If you’re the type of person who makes New Year’s resolutions but has a hard time making them stick, then the first book you should read this year is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Clear’s writing is simple and straightforward. In the book, he teaches us an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones.
I’ve read it once before, but I’m reading it again because honestly, the first time around I read it quickly without really implementing the lessons. So this time, I’m learning by doing. That means I’ll read the material, put it into practice, and share whatever I’m learning along the way.
If you want to read, practice, and learn together, here’s a reading schedule. We’ll read about fifty pages per week. The slow pace is intentional. It’ll give us time to digest the material, discuss it, and fully integrate the lessons into our daily life.
I hope you had a great holiday. Cheers to the New Year! And cheers to happier, healthier versions of both you and me in 2023!
Reading Schedule:
Week 1: Jan 1-8 – The Fundamentals:Why Tiny Changes Make a Big Difference – pp. 1-56
Week 2: Jan 9-15 – The 1st Law: Make It Obvious – pp. 57-98
Week 3: Jan 16-22 – The 2nd Law: Make It Attractive – pp. 99-138
Week 4: Jan 23-29 – The 3rd Law: Make It Easy – pp. 139-180
Week 5: Jan 30-Feb 5 – The 4th Law: Make It Satisfying &Advanced Tactics – pp. 181-253
A few weeks ago I attended a two-day event hosted by Zander Fryer and High Impact Coaching, a coaching program/mastermind I’m in. The event was called Impact Accelerator Live.
The folks at HIC put this event on to teach us coaches – noobs and seasoned alike – how to build and scale our businesses. I expected to learn a bunch of biz tactics and strategies, which we did. What I did NOT expect was the spiritually profound experience I had.
I reconnected with my purpose. With my calling. I made some new friends. We meditated. Did some breathwork. We laughed. Cried. I even did my very first COLD PLUNGE!
It wasn’t that bad!
Now that I’ve had some time to process the whole experience, here are my three biggest takeaways:
1. “It’s not about me. It never was. And it never will be.”
Zander always tells us this, but it hit me differently this time. While it’s important I learn how to make money as a coach (especially because I plan to support my family with this career), I began to lose sight of the real goal: to serve others. I’m here to help. I figured that out a long time ago. But I’ve resisted. Like Jonah in the Old Testament. No more running. No more hiding. I’m here to share the gifts I’ve been given. I’m here to spread the Love.
2. It’s not “either/or” – it’s “both/and.”
For me, this means I can serve both as a coach AND as a musician. I’ve questioned whether I had to choose one or the other. I don’t. The “experts” say you should focus on one thing at a time, and while this makes sense, ultimately it’s up to you. YOU get to choose. Everyone is just making it up as they go anyway. You might as well choose the things that bring you joy. So I choose coaching AND music! In the busyness of coaching and just day-to-day life, I’ve placed music on the back burner. But the music is begging to be played! So play, we shall 🙂
3. “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
God and I have been wrestling for a long while now. I’m not religious, but I am deeply spiritual. When I neglect my spiritual side (as I have been in recent months) I feel LOST and I suffer greatly. When I tune back in, I am FOUND and I experience Unconditional Love. At the event, we did an exercise to “Define Your Why.” This is what I wrote…
“I want to help everyone – myself, my brother, mom, dad, Ash, everyone – experience unconditional love. Freedom. Authenticity.”
I lost sight of my why. I started focusing on all the reasons why this would NOT work. Letting my fears and insecurities drive my action (or inaction, rather). And actually… I almost quit. I’m glad I went to IAL. I was reminded that my purpose is to love and serve others… that coaching IS spirituality… that music is too. I’m not perfect. But if I wait until “perfect” to begin serving others, I’ll never start. So it’s back to business. Back to the basics. I’m tuning in to my purpose. I’m helping out however I can. Let’s go!
I decided to blog on a whim. I woke up on August 1st, 2020, and the idea popped into my head to blog every day for a month. To my surprise… I executed! I called it Authentic August. And I just wrote. Daily. With no aim but to express myself. To share my thoughts and feelings. My doubts and fears. Hopes and dreams. It was a month of pure creativity. And it felt amazing.
I was tapped into pure self-expression. Creative flow. Sharing with reckless abandon. Not a care about what others were thinking. No fear of being judged or misunderstood. Just writing for the sake of writing. For the sake of making sense of my inner world. And yes, with the hope that sharing my experience would help someone out there – even just one person – who is also trying to make sense of their inner world.
I’d like to create from that space again.
To express my Self.
To step back into Flow.
To once more Play.
This is my intention.
This is the way.
I let go of the need to impress others.
I let go of the need to be liked.
No need to play it small any longer. The universe will continue to present you with this lesson until you finally choose to learn it and learn it completely.
Well… here I am!
I am ready and willing.
