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Think about the goals you have for your brand, business, or personal goals. Instead of always searching for answers or advice on the internet, turn inward. Tune into what actions you feel called to do, even if it feels a bit messy. If your goal is to build up your skills in your field, think about the ways you enjoy learning or what tools/platforms you feel will both be impactful and enjoyable to you. By turning inward, you're giving yourself opportunities to develop self-trust and choosing a path that is most in alignment with you. No matter what the outcome is, good or bad, the whole point is that you chose what you felt called to do. It can be easy to follow the articles or posts on the “10 rules to build a successful business” and “10 rules for a happy life” when you just want straightforward answers or direction. But sometimes those guidelines or paths don't align with us and can tend to make you feel like a failure or flawed if you struggle to follow them.
As much as I do believe that there is very insightful and helpful information out there, I do think it's wonderful to create and learn on your terms. Learn on the go, and follow what you feel like doing.
For some time I questioned if me showing up so casually and raw on my social media meant that I was ruining the chances of my potential clients or audience to see me as a professional. Ultimately I followed my intuition and did what brought me joy. I began creating, posting, and sharing what I felt aligned with that moment, day, or week. I realize I've gotten this far and I have had work opportunities, I have been treated like a professional designer, and I have connected with my dream clients, all while being my authentic self.
I share this to inspire you to do less thinking and more feeling. Do more of what you want and not what others tell you to or what you think you should do based on what the rest of the world is doing.
Think about your brand or business for a second and why you decided to start it. Do you show up the way you really want to? Do you share what you really want to?
Know where you want to go with it, who you want to work with or interact with, and have clarity in the details and then start showing up.
People typically do things in this order:
Think → Do → Be
instead
Be → Do → Think
BE that person or version you want to be in your life or in business. Start doing based on what fills you up. Feel like posting a reel of your life, do it! I'll be there to like and comment to support. Feel like changing your brand logo for the 3rd time? Do it! Evolving is fun. Want to be a confident person? Be that person who embodies that energy. From doing you start changing your thoughts.
You get to make your own rules. Feel safe to. Try this out one day or week and see how different you feel toward yourself, life, and business. Life is cooler this way.
You don't need to reinvent the wheel or obsess over how you can stand out from your competitors.
It starts with being okay with where you are right now. You naturally acquire a unique mind and skills. The programs, services, work, that you do has your unique twist on it. It's refreshing interacting with brands and business that are so themseleves.
Sometimes when you get obsessed with figuring out how you can stand out, you could fall deep into comparison and may even try too hard to do what others are doing. You see how another business is succeeding and you may feel as though you need to follow their step by steps to get the same results. But you can totally achieve your own success without having to put so much pressure on yourself. Show up as your authentic self!
What makes creating a personal brand so much fun is that there's a nice balance between seriousness and playfullness. Many brands I love show that they're serious and passion about the work they do but also allow their realness shine through. Whether that's lots of BTS of a project, work day, or out on the town finding inspiration, or chit chatting about something interesting.
Obsess less, and start owning it! You are enough where you are right now and acquire a lot as is.
This is something I bring into when I'm designing websites for my clients! Websites give people a unique experience of your brand. Websites don't need to be this serious, dull, too-corporate-like experience. You can totally add your brand personality in a dynamic and engaging way, while also keeping it professional.
Make creating your personal brand a fun experience! xx
I’m not always inspired to design, nor does it really come easy to me. But when I’m in a state flow, it’s so much fun.
As I mentioned, I’m not always inspired so I either am in a state of flow because I crave being creative or I recently saw or heard something that inspired me to.
I absolutely love listening to music to set the mood or to match what I’m feeling like for the day or season in my life. I’m someone who creates albums for specific periods of my life because when I listen back to them I remember all the memories that occurred during that chapter.
