Balance

This week has inadvertently become a bit of a self-health week on Heidielka, so I figured I may as well go with itfor the final post of the week.

Leaders in Business Facebook Group, run by the amazing Terri Adams-Munn of Ten Thousand Dreams, has a weekly #TuesdayTip. This week Terri asked us to share what keeps us balanced. As perpetually imbalanced person I couldn’t think of anything, until Thursday when I remembered this quote:

Life is a balance of holding on and letting go

Rumi

So simple. So complex. So true.  

May you find your balance this weekend.

Radical Learnings

This post was supposed to be out last night. Just like Saturday’s post was supposed to be a Friday one. I don’t have my regular posting habit locked in yet.

Yet. It’s a weird word. One that seems to be, for many, either positive or negative. There’s the group that seem to see it as a failure to achieve—“haven’t you finished that yet?”. I used to be strongly part of this group. Yet was my failure indicator. I’d constantly tell myself that I hadn’t achieved enough, or weren’t successful enough, or wasn’t skinny enough. It was my perfectionist mantra, and it worked incredibly well to make me feel bad enough to accomplish things out of guilt and fear.

Then I got really sick. Fibromyalgia is a beast I’ll talk about sometimes. It is a perfectionists nightmare; one that seeps into every vessel of your life and makes past guilt and fear seem laughable. As with other chronic illness, it took my ability to choose my enoughs and yets…or so I thought…

Until I realised there was a second yet—“I’m not there….yet (…but I will be)”. It’s such a subtle change. And sometimes one most people won’t notice without the help of those last few words. But if I remind myself that yet is simply a measurement of time and not a comment on my failure to achieve, it becomes enough. And enough becomes a marker of just that—enough. Not a comparison of someone else’s success, but of meeting my goal to a standard I can be okay with.

I forget my yet regularly. Most of this week I’ve forgotten it. But there are reminders everywhere that we are doing enough. The people who love us will tell us, our colleagues and friends do as well. And if they’re not around, there’s always social media—the good kind. I found one of the good ones yesterday…when I started writing this. Radical Child Designs focuses on “normalizing not-so-positive feelings and helping us all dislike ourselves a little less everyday”. The founder, Summer, wants it to help us all feel more validated in our negative feelings, but also lift us up. And it does. In fact, this awesome Insta post from last year is exactly what I needed this morning to remind me that I just haven’t solidified my posting habit…yet.

See original here

I especially love that “struggling does not mean I’m failing”. It just means I’m not there…yet.

Do you have things in your life you can change the yet on?

Hoping for Kindness

The world is an angry, selfish place to be sometimes.  We hear about it in the news, or perhaps see it on social media, maybe even participate it as either the perpetrator or victim. This past year has been an intense and incredible portrayal of selfishness, with fear and frustration feeding our need to protect self before other amid such endless uncertainty.

But the world can also be good. And it only takes one moment in a day to remind us of this goodness. This is something my nanna instilled in me. She passed away while I was still young, but by then had managed to teach me that kindness was the most valuable gift we had to give. Thanks to her, I do this every day. So much so it has, at times, become an issue. Weird right?!

A colleague decided I was being too nice to everyone and making her look bad. She complained to our manager about it, suggesting it was a malicious kindness—a way to ensure I was more popular and therefore more likely to get promotions. This hurt, but it didn’t stop me from being kind, it simply shifted the way I presented it. I became quietly kind, playing the free coffees, edited assignments, ‘accidental’ extra parking ticket off as silly mistakes or genuine interest in statistical analyses of anything. I mean, that last one was a bit of a hard sell…

Quiet or loud, more kindness will never not be needed, and it doesn’t have to be big.  Small acts, regularly done, by lots of people—imagine the change we could make! That’s why I wanted to share this wonderful challenge from a private Facebook group I am part of run by the fabulous Martiene Van Steyn of Branding in a Box:

Image from Martiene Van Steyn’s private Facebook group Building a Digital Community + Business. (Please be aware this is a private group)

As you can see from the above, the basic premise is the same as many others: one good deed a day. That’s it. One act of kindness, no matter how small, for a month. But then, what if the person you help passes that on, and then the person they help does too? And even if that’s a crazy thing to dream, and some people you help don’t pass it on, maybe that small kindness will be what got them through a really tough day. And maybe tomorrow they’ll be feeling more like showing someone else kindness.

I’m not participating in the challenge openly, mainly because after the ire of the colleague above, I made a personal decision to be quietly kind as a rule. But it has reminded me to be more aware of not just the kindness I show, but the kindnesses I’m shown by those around me. It’s also reminded me to encourage kindness more. So, with the inspiration of the Hope Challenge, I’m encouraging you to go out and do just that. Bring hope by being kind in small ways. Even if it’s simply a nod to someone in the street or a quick heart emoji to a friend to let them know you’re thinking of them. Let the people around you know this world isn’t all anger and fear right now. There’s hope and kindness hidden where you’d least expect.