Love, lead the way.
-Christian Quiwa
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
I briefly mentioned this in my last post, but in case you missed it, I’m currently in training for Mindvalley‘s Certified Life Coach! With that said, I’d like to introduce myself as your new Life Coach!! 😀
What is a Life Coach?
Simply put, a life coach is a trained professional who helps individuals reach their goals and overcome challenges. We help clients develop action plans to achieve their desired outcomes and provide support to keep them on track and accountable. (Don’t worry, I’ll answer this question in more detail in a future post!)
I’ve always been a natural Life Coach. Growing up, my friends always came to me with their problems. Acquaintances appreciated whatever insights I gave. Even now, complete strangers will open up to me and share their stories, while I sit back and actually listen to them, with genuine care and curiosity.
It’s no surprise, though! Based on the Enneagram, a personality typing system, I’m a 2, also known as The Helper. This means I like to help people! (If you couldn’t guess that from the name lol.)
Twos are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed. They typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging their own needs. At their Best: unselfish and altruistic, they have unconditional love for others.
So I’m not without my flaws! That said, I do possess certain key traits that are well-suited for life coaching. I’m empathetic and sincere. I’m generous with my time and attention. I enjoy meeting people and making friends. And perhaps most importantly, I see the very best in others. This is absolutely critical. Coaches must have the core belief that each individual is already whole, capable, resourceful, creative, and unique. Our role is to simply help you wake up to this truth and unleash your true power!
Passions Assemble!
Honestly, I feel so aligned with this decision to be a life coach! Much of my background and many of my existing passions go hand-in-hand with coaching. Personal Development. Psychology. Spirituality. Relationships. Content Creation. Being authentic. Living life on YOUR terms. I’ve been reading, listening, and studying this stuff for a veeery long time lol. And I’ve actually considered this career path for a while now, but due to certain limiting beliefs, I put this dream on the shelf. I thought I couldn’t pursue coaching until much later in life. Now it seems it’s all coming together. Now it feels like I’m embarking on a new adventure. And I’m so freakin’ excited! I just have a really good feeling about this 🙂
I’ll continue to share my progress with y’all as the months roll by. I have very specific goals in mind, but I’ll keep those to myself for now. If you have any questions, please ask! If you have any words of encouragement, please send ’em my way!
And if you’re in the market for a life coach, please consider me! I’m confident that we’ll have some fun learning and growing together <3
Your Coach,
Christian Quiwa <3
P.S. I’m still going to make music, write blogs, share vlogs, and everything else a budding content creator does. Now we’re just throwing in some coaching content to spice things up!
This thought has been nagging at me lately. The past few posts were my attempt at writing some sort of advice column for beginner content creators. While that’s all well and good, and all the “experts” say that you NEED a niche, lemme tell ya…
It’s awfully restrictive!
So until further notice, I’m going back to writing more of a personal blog. Much like I did for Authentic August. I’ll still write posts encouraging you hesitant creatives to take the leap and just make the thing that only you can make. I’ll still share what lessons I’m learning on how to take our creativity from chaos to career. But I’ll also write about what I’ve been pondering lately. I’ll give life updates and discuss future plans. I’ll share what’s on my heart.
I always seem to get to a point where I realize I’m not creating from an authentic place…
So from now on, I’m just gonna do me. Unapologetically.
I’ll sing and rap the songs I’ve been writing but locking away because they aren’t recorded well enough, or at all.
I’ll share my newest adventure with you: becoming a Mindvalley Certified Life Coach! (Your boy still needs to get his coaching hours in, so hit me up if you’re interested!)
And much more!
Ultimately, I am designing my life.
So instead of “advice for content creators,” my would-be niche is LIFESTYLE DESIGN. With a splash of Music. A little dash of Coaching. And a whole lotta LOVE.
Because at the end of the day, everything I do is an expression of my love for you. For you, reading this. For my family. For my friends. For my partner-in-life, Ashley. For myself.
I want you all to feel free. I want you all to be happy. And if there’s a small way I can make that happen for you, then I am at your SERVICE.
Gratefully Yours,
Christian Quiwa
P.S. Click on all the hyperlinks to get a taste of what’s coming!
If you’re a creative person, then you’ve probably struggled with judging your own art. I would know because I’m the same way. I’ll say things like, “I’m my own worst critic,” or “I’m a perfectionist, so it’s not good enough.”
To make matters worse, not only do we judge what we create, we’re even critical of when we create. We promise ourselves to write, draw, or make something “every Saturday,” or “each morning after breakfast.” We schedule out the “perfect plan” that would guarantee we’re creating on a consistent basis, only to forget, miss, or flat out avoid our own creative “appointments.”
And then what happens?
