lady has a long and ever-growing reading list.

There are always more books being added than she manages to read, although she reads regularly.

What about you? Do you already know where you can learn something new the next time you have time for it?

If not, you should start a reading list on Goodreads! It’s great to be able to track your books like that even if they don’t fit on your shelf anymore.

Alright, those are the 9 things a Boss Lady has that you don’t have … yet.

Do you already have plans on attaining any one of them shortly? If so, comment down below which one you want to tackle first.

Keep improving, dear Felicity Seeker!

Sophie

33 Boss Lady Glow Up Ideas For 2021 – How To Level-Up

Blog, Boss Lady

Don’t we just all love these girl boss, boss babe, or boss lady vibes? There is just something very inspiring and motivating about seeing a boss lady rocking her life. Well, today you will take the first step of your Boss Lady Glow Up!!!

It’s time to step into your full potential. You becoming a boss babe is not just going to elevate your experience of life.

No, the world literally NEEDS you to be your highest girl boss self! Because the happier, smarter, more empowered, and successful you are, the more good things you can give back to others.

You have the potential to change millions of lives for the better. But to do so, you need to step into the best version of yourself.

Now, you might be thinking: “Wow, girl … slow down! Why the hell are you talking about changing people’s life??? I’m just here for styling tips …”

If that’s you, I’m sorry, but you are going to be disappointed and might as well leave straight away.

There won’t be much appearance-wise boss lady glow up ideas in this list.

Because frankly, I couldn’t care less if you can look like a boss lady on your Instagram feed.

I want you to become a Boss Lady in real life! And your appearance plays only one of many parts in that.

So buckle up, ladies, and get ready to discover 33 Boss Lady Glow Up Ideas!

Mindset + Emotional Glow Up

Let’s start with arguably the most essential aspect of life: Your mindset and emotions.

1. Start a gratitude journal

The first thing you should focus on is gratitude. Gratitude can erase any negative emotion. But it needs to be practiced.

The more you focus on the things you can be grateful for, the more things you will effortlessly find yourself being thankful for.

And whenever fear, anger, anxiety, stress, or worries arise, all you have to do is focusing on that emotion of gratitude. Because it simply can’t coexist with toxic emotions.

And to be able to tap into that state of gratitude more quickly, you should start a gratitude journal.

From today on, write down three things you are grateful for each day and try to find new ones daily.

You don’t even need a real journal for that, simply open up a notes app on your phone and find some quiet place for a few minutes.

2. Practice faith

I know this is not everyone’s jam, and I myself haven’t been spiritual or religious for the vast majority of my life.

But a few years ago, I stumbled over the law of attraction, and I liked the principles it is teaching.

And while I was trying to raise my vibrations, I also kept looking out for signs from the universe.

And if you are receptive to them, you will find them. And keeping that look out for angel numbers and synchronicities paired with gratitude is growing my faith.

It doesn’t really matter what you have faith in or how you name it. If you want, you can have faith in your intuition or your gut instinct to lead you in the right direction.

But I am increasingly convinced that faith in something that creates a very much needed calmness and sense of security in a person.

So try to find something you feel good about having faith in and work on that.

3. Ease Guilt and Regret

Guilt and regret are ugly emotions that can suck all joy out of life. If not resolved, they manage to cling to you for years, if not decades.

Yet the past is the past, and there is no sense in fretting on it. So to fully embrace the now, you need to ease those toxic feelings.

A life coach or specific practices can help you with that.

4. Ease your worries

Talking about joy sucking emotions, worry is definitely among them.

Most people nowadays seemingly always worry about something, be it their finances, their job, their relationships, their appointments you name it.

What are your current worries?

Write them down.

Now, analyze them. Are they really something you should worry about? Will your worry about them be able to change anything, or is a positive mindset going to be more beneficial?

If you can influence the thing that worries you, make an action plan, and decisively follow through with it.

Life is way too precious to worry longer than necessary about irrelevant things.

5. Increase your confidence

Ah confidence, what an incredible boost for any kind of success in life. If you are confident, life just becomes so much easier, and you take action much more decisively.

So, how confident are you?

What are your self-esteem pain points?

What do you feel insecure about?

Brainstorm and journal about these pain points.

Are you insecure about your appearance? Your style? The way you walk? The way you express yourself? Do you feel self-conscious about your drawing or dancing skills? Your grades in school/uni? Your job?

Find as many of your insecurities as possible, no matter how idiotic they may seem.

With some of these insecurities, you might be waiting to find your significant other so he/she can erase them for you.

But darling, that’s not his/her job! It’s YOURS.

Only you can overcome your insecurities. If you don’t feel insecure because someone else gives you a confidence boost, it doesn’t mean these insecurities are gone. They are just buried under that confidence boost for the time being.

Also, it is simply not fair to burden your partner with the expectation that he/she has to make you more confident. You should want to be your best self for him/her so that you can give your all in this relationship.

So don’t wait for a prince charming to come around and save you from your insecurities!

First, you need to get clear on what they are, and then you should create a plan to get over them, each at a time.

Maybe you tackle one insecurity each month or if they are bigger, one each year.

Just do something about them! You will have a true Boss Lady Glow Up if you stop accepting them as a permanent part of your life and decide to get rid of them.

Read also: 12 Powerful Ways To Be Confident

6. What makes you happy?

If I’d ask you what makes you happy, could you answer me confidently?

A Boss Lady knows what lights her up. She knows where her passions lie and what activities make her loose track of time.

And that knowledge is powerful! If you know what makes you happy, you can consciously do more of it.

Can you imagine the Boss Lady Glow Up you’d experience if you do at least one thing a day that makes you feel utterly and entirely happy?

How would your experience of life change? How would it affect your motivation and energy to go about your day?

I know it can be challenging to find your passions. I know I struggled with that when I started building a business because, ideally, it should revolve around something I am passionate about.

I don’t believe you can forcefully discover a passion of yours. If you can’t think of one, simply keep looking. Sooner or later, you will notice it.

So don’t despair if you can’t think of something immediately. Just keep looking. And maybe try to look in areas of your life that are not so obvious. Ask yourself, what makes you lose track of time?

Whatever you come up with, try to incorporate an hour or so of it into your day. Intentionally block out time for it. Perhaps at the end of your day so you have something to look forward to.

