| It’s no secret I have had a rough year. There were a lot of mental and emotional struggles while building a business that focuses on helping others. When I first started my business, I had just given birth to my daughter, and three months later, Covid hit. As someone who has always been incredibly well connected with my survival instinct, I dove head first into doing what needed to be done and showing up where I needed to be. This instinct led me to grow a social media network of over 20k community members across my Instagram, Facebook and Youtube. But I feel I simply grew too quickly. This is why I tell a lot of my clients with their own brands that steady growth is a gift and to not focus on the numbers, they come on their own. When you’re building from 10-100 people it should be an incredibly gratifying process. If you allow yourself to, you learn so much about your audience, what value is and who you are as a brand. Since I grew so fast, my changes to branding weren’t as graceful as I would have liked. And by the time I realized I was burnt out, I felt a lack of clarity and motivation. I felt I created a lot of confusion on a bigger scale, but somehow my core community always knew who I was. It’s something that brings me to tears. As I struggled with depression and seeing any value in myself, my clients and core community always enjoyed what I had to offer, regardless of the shape it took. While I have mentioned my struggle with mental health before, I’ve always enjoyed what I do. Helping people. I even started a paid group in order to be more accessible to an intimate circle with exclusive content. I started a podcast, “The Commonality,” that felt like a coming out party, where I would catch up with people in my life who inspire me and inspire great conversations. (Which will be back… just been on hiatus due to everything I’m talking about and then the excellently timed “hangovers”). But I realized that while I’m very comfortable with working and “doing the work”, at the end of the day I wasn’t really helping myself in the number one way that mattered. At the end of the day, it was my people-pleasing that took priority. Which finally brings me to a major catalyst in the sea of mental ambiguity I had been battling on a daily basis: I’M PREGNANT! Talk about a classic example of the Universe just straight up telling you what matters most. I talked about it a little bit in my post on social media, but pregnancy was something that I started to believe was a thing of the past because we had been trying for three years to no avail. So when I found out I was pregnant – well, I couldn’t stop saying, “oh my God” or “You’re kidding me” for the first two days lol. But it triggered something in me that had me really seeing the forest through the trees. This and some relationships in my life that I believed to be tentpoles ended up dramatically shifting. It all made me realize that the people-pleaser in me really needed to stop. No more soul-searching. Just stop. Do you. Period. (I mean, it’s impossible to completely stop – but I really needed to make a serious change.) So I decided to structure my business in a way where I’m able to create content I love and manage my schedule in a way that supports my alone time. It may be hard to believe, but I’m an extroverted introvert (you should see me trying to talk in front of a real group of people lol). All in all, I needed to focus on enjoying the journey instead of the hustle. Because I realized that the value I add is only meaningful if I truly deeply enjoy the value I create. |
| This means leaning more into my writing (blog) and sharing the journey of living (Youtube + IG). I’m still taking clients but I’m no longer focusing on acquiring new clients and instead invite new ones to find me when it works for them, which meant that the group was no longer scalable for my time. Instead, I decided to make all that content free and use Youtube as a community platform. |
| I even ditched my old IG with over 6k followers to start completely fresh. This account used to have over 15k but after cleaning up all the ghost accounts there was still a lot left to be desired in terms of engagement. The number of followers didn’t concern me; more than anything, it was the engagement. And I couldn’t trust that the algorithm hadn’t already permanently shadow-banned me from all the ghost accounts, brand changes, and overall lack of engagement. So I decided it was time to start fresh. This may seem super drastic but further growth was near impossible. Amazingly though, like a fat caterpillar finding its pace, I now get to go through the immense joy of starting fresh with a community that was actually engaging with me and my content. So it’s a lot! But not really lol. A new IG account (same name) and new Youtube. And then there’s the Blog (which has always been there it just looks different). So yeah, maybe it’s a lot. And then there’s the podcast that will be coming back this month. It is a lot… But I feel such a wonderful clarity around my mental health, time management, and the value I offer of just being a proponent of self-development, self-healing, and self-love. Someone who believes in the journey of it all and, above else, the very realness that is all our own individual ups and downs. My content exists to validate your journey by continuing to be transparent about mine. Hopefully, through this process, it’ll inspire you to experience some of your own clarity. I’ve always felt that being painfully transparent is more impactful because, ultimately, I just want people to feel grace for themselves in their own journeys. Pobody’s Nerfect. Thank you for your love, support, and guidance through this past 12 months. Please don’t hesitate to share feedback, thoughts, feelings, or anecdotes from your own journey. I am always here, ready and open to be a witness to you and us to each other. “I don’t know much, but I will share what comes to me.” Sending you Unconditional Love + Acceptance, Pilar |