For me, music is one of those things that motivates me to create - hence the Ig stories that always have a song attached or my love to post on Tiktok. I choose a really good song I’m into and the visuals and vibe completely come to me. This is why I am still able to post on my social media of my web design passion projects. They’re not real websites but they are created for the purpose of continuing to challenge myself creatively and to share with my audience the kind of my design style. Without having this one thing like music to help me, the process of creating would probably feel forceful and a little boring.
If you’re a creative person and also struggle to be consistent to create, take this advice and find something that you can use to help spark some inspiration for you. You may find that spending time outdoors is inspiring and makes you feel clear-headed again, or it could be connecting with like-minded people who you can gain new ideas from, or doing something where you can truly feel energized.
Let yourself be creative when you really feel like it. I post a passion project on my socials once a month and it’s different every month on how I feel about getting creative. When I feel uninspired and I still try to create, the experience isn’t fun. So, do the things that may help you get in a state of flow or give yourself time until you feel good about designing. When you feel aligned, the outcome of your design is so much better than if you weren’t. Other people can feel the excitement from you when you’ve shared something that was made out of love!
When I started to play around with building websites through CSS and in Webflow, I didn't realize that using pixels (px) was not the way to go. I mean, ya girl had no one telling her it was even a thing. Until I read a very helpful book called, "Web Design Playground. HTML & CSS. The interactive way" by, Paul McFedries.
(Side Note: If you're just starting out to learn CODE, this is a great book for you. This if for you if you are dedicated to read about web design in DETAIL)
For the ones who aren't aware of this, this ones for you. Your entire approach while designing will change...for the better.
Let me break it down for you,
Responsiveness is when a website adjusts to the size of different screens. Your website must be respond to desktop, tablet, and mobile. These are just the basics, but you know what I mean.
Not pixels (px)! You've most likely worked with pixels when working on text or graphics on platforms like Photoshop, Illustrator, Canva, etc. Pixels are great for PRINT. It's static. It's piece of paper. But when it comes to a website, you don't want that text, image, or video to stay as a fixed-size. Your content should be responsive. To do that, you must use responsive units —aka relative units— like,
Rems
Ems
%
View width (VW)
View height (VH)
For images: The image comes with a predeteremined width and height. So you want to be careful not to skew the image by changing one dimension. Here is the rule to apply to an image so it becomes fluid,
Max-width: 100%;
Height: auto;
Max-width: 100% will enable the image to scale as the parent container size changes. It also specifies that the image can never scale larger than its original width. You can also reverse it, Max-height: 100%; and Width: auto; if you don't want the image height to scale larger than its original height.
Auto is used to tell the browser to maintain the images original aspect raito.
For text: always be aware that there are users who like to adjust the size of text when using Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Some of these people have visual impairments, others simply want to adjust the text to their liking. If you're using relative units, the text on your website will respect their browser settings. You can see how important this is for accessibility!
The best relative unit to use for text is ems and rems. The way they work differ, but both are good options for responsiveness. These two relative units are also great options for vertical measures such as, height, padding, and margins.
These rules are so important to understand so you can develop websites properly! I hope this helped you, and i encourage you to go into your wbesite builder and start applying and practicing these units to your content and see their responsiveness through desktop, tablet, and mobile.
I always say that a website is the vehicle of your business. It's the space where clients can reach out to work with you, experience the content you're giving, and learn more about your business. Your business will change throughout time and your goals may shift as well. Something to really help your site keep up with change or support your client experience is to include integrations or embed some type of plugin that will help support specific tasks. By including integrations/widgets, you're enhancing your website's functionality and you're providing a smoother user experience. Below I've listed different businesses and a list of integrations/widgets that can be useful for their websites.