Disappointment. Guilt. Self-deprecation. That little, mean voice in our heads saying, “Yet another failure.” Or, “You never do what you say you will.” Or maybe something like, “You’re such a loser and you should just quit.”
If we’re not careful, we’ll actually listen to our negative self-talk, and then we quit on our creativity for weeks, months, or even longer. So what can we do? When self-judgment has led us astray, what can we do to get back on track and start creating again?
“Simply begin again.”
This phrase is as powerful as it is simple.
“Simply begin again” is a phrase found in mindfulness meditation and popularized by meditation teacher and author, Joseph Goldstein (watch this short clip of his explanation). Here’s how it works:
In basic meditation, we’re invited to sit and focus on our breath. Without training, our monkey minds can only maintain focus for maybe two or three breaths before getting lost in thought again. In those moments when we realize that we’ve been lost in thought, Joseph teaches us to “simply begin again.” Rather than reprimand our monkey minds for wandering, simply acknowledge that we’ve been lost in thought. Then simply return to the activity of focusing on our breath.
Focusing on Our Creativity
In meditation, we focus on our breath; in art and content, we focus on creating. So in the same way that the monkey mind pulls the meditator away from the focus of her breath, our self-judgment often pulls us away from the focus of our creativity. Simply begin again. Whenever we get lost in our negative self-talk, simply begin again. Whenever we’ve been distracted from our craft for many months in a row, simply begin again. Whenever life gets in the way and we feel like we’ve forgotten how to do whatever it is that we know deep inside we are called to do…
If you’re new to creating content, you’ll quickly realize that it’s important to post or publish consistently and frequently. But as a complete beginner, it can be difficult to even CREATE that much. Lucky for us, there’s a simple method for creating MORE content, and it’s something I learned from one of my favorite childhood activities: renting movies.
From DVDs to Content Strategy
As a young kid, every Friday or Saturday night meant renting a movie at Hollywood Video. We would rent a DVD or two, watch the movie as a family, and then everyone would call it a night. Except me. While everyone else was making their way upstairs, I grabbed the control and clicked on over to the “bonus features.” Here, you would find additional “bonus” content about the movie and its creation. These “features” would include things like bloopers, director/actor commentary, and other behind-the-scenes footage. If I liked the movie, I usually wanted to know more about it. Even though I had just spent two hours watching the movie, I’d spend another hour going through all of the extra content about the movie.
As new content creators, not only should we make our “movies” (or our main content), we should also spend some time making “bonus features” (or our side content). Here’s why.
When Quantity is Better than Quality
To state the obvious, in the content world, content is king. This means quality content is supreme king. But if you happen to be brand new to your craft – whether you make short films, paintings, TikTok videos, or in my case, blogs – you might lack the skills necessary to make high-quality content. So we make up for this lack in quality by increasing our quantity. And since we’re already making our “movies,” we can easily increase the quantity of our content by creating “bonus features” about these movies.
Let’s say you’re a songwriter. Your “movie” would probably be the actual recording of your new song, shared on Spotify and/or iTunes. But some of your “bonus features” could be a YouTube video detailing the meaning behind the lyrics, a behind-the-scenes tutorial of how you recorded the song at home, or even just an acoustic version of your song, performed live for Instagram. Whatever your craft is, there are all kinds of “bonus features” you can make surrounding your existing content and/or your ongoing projects.
Quality is the Long-Term Goal
While creating “bonus features” can tide you over until your next “movie,” don’t let them become a distraction from your main craft. Find a healthy balance between creating both types of content. To have long-term success as a creative, it will be more important to develop the quality of your content. After all, no one will want to click over to the bonus features if it’s a terrible movie!
In last week’s blog, I recommended “scratching your own itch” as a way to discover your niche. In this week’s blog, I’ll be taking my own advice! As an aspiring creative myself, I’ve decided to help other creatives who are either just starting out or who need encouragement to keep going. If this sounds like you, welcome aboard! We’re in the same boat!! Now let’s get to where we’re going, together.
What does “scratching your own itch” mean?
It simply means “to do something out of motivation to solve a personal problem.” Tim Ferriss scratched his own itch when he wrote The 4-Hour Workweek.* At the time, there were no books that covered the concept of Lifestyle Design, so he wrote it himself. Because my “personal problem” is figuring out how to escape the 9-5 and make money online as a content creator, my blog is now dedicated to “solving” that problem. And because this problem isn’t so “personal” after all, I hope that scratching this itch will help others with the same or similar goals. Using American pronunciation, we can sum it up with a pithy rhyme:
“Scratch Your Itch, Find Your Niche!”
What does “scratching my own itch” have to do with my content?