7. Find some new inspirations and incorporate them into your day.

Ah, what a beautiful state it is to be inspired. Suddenly we have all that energy and come up with brilliant ideas out of nowhere.

Sometimes that inspired state can last for multiple days and sometimes for just a few hours.

Regardless of how powerful the inspiration is, I genuinely believe we all need it to awaken the best boss babe version of ourselves.

That’s why you should get some new and possibly inspiring input regularly, if not daily.

Incorporate Podcasts, inspirational YouTube videos, books, blog posts, or whatnot into your routine.

But a word of warning! Avoid incorporating them before phases of concentration. Because once inspiration strikes, it will be hard to focus on anything else.

And if you can’t fully embrace your inspired state because of other obligations, it will sadly be wasted. And that is truly a tragedy!

Career + School Glow Up

Another significant part of our life that some people even put way too much focus on is your career or your educational path leading towards it.

School and work take up a large part of our life. If you work 8 hours a day, that’s 1/3 of your day! And that 5 days a week for 40-50 years of your life.

Naturally, this area of your life definitely should be part of a Boss Lady Glow Up!

But what can you do?

8. Sort out your mess

First things first, get your shit together!

I’m sure you have some loose papers lying around, or maybe some of your pens are empty, and you should get a new one.

Maybe your files on your laptop or tablet need sorting or deleting.

Whatever your mess is, sort it out.

9. Evaluate your past performance and analyze problems

So, how have you been doing in school/college/uni or at work/in your business over the last year?

What were your successes and losses?

What are you struggling with currently?

10. Plan your next action steps

Goals in life are essential. You need to know where you want to go to get there as smoothly and quickly as possible.

So, what is your next goal work/school wise?

Is it rocking that math exam? Graduating with a good average? Getting into that university? Getting promoted?

Define your goal and then create an action plan to get there.

Maybe that consists out of writing applications for jobs or colleges. Or do some research on which college fits you best.

Perhaps you need to upgrade our study routine. If you’ve been studying a lot but not getting the results, you have to change the strategy. So do some research and try out new study methods.

Financial Glow Up

The next area of life most of us need a boss lady glow up in is our finances.

If you are a fellow Felicity Seeker, you are currently working on becoming financially free, so this is a very interesting topic for you.

11. Make a budget

First things first, let’s take an inventory.

How much money do you actually have?
On what are you spending your money on?
Is that necessary?
How much will you have to spend within the next year?
How much money are you making?
How safe are your source(s) of income?

To sum it up, what is your financial situation like? If you answer all of these questions, you know much more about your finances than most people ever know about theirs.

Also, you won’t be surprised by the payments that are going to have to be made within the next year, which erases quite a bit of stress and anxiety.

12. Automate savings

Alright, the next step is to start saving money. Many people recommend having savings worth 6 months of living expenses.

That way, you won’t have to freak out when you lose your job, or something else happens to your source of income. It gives you enough time to create or find a new source of income.

Now, if you are a student like me without a real income yet, you won’t be able to save much.

Still, I automated my bank account to transfer 5 € a month to my savings account. Not much, sure, but at least something.

And once I earn more, the amount I save will also grow.

13. Automate donations

The same goes for the contributions you want to make. I, for example, have automated monthly donations of 5 € to a charity of my choice.

Again, not incredibly much, but it is a start I am eager to build upon.

Another possibility is to join programs that automatically round up your credit card payments and donate the difference to a charity.

So if you buy something for 9,50€ for example, 50 ct. will automatically be donated.

I love that concept! It’s just so effortless yet effective.

14. Start working on creating another stream of income

It’s always nice to have more money and more secure forms of income. That’s why a Boss Lady likes to have multiple streams of income.

Are you currently working on creating a new one? If not, I highly encourage you to do so. There are truly endless options out there for you to earn more money.

Whether it is through a Blog, a Kindle Publishing Business, or through a creative DIY Etsy store, whatever you choose if you stay committed and keep working on it, chances are you will be able to see money coming in within 1-2 years, maybe even less depending on your skills.

Relationship – Boss Lady Glow Up

15. Define your inner circle

Do you know who your closest friends and family members are? Who truly understands you? To whom would you go when sh#t hits the fan?

Knowing your inner circle is crucial because it enables you to spend more time with them instead of people that simply don’t matter as much to you.

16. Plan activities with them

Once you know your inner circle, plan out some activities, or meetups with them.

In the hectic of daily life, going out with friends quickly get’s neglected. Especially if you are an introvert. After all, it’s just so comfortable to stay at home. Trust me, I know.

To overcome this, talk to your friends and dedicate yourself to meeting at least once a month/every two weeks/every week.

If you all commit to it, you can hold each other accountable. Suddenly, it will become much easier to meet up regularly and create new memories.

17. Define toxic people and take measures

On the other side of the coin, you should also know who the toxic people are in your life.

We all have them, and many of us spend way to much time with them. Sometimes because they are family members and we can’t just cut them out of our lives entirely.

But once you have picked out the people that simply do not make you happy, you can at least reduce the time you spend with them or prepare yourself mentally for their toxicity and put up a wall.

It’s not easy, but the least you can do is to prepare yourself.

18. Get clear on what your ideal partner should be like

Another relationship you should invest some thoughts in is your romantic one.

Especially if you are not currently in a relationship, it is a good idea to get clear on what your significant other should be like.

And I don’t mean stuff like “funny, abs, nice butt, fluffy hair.” Those are just superficial.

I want you to dig really deep and think about the core values and the vision for life your partner should have.

Let me give you some example of what I mean by this:

Imagine you are very athletic and you love to stay healthy and move your body regularly. In the long run, your will most likely clash with a partner that is the definition of a couch potato and has no interest whatsoever in keeping himself/herself healthy.

Or if you’d love to travel the world and be in a new place every month, but your partner just wants to stay in his/her corporate job and the city he/she grew up in.

Or you see yourself with tons of kids running around your big garden, but your partner doesn’t want kids or a house with a garden.

I think you get the point.

This is not about being super picky and having unreachable high standards. It’s about being realistic and thinking long term.

If you keep each other from living your dream life, you will only end up resenting one another, and that would be a real tragedy.