ACCOUNTANT
Accounting: Twinfield API
Calendar, Booking calls/webinars: Calendly
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
Video call: Zoom (with Zapier)
CHEF/BAKER
Calendar & Scheduling: Calendly, CozyCal
Social Media: Flockler: Social Media Feed Plugin, Tagembed: Social Media Aggregator, EmbedStories
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
Event Management: Eventbrite, Happyning Events
COACH/INSTRUCTOR
Administrative: Honeybook, Nudge Coach (with Zapier)
Teaching: Teachable (with Zapier)
Calendar & Scheduling: Calendly, CozyCal
Social Media: Flockler: Social Media Feed Plugin, Tagembed: Social Media Aggregator, EmbedStories
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce, Dubsado
EVENT PLANNER
Event Management: Eventbrite, Happyning Events
Video call: Zoom (with Zapier)
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
Communication: Slack (with Zapier)
CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce, Dubsado
FASHION DESIGNER
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
Converting prices to shopper’s home currencies: Monto: Multi-currency for Webflow shops & sites.
Affiliate: Monto: Affiliate & referral management for Webflow shops
Cart Recovery: Monto: Abandoned cart recovery for Webflow SHOPS
Shipping labels/Tracking orders: Shippo
Print-on-demand drop shipping & fulfillment warehouse services: Printful
FLORIST
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
Converting prices to shopper’s home currencies: Monto: Multi-currency for Webflow shops & sites.
Affiliate: Monto: Affiliate & referral management for Webflow shops
Cart Recovery: Monto: Abandoned cart recovery for Webflow SHOPS
Shipping labels/Tracking orders: Shippo
HAIRSTYLIST
Calendar & Scheduling: Calendly, CozyCal
Social Media: Flockler: Social Media Feed Plugin, Tagembed: Social Media Aggregator, EmbedStories
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
INTERIOR DESIGNER
Calendar & Scheduling: Calendly, CozyCal
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
PHOTOGRAPHER
Calendar: Calendly
CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce, Dubsado
Signing/Booking/Paying: Honeybook
PRODUCT BASED BUSINESSES
CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce, Dubsado
Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Flodesk, AWeber, Buttondown, Active Campaign
Social media: Elfsight
VIDEOGRAPHER
Calendar: Calendly
Signing/Booking/Paying: Honeybook
WHAT ALL WEBSITES CAN BENEFIT FROM:
Collecting information/feedback, conducting polls, etc: Survey Monkey
Collect data & automatically save to a base: Airtable (with Zapier or just embed forms)
These are only a few examples of integrations. It's very helpful to work alongside a web designer who can help you figure out which tool could be helpful to your specific business.
Take a conscious approach with your emotions, thoughts, and actions. Sometimes we live our daily lives just doing the first thing our mind and body want to. When we do this, we may find ourselves living an out-of-control life and experience things we don't want or enjoy.
For example, If you get faced with a difficult situation, you can easily go into a deep state of sadness and have a hard time getting through the hurdle. You choose to see the world as evil and stay in the victim mindset for longer than you should. It's much easier to choose that emotion right? But you should know that you have more control than you think to view your situation from a different perspective.
Take time to think about what you actually want to feel. Feel the feelings even before your experience has happened. When you live with intention, you are making conscious decisions with your thoughts and your actions to get to a desired place. You’re not living with intention if you’re making choices that seem convenient but you know deep down that it’s not serving you or if you’re doing things without the desired goal in mind. Some things you may be saying to yourself are: “I’m just going to go with the flow” “I’ll just do this, it seems convenient” “I’m in a rut. And I don’t care to know how to get out of it,” “I’ll deal with it later”. The goal here is to make your physical reality into one that is full of awesomeness, and you can do that if you break out of this problematic loop that you’re creating by carelessly choosing your first triggering emotion.
Instead of allowing things that I don’t want to occur to me, I decided to take control so I experience more of what I desire. Take even small steps as to thinking about how you want your day to go. If you want to have a good day, you’ll do everything you’re capable of choosing what brings you joy. You may be conflicted with two options, and you will choose the one that will fulfill it. Be aware of all your emotions, beliefs, words, your actions and choose them wisely. It will always begin from within, so feel the emotions and that will alert your body to take action.
Keep in mind that sometimes things won’t go as planned but understand that everything is happening FOR you and not TO you. So don’t feel discouraged and give up on taking full control of your desired reality! The universe has your back, always.
