054: Birthday Episode!

Join me as I close out my 20's and get ready to welcome in a new decade! 

In this episode I go over business habits and mentalities I plan to leave behind, and I also share what I want to bring with me into the next chapter. 

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Transcript

Julia: 0:00

Hey, and welcome to the freelance dietitian podcast. I'm your host Julia i used to be a clinical dietitian and now i'm a freelance writer and entrepreneur this is my last week in my twenties i am closing out a decade and we're having a fun birthday episode let's get started Welcome. It is a rainy Tuesday morning where I am in the world and I'm pouring myself a cup of coffee. I am recording this the morning of when the podcast should be released and it's because I had another one recorded and I listened to it and it was really, blah, it just didn't scream birthday. So it might be me like a perfectionist, but I thought, okay, let's try again. Sometimes it happens, guys. It's okay. Alright. First sip of coffee. Cheers to you. Happy Tuesday. Okay, delicious. If I am instantly rejuvenated. Okay. So this week I am closing out my twenties and over the weekend, I will be entering the thirties. And I don't really get too caught up on the numbers, but I do view this time of transition exactly as that it's a time of growth. It's an end of an era. At the beginning of a new one. I mean, I don't want to make it sound too intense. Like nothing is going to happen. I'm not going to wake up. With wings or something. But I do think it's a very natural way to take a moment of pause and reflect on what happened over the last 10 years. What are some great memories to carry with you as you move forward? And as a business owner, I definitely take, took some time to think about, you know, what are some business habits and business philosophies that I would like to leave behind as I close this chapter. And more importantly, what do I want to bring with me as I start the next adventure? So let's see. So the very first thing I think we could start with the things being left behind. So. I would recommend leaving behind. The urge to compare yourself to others. It's so hard not to, especially with social media and especially in the nutrition space, it's quite small. And you know, in the, when you consider how big entrepreneurship is around the globe, And it's really hard not to compare yourself to other RDS who are doing probably the same services that you're doing. I would say too often, that fear of being too similar to somebody else holds people back. You can offer an identical service to someone, but as long as you're bringing your own personality, your own viewpoints and your own pizazz or your own judge, as I like to say, You will find the right clients and be successful. I really think that when a customer spends money on your business and buys a product or buys a service. They're buying it because they like you, they want your take on that nutrition subject. They want your approach to that specific nutrition project. Uh, so just always keep that in mind. It doesn't matter if a thousand people are doing the same thing you're doing, nobody is going to do it the way that you are, and that is your strength. And that is your gift. So no more comparison. Don't let that stop you. One other thing that's more of a behavior that I think should be left behind is procrastination. And again, I really do blame social media for this. I'm obviously biased. I'm injecting my own experiences here, but it's too easy to spend time watching entrepreneurs live their life and do the things. And then you don't really spend the same amount of time working on your own business and pushing your own goals forward. I do think when I was first starting, 70% of my time was consuming other people's accounts who are living my dream of what I wanted to be doing. And that only 30% was me actually focusing on my own lane to take the steps to make it happen. And that is a form of procrastination. I would tell myself, I'm learning, I'm learning. It's fine. But eventually it's not just learning and it is actually stopping you. So take that. With a grain of salt, some tough love. And the last most important thing that I will be leaving behind. And I've already kind of started to do this and just feel more confident in my own brand. But the last thing I'm leaving behind is this desire to do what everyone else is doing. This is a very loaded topic. I understand that when you're first breaking into a new world, a K. Entrepreneurship. You want to follow the best practices. You see successful people doing things so that you want to do the same things. But it is such a limiting factor that will only get you so far. And it will. I think there's a big risk that it will make you spin your wheels and get really frustrated and feel like, why am I not making more growth? But it's because you have to stop doing what other people are doing. They're on their own journey. You need to carve your own path. And I know I mentioned that in the last episode, but I can't stress enough how important it is. It can be scary to stand out online. You know, a marketing genius would say, hello, dummy. That's the whole point. And logically, I understand that. But as someone who doesn't have a marketing background, it's a completely different way of thinking. And if you're someone who's a little bit more private, it can be really hard to put pieces of yourself out there, especially on the internet. So I totally get it. But you need to, you need to find a way to stand out because it's going to give you so much more satisfaction in your business. It's also going to attract the right type of client that you want to work with, like does attract like in the business world. And that is so important. You don't have to have food, pictures and avocados and kale on your dietitian platforms if you don't want to. They're very nice and