19. Ask yourself if he/she would be attracted to you? Work on yourself to level up to his/her level.

Now that you know what your ideal partner is like, you should ask yourself: Would someone like that be attracted to someone like you?

And again, I am not talking about your appearance (although general hygiene would surely help).

Let’s say you want someone kind and generous. Someone like that probably wouldn’t be attracted to someone with a lack mindset who clings to every penny they have and doesn’t donate a thing.

So basically, you are trying to step into your ideal partner’s shoes and answer the “what is your ideal partner like” question out of their perspective.

And once you have your answer, you can work on becoming that person. And most likely this will be the best version of you anyway, but now you have additional motivation to pursue that

Health Glow Up

A Boss Lady knows how precious life is, and she wants to make the most out of it. Therefore she makes an effort to be as healthy as possible. And that’s why you need a health boss lady glow up!

20. Analyze health issues

To do that, your first Boss Lady Glow Up task should be to analyze any potential health issues you might suffer from.

And with that, I mainly mean those seemingly little ones you have resigned yourself to live with.

This could be acne, menstrual pain, insomnia, dandruff, or anything else you can think of.

21. Take action on them

Once you know about the health issues you have, you need to decide to take action on them!

Again, don’t tackle all at once, as it will overwhelm you. Decide on the most bothersome of the issues and start to inform yourself on it.

Although you should always treat doctor Google carefully, I do believe it can be helpful to do some in-depth research in addition to doctors’ appointments.

22. Stand more

Our society is sitting waaaaayyyyy too much!

Sitting is not a natural body posture. Our bodies were built to remain standing for the majority of the time.

Yet because we all work a ton at our desks, we tend to spend the vast majority of our day sitting and then about one-third of it sleeping.

One way to stand more is to get yourself a desk that can be elevated into a height that makes it possible to work while standing.

But those can be expensive. So if you are like me and don’t want to spend that money at the moment, you can improvise.

I, for example, like to put my laptop on top of my commode to work standing for a while.

And I have dedicated the time I take for studying flashcards to a time I spend standing or walking around my room/the house.

In the beginning, you will want to sit down very often because you are simply used to it. But slowly but surely it will get better.

23. Stay hydrated

This one is a no brainer, and you’ve probably expected it on this list. But yeah, you should stay hydrated.

24. Devise a workout plan

And another no brainer. Of course, you should move your body regularly.

To really stick to a routine, I’d recommend you to create a fluent workout plan. Meaning, stick to the same workout time every day. Otherwise, you will forget about it during the business of daily life.

Also, if you like to use workout videos as I do, stick to the same source. You don’t want to browse through YouTube for half an hour before finally deciding on a workout you’d like to do.

A simple and fun way to do that is to follow workout challenges like the ones Blogilates, Chloe Ting, or the Tone It App create.

Alright, so that is the planning part of your workout routine. Now, I have recently tried to make my routine more fluent.

Meaning, although I know the source of my workout videos, I allow myself to choose the specific video based on my mood of the day.

Sometimes that also means to be gentle with me. On days when I really don’t feel like working out – e. g. I have a headache, and I know I have been working out the past few days – I ditch the workout for a gentle Yoga with Adriene session.

And on days where I have early appointments or lectures and can’t squeeze in my workout at its usual time in the morning, I tend to also go easy on myself and don’t force myself to do the exercise in the afternoon, if I don’t feel like it.

This fluent workout routine has me most weeks working out 5 times a week and doing yoga and stretching on one day each.

If I were a hardcore drill sergeant, I doubt I would keep up with my workouts.

That’s why I encourage you to make this routine truly yours. Listen to your intuition and your feelings. If you are not feeling well, be gentle with yourself.

In the beginning, you might need to be more strict with yourself until you have made working out a habit, but in the long run, I recommend a fluent workout routine.

Try it out. It is truly amazing what an impact fitness makes on your overall Boss Lady Glow Up.

25. Become conscious of the chemicals you put in/on your body

This is something I’ve recently been working on. Nowadays, I guess we all know that we are putting a ton of chemicals and microplastics into our bodies through the foot and the cosmetics we consume.

However, it seems utterly overwhelming to improve that as there are so many products you’d need to find an alternative to.

Therefore, I feel like many of us simply give up and stick to our regular consuming habits.

But, it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to throw out all of your cosmetics overnight and become toxin-free within a week.

Why not try to swap out your regular products for healthier ones, one at the time. The next time you have to get a new shampoo, use an app like Think Dirty or CodeChecker to scan a few products and pick the healthiest one.

Of course, those apps aren’t perfect either, and they might be biased towards certain brands. Still, it is better then not trying at all.

Try it out for yourself. Some of the healthier products are even cheaper than your original product.

And don’t be fooled into thinking you need to order healthy products like those online. I was surprised to find my local supermarket to have tons of choices available.

Appearance – Boss Lady Glow Up

And lastly, the category you might have been hoping for when clicking on this blog post.

I wanted to include this here because despite being superficial, your appearance can also lift you up or bring you down significantly depending on how happy you are with it.

So, here are a few tips on how to glow up in this area of your life.

26. Clean out your wardrobe konmari style

First things first, you should clean out your wardrobe.

Does this sound familiar? You are standing in front of your closet completely frustrated and maybe even close to tears because you have nothing to wear despite every inch of it being crammed?

Well, this is why you need a cleanout and a konmari one at that! This means you get everything out of your wardrobe and throw it on the floor or your bed in a huge pile.

Then you hold up every piece separately and ask yourself if this ignites joy in you.

Sounds cringy, yes, but ideally, you should want to be excited about wearing a piece of clothing. And if you can’t decide on anything to wear, chances are you don’t really like your clothes.

So might as well get rid of them. And ideally in the form of donations.

If you want to go more in-depth into this konmari technique, you should read The life-changing magic of tidying up. I’ve also listed it in my Reading List for Personal Growth.

27. Find style mentors

Now that you’ve gotten rid of a ton of stuff you don’t even wear, it’s time to learn how to buy clothes that genuinely excite you.

And the first step for this is to find at least one style mentor.

Scroll through Instagram or Pinterest to find someone whose style excites you. Ideally, they even have the same body type.