Brand Continuity (or How Not to Terrorise Children)

Here’s the thing about branding: it’s tricky.

When you create a brand, you’re essentially creating a persona or character. Just like a person’s character, if something doesn’t match with the rest of the persona things get weird. Example: imagine the queen being super into tactical weaponry or thrash metal. Or Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain crocheting?

Got ya—he totally did! Sidenote: something so hot about a man who crochets/knits. I digress…

Kurt Cobain image taken from Pinterest, but originally from Croshame.com

Branding. It needs to be sans too many Cobain-style twists; more like the Queen’s love of corgis—obvious, simple, everlasting. And on message. Which brings me to my huge branding boo-boo:

Can you see the issue?

What if I reminded you that my brand is all about soft furnishings, accessories, and children’s toys?

By now, the clever among you have spotted the skull in the design and are either laughing or drawing a sharp breath. Perhaps both. That’s right. I put a dead animal in my branding for a kid’s label. OOPS!

 Now, this was an a huge, but very much accidental error. You see, originally, I was going to focus on a different, more adult product range, so my dear skull looked cool and totally fitted with the aesthetic of Heidielka. But, when I pivoted product, I made the fatal mistake of not confirming brand message was still on point.

Enter dead-animal children’s toys. I’ve heard kids aren’t so fond of death. And parents are even less fond of suddenly having to explain to their 4-year-old what it is any why it exists on their cute plush hippo.

Thankfully, while branding all my social media, I realised my logo was cumbersome and unclear in smaller imaging, and, when I decided to look at ways to adjust this issue, I realised the logo was also seriously character flawed. Picking this up during soft-launch stage, before I had branded any items, means I can adjust logos and rebrand everything before it becomes a problem. Unfortunately, it means that my lewk will be in flux for a bit longer which, as a perfectionist, is stressing me out a bit. But I’m so very glad I found it early, and happy to share a business boo-boo with you all. Perhaps I can save someone else from making a similar mistake.

Moral of this story, friends; if you’re branding or re-branding, think about who you are and what your audience sees/wants to see, and remember all the details matter. Especially the little ones.

Being Social

Image by Merakist on Upsplash

I hate social media. I hate scrolling through the re-touched, filtered Instagram pictures; I despise the half-story tweets that give you the punchline without the lead-in; I loathe Facebook’s constant roll of better-than updates and biased rants. I hate it all so much that, for the past five years, I have managed to avoid more than a cursory glance at any social platforms a couple times a week.

The problem I have with social media is entrenched deeply in my own faults. I am a desperate people-pleaser, with a penchant for presenting a façade of cool, calm, togetherness. A ridiculous goal if you know me at all, because I’m incredibly clumsy, anxious, and unable to send a message without mistyping at least two words. Nevertheless, I have a dream that my life can be less chaotic, and comparisons to others’ perfect lives on social media crushes this dream so heartlessly, that I have, to this point, to avoid the socials as much as possible.

This is all well and good when I am simply a worker at a job, with no need to promote myself or my wares. However, when you start a business, promotion is rather pivotal for building interest, attracting clients, and selling said wares. Enter, stage left: Promotion in the Digital Age. AKA Social Media.

Do you see my predicament?

There is one digital media tool I have always enjoyed. One that I have dabbled in over the years, and always wished to be more constant with, and that is blogging. A semi-dead art in the promotion game, but a definite connect to digital contact, and one that I can comfortably commit to and enjoy. This is why Heidielka Blog is back. She is, in a way, a back door into social media for my social media inept self. She is Step One. One post a week, then two, then eventually three or more. A series of mini steps, of you will.

Step Two is harder: One post on Instagram a day. Just one. But every day. Starting April first. Until then, Heidielka Blog will slowly increase in posts per week, and hopefully help me prepare for returning to other social platforms more intensely. But first, I need to work on my logo…a story about which I will tell you on Friday.

Rebirth

Change is hard. It takes effort, and thought, and huge amounts of courage. Change risks rearranging not just parts of our lives, but often parts of who we are as a person—our vision of ourselves. Even when the change is a good one, it can be hard for us to let go of out current vision to work towards a new one because…what if we fail?

Heidielka, in her life as just a blog, faded a long time ago. Life got busy with doing and being, and Heidielka fell by the wayside. But I’m making changes. Big ones. Scary ones.

Heidielka is at the centre of those changes. In fact, you might say she is the change. I’m becoming an entrepreneur, and Heidielka is becoming my brand. Heidielka blog is being reborn as part of that journey. She has been wiped clean, ready to be the witness to the trials and tribulations of creating a small business…and, of course, be a place to promote as well.

Along the way, Heidielka blog will be growing into somewhat of a fashion and lifestyle blog. A place to share style inspirations and brands I love. Space to celebrate the little wins, while also being truthful about some of the pitfalls of small business. Welcome to Heidielka’s new iteration. There’s still a lot more change to come, but I’m so glad to have you joining me on this new, scary, exciting adventure.

Watch this space…

Change is coming. Big, exciting change.

See you soon.