Again, this is an easy way to discover your niche. Your niche is the main topic that all of your content will focus on, and sometimes it’s hard to pick one. This is particularly true for those of us who don’t know where to start and/or who have too many interests. Take me, for example. I love singing, but I also love writing raps, doing personal development, and discussing the meaning of life. What a spread! While I’ll eventually find a way to incorporate all of these interests into one cohesive, personal brand, in the beginning, it’s very important to stick to one thing and one thing only. And if you choose whatever thing is most “itchy,” you’ll be able to generate niche content just by trying to solve that problem/scratch that itch.
“But it’s impossible to stick to just one thing!”
Trust me, I feel the same way! But by focusing on one interest and one interest only, you will gain “expertise” more quickly than if you had focused on two. And by positioning yourself as an “expert,” you’re better able to attract your initial audience. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to branch out later – after all, most content creators do – but it’s much easier to do so after you’re already established. This is true for two reasons. One: you’ll already have an audience that enjoys your content, so it’s likely some of them will enjoy your new niche as well. And two: the skills you learn from your first niche – researching, creating content, building an audience, etc. – are foundational skills and therefore transferrable.
Note that “expertise” and “expert” are in scare quotes. This is because you don’t actually need to be an expert. All you need is to be a little bit more experienced than your audience or whoever you’re trying to help. I don’t need to play in the NBA to teach someone who has never touched a basketball how to dribble; I only needexperience dribbling a basketball with some success.
“Scratching My Own Itch” as an Aspiring Creative
I have every intention of figuring out how to make a living as a content creator. This is my starting point. It’s helping out those of you who have metaphorically never touched a basketball to dribble one. I’m no expert, but I do have experience and I am constantly learning. So if you share the dream of escaping the 9-5, making money doing something you love instead, and helping others along the way, then this blog is for you! I write this blog for you. I’ll be scratching this itch of mine and doing so publicly with the hope that you can learn from my mistakes, experiments, and experience. Perhaps seeing me “go for it” will encourage you to do so as well. Soon enough, we’ll stop “aspiring” and we’ll be “achieving” instead.
(*Tim Ferriss is hands down, one of my biggest role models. He’s part of why I create content in the first place. If you’re serious about living life on your own terms, I highly recommend all of his content, but here’s a short video where Tim discusses the concept of Lifestyle Design himself.)
Some days when I sit down to write, the stars are aligned, my creative engine is revved and ready, and the words just flow. Other days, I just sit here and stare at a blinking cursor… wondering when inspiration will strike, wishing the words would just appear on their own.
Today is one of those days.
I’ve spent the last 45 minutes typing and deleting, then typing and deleting again. Part of the issue is that I’m currently struggling to figure out my “niche.” You know, that highly specific subject or topic that your blog is supposed to be about? That magical category whose specificity will attract your audience in ways that a broad niche could never even imagine? How elusive it is!
Well, it’s time to simplify: I’m just going to create for myself. I’m going to “scratch my own itch,” as they say.
When you scratch your own itch, you’re guaranteed an audience of one: yourself. Perhaps your content is a bit haphazard and your writing style a tad verbose, but at least you will be interested in what you have to say. And unless you’re the most boring human out of the billions out there, chances are someone else will be interested too. And perhaps some of these “someone-else’s” are your friends and family. So you do have a small audience.
Just start there. Don’t get caught up in analysis paralysis. Don’t worry about whether or not you’re in the right niche. Let your personal interests and random curiosities lead the way. Trust that you’ll learn by doing. By trial-and-error. Patterns will emerge then slowly but surely, you’ll uncover exactly what your niche is.
For now, don’t overthink it and just create for yourself.
I know your room could use some cleaning and your desktop “needs” to be decluttered, but if I remember correctly, you scheduled this block of time for one singular task: to create. And would you look at that, it’s clearly written in your calendar, right after “meditate” and just before “lunch.” In fact, it’s even underlined and highlighted! So with all due respect, I kindly request that you sit down at your desk, put your creativity cap on, and get to making something. Make that “something” that only you can make. Don’t let it die in your mind before it’s even taken its first breath!
I know what you’re thinking… “What if nobody likes it? What if nobody cares?”
It’s alright. Don’t worry. Does making this “something” make you happy? Does making it make you lose track of time and maybe even make you forget to eat? Then it’s worth your time, regardless of who else likes it or who else cares.
“Well, what if it doesn’t turn out the way I imagine it in my head?”
My friend, the only way you’ll get it to turn out “right” is to make it “wrong” first. Besides, there’s no such thing as “perfect.” Only better. It would indeed be more accurate to say, “practice makes better.” You might believe that being a perfectionist is a good thing, that it means you set high standards for yourself. In reality, it’s more likely that you’re just trying to avoid failure and/or that you don’t feel like you’re good enough.
But you are. Rest assured, you are. And so is this “something” that you’re about to make. So here. I made you some tea. (And actually, while you were busy worrying, I cleaned your room and decluttered your desk! 😉 ). Now, please… CREATE.