For me, one of those inspirations has been the petite Mira Duma or Dearly Bethany on YouTube and TaliaCupcake on Instagram.

Now analyze the outfits that inspire you most. What do they have in common? And what pieces would you need to replicate them?

28. Decide on a basic color scheme.

The probably most helpful tip I have learned on setting outfits together more relaxed and more stylish is to stick to a 2-3 color scheme.

Meaning, whatever outfit you wear, try to stick to 2-3 primary colors. You can wear different shades of them, of course. But sticking to few colors makes it look so much more cohesive and put together; it’s truly life-changing.

And in addition to that, decide on 5 primary colors for your personal style. Mine are black, white, beige, rose, and bordeaux.

Now that I know that, I pick the majority of my clothes in those colors. This makes it so effortless to mix and match them and still end up with a stylish outfit.

And once in a while, you can wear a flashy accessory or jacket in a different color. This will give your outfit that little spice.

29. Start buying quality over quantity

Yes, it can be great to buy cheap but stylish clothes from places like Shein, Zaful, or Primark.

But it’s no secret that that’s not the best quality. The pieces will rip easily or stretch out quickly or just not fit very well and sometimes be extremely smelly.

An appearance glow up a la boss lady happens when you ditch those cheap clothes for others of higher quality.

You don’t have to go all-in and write off your go-to stores overnight. But maybe invest in one or two good and pricey pieces a year. If you take care of them, they will last you for years to come!

I have a warm winter jacket from Zara, for example, that has lasted me 5 years by now, I think. And I am 21 … so almost for a quarter of my life. Huh, crazy to think about it.

Anyway, but I also want to mention that quality doesn’t have to be the most expensive piece on the rack.

At some point, the price is more due to the brand than the quality.

I feel like, we can very often intuitively sense whether or not something is of a good (not necessarily excellent, but good) quality. So just follow your gut.

30. Buy a few timeless pieces.

Stop chasing trends!

Sure, that pink glittery fanny bag might be totally in this year, but can you see yourself wearing it in 3 years?

The majority of your wardrobe should consist of timeless pieces. Stuff that you’ll feel comfortable wearing even in 5 years.

Those few flashy items I’ve mentioned above, those are the ones that can be trendy and cheap.

31. Invest in good jewelry

Jewelry and accessories can genuinely elevate your outfit. It’s incredible what a difference a simple belt can make or one chain necklace.

Ideally, you should start building a high-quality jewelry portfolio. Meaning jewelry that won’t oxidize after wearing it for a month.

Jewelry that you might even pass down to the next generation.

Again, this is a pricy task, but you don’t have to do it overnight. Take your time and invest in one good piece of jewelry a year or so.

That way, your style will become better and better as time passes.

32. Set reminders to shop pre-season

That was an essential step for me. Because quite frankly, I am just not in the mood to go shopping for summer clothes while we have winter temperatures or the other way around.

Why can’t shops sell summer clothes in summer and winter clothes in winter?!?!

So by the time I finally got the idea to get new sandals or boots, the stores didn’t have much left. And even worse, I didn’t have any to wear although the weather demanded it.

So yeah, set yourself a reminder on your phone to not forget your pre-season shopping!

33. Clean your shoes and accessories

This is very non-explanatory, but I feel like it’s very easy to forget. So here’s the short reminder.

And yes, people will notice your shoes having salt stains on them! So just clean and polish them!

Wow, that has been by faaaaarrrr my longest post up to date!!!! I am genuinely impressed by myself ^^’

If you’ve stuck with me till the end, please leave a comment down below on the first boss lady glow up idea you want to implement.

Other than that, I wish you a fantastic Boss Lady Glow Up!

Keep improving yourself!

Sophie

15 Things I Wish I Had Known About Pinterest Marketing

Blog, Business

Now that I have been actively engaged in Pinterest Marketing for almost a year, I took the time to take a step back and reflect.

Learning new things is natural whenever you start doing something new. And generally, I love to learn new things. It gets me really excited and feeling rather proud to have grown just a little bit more.

However, some things that I did learn concerning Pinterest Marketing would have taken away a bit of the stress, frustration, worry, and unnecessary effort at the beginning of my marketing journey had I only known them sooner.

Anyway, no sense fretting over the past. Ultimately I am just happy to know these things now so that I can teach them to you and spare you some of these negative emotions.

With that, let’s get into it!

1. Don’t go hunting for the viral pin design

Oh yes, this had given me quite some headache for weeks, if not months.

If you are looking deeper into Pinterest marketing, you are going to stumble over the expression “viral pin” very often.

To say it in simple words: It’s a pin that just takes off and does immensely good, meaning it gets tons of saves and a lot of traffic to your website.

And while talking about viral pins, I noticed many people focusing on the specific Pin design. And there are even statistics about it.

All together they say things like:

“Red color tones get more saves than blue color tones.”
“Crammed backgrounds get more clicks than monochrome backgrounds.”
“Use bold fonts.”
“Put your text into the upper half of the image.”
…

And yeah, sure there is definitely some truth to that, especially the statistically proven ones.

But from my personal experience, your pin really doesn’t need to be very spectacular to do well on Pinterest.

I’ve created stunningly aesthetic pins (if I am allowed to say so myself) that didn’t get a single save.

On the other hand, I noticed that utterly unspectacular pins from other people with literally just the title and a one-color background are among the top three performing pins I’ve saved onto my boards.

Also, if you type in a few keywords into the Pinterest search bar and then look at the top-performing pins. I can pretty much guarantee you, you will find some that are very plain if not even ugly. And that many will look very similar and don’t stand out from each other.

What does that tell us?

15 things I wish I had known about Pinterest marketing

Simple: Pin design is by far not as important as some people make it out to be.

And that’s crucial to know! Now, instead of obsessing on designing the right templates and finding the perfect stock images to go with the title, you can place your time and effort into more important tasks.

For example, writing a keyword-rich description, title, file name, board titles, board descriptions, section title, profile title, and profile description.

2. Create easy templates

That being said, another thing I have learned is to create good looking but easy templates for my pins.

The key here is speed.

Let’s be real. You are trying to build a business, most likely in the form of a side hustle. Meaning you already don’t have 8 hours a day to achieve this goal. Much less do you have the time to waste on designing your pins when you should focus much more on creating content, products, SEO, and marketing your business.