I understand the message. They're very wholesome, but if you want to stand out, it's only going to be to your benefit. I love artsy stuff. I love graffiti style. I like the history behind graffiti. I like what it means for communication and expression. And it just, it helps to stand out, even though I changed my branding every season. People still know that I'm that graffiti dietitian with a podcast. So don't feel like you have to pigeonhole yourself to this stereotypical dietitian picture. I would encourage you to branch out, throw some French fries on there. Surprise people, make it memorable. I do something that is going to feel like it resonates with you, but just stand out. And you can follow that or you don't have to, but the next time you're choosing a photograph or an Instagram post, maybe you do something that's a little bit more surprising. Maybe do something that's aligning with the current Tik TOK trends or the aesthetics. Like you have to think beyond your identity of being a dietitian. If you want to connect with other people. That's my tips. There's nothing wrong with kale and avocados, but I sincerely believe in my heart. You got to give more people, want more They might not know how to spell dietitian, but they know that you're about nutrition. What else can you give them to incentivize them to work with you? So that feels like a really nice segue. To talking about things that I would like to bring with me as I enter the next chapter, what have been some really positive, happy accidents that worked, that I would like to keep growing and developing I would say one thing is the ability to push yourself. Some people have it naturally. You are a little bit more comfortable with being uncomfortable. And other people have to work at that and it can be really outside of their comfort zone. I think the good news is anybody can improve that part of themselves. It takes practice. You have to practice doing scary things. And then hopefully each time it will be a little bit easier because you'll say, oh, Hey, I did that thing. Everything was fine in the end. Maybe I didn't get the results I wanted, or maybe you did better than you ever thought you would. But the point is you survived it and you're ready to go for round two. So having that sense of bravery is so vital as a business owner. And I would just say, keep that going. The most powerful thing that I've been telling myself ever since I started entrepreneurship. Whenever I see something that I'm kind of curious about trying, I say, let's just try this and see how far we get. And as soon as I take that stance, it alleviates pressure for me to perform perfectly for me to do something and get it right on the first time. And it just feels like less commitment and it makes it more fun. When I first started freelance writing, I told myself that I said, well, let's just try it. And let's see how far we get. Like, I wasn't planning to turn my whole career around. It happened after the fact. And the same is true with the podcast. I'm like, let's just try it and just see what happens. Like who cares it in your brain. You can think of a thousand scary reasons to stop you, but you have to do the thing. And that really makes me think of the next thing that I will be carrying over into this next chapter, which is that failure is your friend. If you fail, it means that you put yourself out there and you tried something which is already incredible. Failing gives you data and that is something to work with, especially when you're juvenile in your business. You need to troubleshoot and see, okay, what are the potential errors? Where were some weak points? How can I fix that? So the next time it's going to work even better. I remember listening to someone talk and I don't remember their name. It was a tick talk real. So it was really short. But they said, I wish when I started my business, someone told me that you would fail five times as much as you would succeed. And I think about that very often, because it's so true. Nobody gets it right the first time. But the most important thing is that you keep putting yourself out there and you keep trying the things. So that is an approach that I will be taking with me. As I continue to grow my business, it helps me feel braver and it helps me feel more fearless to be honest. And the last thing that floats through my brain every single week is this clip that I watched. It's an interview for movie promo of dune, and it's from a couple of years ago. And it's been research relating on Tik TOK recently, and it's with Zendaya and Timoteo Shalla may. Who are the stars of the movie. And the reporter asks him this really deep question, what's your philosophies on life coincidences? Like, do you believe in them, do you believe in fate? What do you think personally? Not as your character, but you as Timothy. And he takes this moment and he's reflecting. And then he gives this jaw dropping answer, And he says you could be the master of your fate. You could be the captain of your soul. But you have to realize that life is coming from you and not at you. And that takes time. And I think about that like once a day. Life is coming from you, and you don't have to feel like you're sitting there getting your lumps and potato served to you. You have control about what you're going to put out into the world. And I think about that, like literally once a week, I think it's so lovely and it's struck a cord. If you just Google that clip, it's very famous right now. You'll see it online. It's it's like 10 seconds, but for some reason it really clicked with me. So that's it. So that's what I wanted to share with you guys. I hope that you have a great week. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you love the podcast, please consider leaving a comment or dropping a five star review. It really does help to boost the algorithm for the show so that other people can find it easily. Bye.