And you have to create multiple pinnable images for one Blog post/product (I currently create 9 pins per post).

Templates are the first way to reduce the time to spend on creating these images.

You put in a few hours to design a couple of eyecatching pins with Canva, and from then on, you just copy them and change the title and the image for each new content.

When designing these templates, you need to be careful to not make them too complicated.

For example, I allowed myself one complicated element, which is a number in the form of a frame in which I insert a picture of the rosé gold color I want the number to have.

This causes me to have to change and resize the frame every time the number changes, which happens pretty much with every blog post.

Talking about unnecessary effort, right?

That’s a task that would fall into the “20 percent results for 80 percent effort” scheme of the 80/20 rule.

What we want is to invest 20 percent effort/time for 80 percent of the results.

But not only unique design elements like that take up time.

What I have found to take up most of my time is the search for suitable stock images and phrasing the title differently.

So, how do we solve the image issue?

Design the pin so that the image won’t be noticeable either because it is in the background or because it occupies only a small part of the pin. That way, it doesn’t matter so much what the image shows.
Simply choose pictures of a coherent theme. Like always choosing images of women or of laptops or of nature. That way, you won’t obsess over finding the image that fits the topic of the pin perfectly.
Use the same image for all of your pins on that content/product, but play with the size, direction, and color pattern. That way, it will almost seem like you used many different images.

3. Give your images a file name.

It’s such a simple thing, and I had heard it multiple times but was always too lazy to name my images once I’ve saved them from Canva.

But having a keyword-rich image name is going to help them rank even better when you upload them to Pinterest.

Their algorithm literally searches for keywords everywhere. Even inside the Blog post, your pin is linking to.

If it’s perceived as high value, meaning it has lots of keywords and other SEO factors, then it is going to give your Pins another boost.

So just use keywords wherever you can. Don’t stuff them into your description. That’s probably gonna get them marked as spam or be penalized by the algorithm.

Instead, use the different places where you can put keywords in. The filename of your image is just one of those.

4. Don’t have too many group boards

Ok, I know what you are thinking: The more group boards I can pin my image onto, the more people are going to see it, which means I will get more traffic.

Generally speaking, yes, that’s true.

BUT…

…with great power comes great responsibility!!! (Sorry, I just had to be a dork for a moment ^^’)

But seriously, group boards not only present a possibility of traffic they also give you responsibilities.

Most group boards have a 1:1 pin ratio. Meaning for one of your own pins, you have to pin one of theirs.

Which is just fair, in my opinion, so I make sure to follow that rule. Of course, you might say “f#uck this, I just pin my own content,” but that will only work for so long.

Group boards of high quality are usually managed well, meaning they will throw you out after 30 days or so, if you don’t deliver on your end of the bargain.

Those group boards that don’t throw you out are most likely pretty trashy. And there are a lot of people pinning not niche related content so you might as well ditch that group board for it will not bring many results for you anyway.

So you want to keep a 1:1 ratio with pinning and saving images to and from group boards.

Now, if you pin one of your pins to say, 10 group boards, you have to save 10 pins of others.

That’s a lot of effort, and it takes away too much of your valuable time.

That’s why I instead focus on a few quality group boards. Especially since …

5. Tailwind Tribes are much better than group boards

(Of course, you need to be a Tailwind user to be able to contribute to Tribes.)

In Tailwind Tribes, you can

find more high-quality pins to save, and …
receive more repins …
by more high-quality pinners

Overall you just reap much better rewards from most tribes then from most group boards.

6. Have multiple group boards on the same topic

Staying with the issue of group boards, I’ve recently made the frustrating experience that a group board can suddenly disappear.

They didn’t throw me out or something, the whole group board just vanished from Pinterest. And what was especially painful about that was the fact that this was not only a great group board but also my only group board in the entrepreneurial niche.

So suddenly, I couldn’t pin my entrepreneurial images to any group board anymore.

And if you’ve ever applied to group boards, you probably know that it can take a while and a lot of applications to get accepted into one.

So the lesson I learned was that you should have at least two group boards on every niche your pins cover, should one of them throw you out or vanish into thin air.

7. If you can’t pin much of your own stuff, pin less in general

In the beginning, I bought into this whole “you should pin 20-30 images daily”.

And that indeed seems to be a generally recommended amount of daily pins to have the most success.

However, if you don’t have much content of your own yet, you won’t be able to fill those 20-30 slots up with many of your own pins. Meaning you will mainly pin other people’s stuff.

Granted, that will gain your impressions and followers, but if they don’t convert to traffic to your website, what’s the use?

I much rather save myself the time, effort, and frustration of pinning tons of non-traffic driving pins.

So if you can only pin 2 of your own images daily, then maybe you should only pin 8 images daily in total. That way, at least 1/4 is your own, and the traffic will be the same you’d have gotten if you’d pin a total of 25 pins.

Try it out for yourself if you want.

8. Use the Tailwind Smart Loop Function

One way to be able to pin more of your own pins daily is Tailwind‘s smart loop function.

It will keep pinning the same image every 3 months or so to the same board. That way, your old content gets recognition without you having to manually do it, and it helps you to pin more of your own pins daily without having to create more.

9. Use Tailwinds Interval Setting

Something I only recently started doing is taking advantage of Tailwind’s Interval Setting.

It goes like this:

You have an image you want to pin to 6 different boards. Now, instead of having Tailwind pin them straight after one another or randomly due to the shuffle feature, you can deliberately say: I want this image to be pinned every 4 days.

This will make your account seem much more professional. After all, it always seems somewhat spammy if the same picture appears multiple times in one row, doesn’t it?

Also, it gives the image more possibilities to stand out. Imagine you scroll through someone’s Pinterest account and see that there is the same image 4 times in a row.

You might look at the first one but skip the three others.

However, if you stumble over the Pin with days in-between, you will read it multiple times.

I once heard it takes humans 7 repetitions of seeing a commercial, for example, for it to register in our minds.

If that’s true, interval pinning gives you more of a chance to have someone click on the link of your pin.

Also, you might reach more people with the same content. If you pin the same image every day for a week and someone’s just not on Pinterest in that week, they might miss it in your feet.

Of course, these are hypothetical scenarios, I am aware of that. But they might be worth considering.

10. Don’t panic if you get banned.

Again, I am speaking from personal experience. One day, my Pinterest account was just shut down.

As you might imagine, I somewhat panicked and went through all possible scenarios of what I could have done wrong to be considered as spammy and ban-worthy.

Fortunately, after writing an E-Mail to Pinterest’s support team, they apologized for the mistake (which their system apparently sometimes makes) and opened my account again with all pins and boards just in place as before.

And if you look at my statistics, I also assume they gave me a We-are-sorry-for-the-ban-boost since my impressions soared after that for a few days before dropping back down to their average level.

So if you should ever get banned, don’t panic! It might very well be a mistake and can easily and quickly be reversed.

(Still, it, of course, teaches us that we shouldn’t put our eggs all in one basket for the long run. Just think of all the careers ruined by the sudden shutdown of Vine. Yet if you are just starting out and don’t have much time on hand, one source of traffic is alright while you improve your SEO rankings.)

11. Don’t use your own URL on other people’s pins

I admit I am guilty of this one crucial mistake. That’s also the reason I thought I might have been banned.

Rather often, pins don’t have a URL of their own. Whenever that happens, Tailwind doesn’t let you schedule them.

Now, after multiple times of that, I got extremely annoyed and put my URL in the empty field of 1-3 quotes. I only did it with quotes that were similar to my own anyway, so it wasn’t like I wanted to lead people to an utterly irrelevant website.

But still, it felt fishy and wrong to do, so instead of my own URL, I just put Pinterest.com in there. After all, it were really great images, and I wanted to pin them.

This worked for some pins, but over time most of them came up with errors when Tailwind tried to pin them at the scheduled time.

So, unfortunately, now I simply don’t pin the image if I discover it lacks a URL. In the end, it’s mainly the other person’s loss and not mine.

12. Don’t overvalue hashtags

Hashtags are essential on Instagram and Twitter. On Pinterest, though, not so much.

Sure, they help your ranking somewhat, but I’d instead put those keywords inside a compelling text that convinces the reader to click through.

Pins with hashtags are ranked chronologically for that keyword, which gives you a chance to stand out for a few days after having pinned the image.

But then again, who searches for Hashtags on Pinterest?

Try it for yourself.

Search for “fempreneur” and #fempreneur in Pinterest and compare the results. The latter ones are probably not going to be very appealing to you.

13. You should have at least 3-4 of your own boards to pin a pin to

It’s easy to get caught up thinking you are pinning your images to a lot of boards. And sure, that might be true. But what kind of boards are you pinning them to?

Because ideally, you should pin them to your own boards first, before you pin them anywhere else.

Inside of group boards, your pins quickly drown between tons of other pins that are being pinned daily.

Inside of your own boards, however, they get to shine for themselves!

Also, if your ideal customer/fan stumbles over your Pinterest account and checks out your boards, you want him to see your pin multiple times.

Also, if you can pin the same image to multiple of your boards, it fills up your pinning schedule, and you can pin more in total with creating fewer images.

Therefore try to have at least 3-4 boards where you can pin an image to.

For example, if I create an “11 Steps To Become A Confident Boss Lady” image, I could pin it to the following boards of mine:

Boss Lady Tips
Personal Development
Mindset Growth
Tips For Success
Women In Business
Striving for Felicity

I admit this is a point where I am still in need of improvement. Sometimes I do have images that don’t seem to fit into more than 2 boards, and that’s frustrating.

To solve that, look at your already existing boards and the images you are pinning in there. What topics repeat themselves? Could you single them out and create a more specific board for them?

Another tactic is to look at your competitors’ boards. If you are a vegan Pinterest Marketer, chances are the board topics of your fellow vegan Pinterest Marketers might also be fitting for you.

Or they could inspire you to come up with totally new board themes.

14. Beware of Quotes

Alright. This is a hot topic for me.

I’ve mentioned it before in The 5 Biggest Pinterest Mistakes I Made In The Beginning.

At the beginning of my Pinterest Marketing journey, I thought: YEAY QUOTES!

I have always loved quotes. Pinterest users love quotes. My business niche is very compatible with motivational and inspirational quotes.

So? I, of course, created tons of quotes.

And they did well! Brought me lots of impressions

BUT … no link clicks and, therefore, no traffic.

After realizing this, I thought: F#CK QUOTES!

I don’t have the time to create quotes that won’t convert into traffic.

I would have to create tons of new daily quotes like those Instagram accounts to start gaining some traffic through them, and who’s got time for that as a side hustler?!

BUT…

Now, I think: Maybe there is potential in quotes after all.

See, I’ve recently been working on my Affiliate Marketing strategy on Pinterest. But I haven’t been able to get many clicks on the links yet.

Most affiliate sales over Pinterest always seem to be clothing or DIY stuff and not necessarily business tools and courses (as far as I have observed, but I am still learning).

Then I noticed that the affiliate marketing kit that K Money Mastery gives its affiliates has Instagram quotes with a caption that talks about the product.

So why not try this method in Pinterest as well? Quotes always do exceptionally well.

If I create a “Tired of 9 to 5” image, for example, and put the description and link to a Kindle Book Publishing course that can help you quit your 9 to 5 in there, it’s no trick, but actually a valuable and related addition to the quote.

Don’t you think?

Disclaimer: This one I haven’t tested out yet. I just thought it might give you some insight into how I am improving and experimenting with my Pinterest Marketing strategy.

Also, I don’t want to entirely discourage you from creating quotes images and pinning them.

This is just my experience with it.

15. Don’t wait to buy a course

And last but certainly not least, I have learned that I might as well simply buy a course from an expert before I have to figure it out on my own.

I get it; money is scarce if you are trying to build an online business from scratch. Even more so, if you are a student like me with no income and want to invest in tools like Tailwind.

But maybe this course is worth it and will save you not only time but also money in the long run.

I had been doing Pinterest Marketing for half a year by the point I bought Melyssa Griffins Pinfinite Growth Course.

By that time, I already considered myself an advanced, if not expert, Pinterest Marketer.

After all, I had over 2 million impressions.

Yet, barely 20 daily blog visitors. So I knew I had to be doing something wrong, and I needed the strategy of an expert to fix that.

Sure enough, Pinfinite Growth did teach me quite a few additional tactics that made a positive impact on my results.

But the majority of the information I had already known at that point.

So maybe, I would have benefitted from buying that course sooner. Perhaps it would have saved me some time and frustration.

Anyway, that’s no general rule, and everybody has to make that decision based on their current situation. Still, it might be a point worth considering.

Alright, I hope I provided you with some new insights that you can implement to improve your Pinterest marketing strategy.

If you are patient and unrelenting, Pinterest can be a great source of high-quality traffic for you. So please don’t give up!

I wish you all the success you can dream of with your Pinterest marketing strategy!

Sophie

6 Reasons You Have Tons Of Pinterest Impressions But No Traffic

Blog, Business

It can be frustrating and very confusing when you have tons of Pinterest impressions, yet barely any traffic to your website.

I’ve been there myself. At one point, I had over 2m impressions yet barely 20 daily website visitors. How could that be?

Obviously, I had to be doing something wrong! I figured out my most significant issue on my own, but to be on the save side I also purchased the Pinfinite Growth Course.

In this article, I want to share with you the pitfalls I have discovered you can make that will give you tons of impressions yet no traffic.

1. You are pinning too much of other people’s content

Alright, first things first, you need to be pinning pins that actually link to your website.

I know it sounds obvious, but it isn’t. I know how easy it can be to get wrapped up in pinning only 2 out of 20 pins from your own website. Because after all, it seems like you are pinning a ton of content. And basically, you are … just not content that will help grow your traffic.

And I get it, it can be challenging to create so many pins. Especially if you don’t have much content yet.

In the beginning, I created one pin for each blog post. Later on, I raised that number to three per post. Nowadays, I create nine pins for each blog post I make!

With one blog post per week, that’s 36 pins a month. In addition to that, I use Tailwinds Smart Loop feature to repin a couple pins a day.

That nicely adds up to the right amount of my own pins daily.

And if you are at the very beginning of content creation and therefore don’t have many pins to loop, I recommend to just pin less in general.

Don’t feel the need to pin 20 times a day when you can’t pin at least 10 of your own images.

You should then instead pin 10 times a day with 5 of your own pins. That way, they won’t drown in between all of the other people’s pins you are pinning.

2. You are pinning quotes

That was by far my biggest pitfall. I pinned a ton of motivational and inspirational quotes, be it my own or others.

Why? Well, because they kinda fit into my niche and I adore quotes like that.

And the results were crazy high impressions and a considerable amount of saves of my own pins.

But that’s already it. Barely any link clicks and, therefore scarcely any traffic. But if you think about it, it makes sense, doesn’t it?

6 reasons you have many Pinterest impressions but barely any traffic

How many times have you looked for and saved quotes on Pinterest? And how many times did you actually click on their link?

Out of all the quotes I look at on Pinterest, I maybe click through on 0.2% or so. And that’s also only on those accounts whose quotes I really really like.

And doesn’t that make sense? After all, I already got what I wanted; the quote. Pretty much the only thing else I could want are more quotes, and well, those are on Pinterest.

3. You are pinning infographics

Personally, I see the same problem with infographics despite them being liked a lot by marketers.

I know that I rarely click through on the infographics that I see on Pinterest.

They already tell me the most important things. So why should I spend the time to click through?

What’s so tragic about that is the fact that creating an infographic takes so much more time than a quote.

You really don’t want to waste your time like that if it doesn’t convert to traffic.

4. Your Pins are eyecatching, yet the topic is not interesting enough

Sometimes you do create stunning and eyecatching pins that get a ton of impressions, yet nobody clicks on the link.

Why is that? Simple: They are not interested in the topic.

I see it time and time again. There are simply some topics that do incredibly well, and others don’t.

All kinds of “habit pins” do pretty well, for example.

You can do some research on different topics that are popular and create blog posts and pins about them to increase your traffic. Of course, you don’t want to be just mainstream, but it’s beneficial to have those few high converting pins that drive traffic to your site.

You can do your research with Google keywords or Ubersuggest or simply by analyzing what kind of pins do well with your Pinterest analytics.

5. You don’t give them a reason to click through

Sometimes a little demand or offer prompts people to click through. So try to play around with adding phrases like “click here!”, “Click through”, “free worksheet,” “free course” to your pin designs.

Some Examples…

6. You need to have patience

Lastly, you do need to have patience with Pinterest. It is a search engine, after all. The results won’t come overnight.

I, for example, am currently seeing a steady increase in my daily traffic from Pinterest.

It didn’t just jump from 0 to 1,000 daily website visitors but from 0 to 20 then to 30 then to 40 and sometimes even 70.

The more pins I put out there on Pinterest, the more traffic I can generate.

So please have patience with your Pinterest marketing strategy. If you keep it up consistently and always improve it a little bit, you will reap the reward soon enough!

I hope this will help you to convert your Pinterest impressions into traffic, and I wish you much success with marketing on Pinterest!

Sophie

Quiz: Are You A Pinterest Marketing Expert?

Quiz

8 Things I Did In My First Year Of Blogging

Blog, Business

Time flew by, and before I realized it, I have already been blogging for one year! Crazy to think about how far I’ve come in that year. How much I’ve grown. How many things I’ve did in my first year of blogging!

Sure, I am not one of those people who have created a full income-producing business within a year, but I am actually ok with that.

I started from absolute zero and therefore had to learn so much. And the funny thing is while in the beginning, I was pretty desperate to start making money with my business, now a calm and security have settled over me.

I don’t care so much about the fact that I haven’t even made 100€ in my first year of blogging. Sure, that would have been great, but I know it will come eventually.

That knowledge, combined with the joy of the journey, has made me much less desperate and left me with the hunger for learning and growing even more.

So even though I have not made much money in my first year of blogging, I have planted some important seeds that will no doubt explode my income soon enough.

This post is dedicated to sharing those seeds I’ve planted in my first year of blogging.

I hope this gives you a more realistic view of how that blogging journey can look like.

Not all of us have those crazy success stories we read online. And because it seems like ‘everybody else’ has them, many people get discouraged and quit when things don’t work out as quickly for them.

Just because you don’t see results yet doesn’t mean the seeds aren’t growing! So, let this post inspire and motivate you to keep working through that initial phase of seemingly no growth.

8 things I did in my first year of blogging

Recap

1. Getting comfortable creating content

As mentioned previously, I’ve started from absolute zero. I first got introduced into the whole idea of online entrepreneurship in October 2018.

And as Black Friday came around in November, I jumped straight into my first business model. It wasn’t exactly what I had imagined, though, and I put it on hold a few months later.

Then on the 1st of April 2019, I published my first blog post on my brand new Blog.

By that time, I had gathered some little insights into the online business world. However, I still knew very little about content creation or marketing.

Therefore I dedicated the first two months to simply get the hang of it.

I didn’t do any marketing during that time. Merely coming up with content ideas and writing blog posts.

It surely wasn’t very spectacular, but I believe that this time of purely focusing on writing content gave me some very much needed confidence and ease in my whole blogging journey.

Now, looking back, I realize how incredibly far I’ve come.

It took me much longer than those initial two months to get truly comfortable and efficient in content creation.

I remember it as being rather difficult for me to come up with content ideas, and it seemingly took ages to actually write it out.

Nowadays, I find inspiration for content out of nowhere. If I am inspired, I can write a 2,000-word post in half or even a third of the time it took me back in the beginning.

Now, one year into my blogging journey, I have lost the fear of running out of content ideas. The quality and value of my content are steadily increasing, and I am actually feeling proud of it.

In the beginning, I struggled a lot with creating content that I myself liked and was proud of. Very often, it just didn’t feel very original or valuable. Now, that has changed, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it!

2. Becoming clear on my niche

Maybe the biggest problem I have struggled with throughout my first year of blogging (and quite honestly I am still struggling with it a bit) was finding a niche I felt aligned with.

I started somewhat in the Personal Development niche. By now, I am more in the “Boss Lady” niche, meaning Female Entrepreneurship and parts of Personal Development.

I am much happier with it now, but I still don’t feel like I am entirely aligned with it. But I guess I just keep going with the flow and developing my business with time.

But this uncertainty about my niche has definitely slowed my progress down significantly. Would I have a niche I would feel crazy passionate about I would be able to give 130% and create tons of content and products and therefore make an income quickly.

You can read more on that topic in 4 Things That Determine How Long It Will Take To Build A Profitable Business.

3. Creating a Blog

I know I’m captain obvious for stating this, but I’ve created and published a Blog.

Nowadays, everyone can do that and even in a matter of a few minutes.

But still, I consider it something to be proud of. After all, putting myself out there on the world wide web for the first time can be a scary thing.

That’s one reason why so many people don’t ever get started with building a business.

4. Settling for a branding design

The word “settling” here is a loose term. I am still not entirely fixed on my business branding.

But I have at least come to find somewhat of brand-specific colors and fonts I try to stick to.

Of course, it is beneficial for your business if you stick to the same branding from the very beginning.

But personally, I try to not stress myself too much about it. After all, this is my business and my rules. If I want to change my branding into using only hot pink, I will do so without asking a business advisor for permission. (I am so not going to have a hot pink business!)

5. Learning about SEO

Ah, search engine optimization, you love it, or you hate it.

In the beginning, SEO can feel utterly overwhelming. After all, search engines like Google use over 200 algorithms to rank pages and posts. You will never be able to do well on all of these 200+, and who knows when Google will just suddenly change them?

On the other hand, you can reap great rewards with SEO, and it can actually be rather easy and fun.

For learning about SEO, I like to use Neil Patel’s content. He always shares excellent little tips and tricks that you can implement to make your content rank better.

Through his content, I have learned a lot about SEO in my first year of blogging.

Granted, I am nowhere near having my SEO game on track as much as I want to, but I am getting there.

6. Marketing consistently on one platform

One of my best decisions during my first year of blogging!

Marketing has been the scariest topic for me in building my business. I dreaded doing it for a long, long time.

What also didn’t help was the fact that I didn’t particularly like the social media platforms.

Thankfully, however, I discovered Pinterest marketing and dove in headfirst with Tailwind and Pinfinite Growth.

I have been pinning somewhat around 20 pins consistently each day for months now on my Pinterest account.

That effort has been rewarded, and Pinterest is by far my most significant source of traffic. And the best part: It is steadily growing!!!!

Again, I am nowhere near the traffic I want to have. But I’ve recently hit the 1,000 monthly sessions mark on my Blog, and that is a motivating development.

7. Creating my first Freebies

Another milestone I was pretty proud of was creating my first freebie as an opt-in incentive to my email list.

I am still struggling with having freebie or course ideas I am truly passionate about.

So having the first one was a big and comforting step for me.

If you are struggling with this, too, just create something basic and small. Like a printable planner or a Journaling prompts list.

Offering a one-page pdf file might not seem very exciting, but there are people out there that will want that! And most importantly, it will get the ball rolling for more fabulous and better freebies and eventually, also your own courses.

8. Starting an Email list

As mentioned in my previous point, I also started an email list! Again, there was some resistance towards doing that, which makes me all the more proud to have overcome it.

It’s still in its beginning stages, but I am sure it will grow massively during the next year.

If you are anxious about having that more personal connection to your audience an email list provides, you should use the time to build it when you only have little traffic to your Blog.

Sure, it will feel a bit like a waste of time to write weekly emails to a handful of people. Still, it allows you to grow more comfortable with it, with only a few people watching you.

What’s next

Alright, so those were the most significant milestones I ticked off during my first year of blogging. Naturally, the question that follows is, what’s next?

I want to do or accomplish a few things in my second year of blogging:

Becoming more passionate and inspired about my business
Creating my first course
Having at least 10,000 monthly visitors to my website
Earning 2,000 €/month with my business
Hiring my first virtual assistant/outsourcing a few tasks
Starting a YouTube channel and a Podcast
Proudly telling my family and friends about my business (I am still keeping it a secret until I have finally begun to make a regular income and established it as a ‘real business.’)

I guess in a year from now I’ll be able to tell you how many of these I’ve actually accomplished ^^

Until then, I hope you keep working as ambitiously as I on your business or whatever goal you currently have.

Have patience and be consistent! If you keep going, success is inevitable!

With much love

Sophie