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Stop limiting yourself
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Hey Reader, I'm celebrating my 27th birthday today, but unlike most of my creator friends, I won't offer a 27% birthday discount on all my courses to "celebrate with you." 😅 Instead, I want to share something I've been thinking about a lot lately: I spent most of my life trying to fit into certain boxes. 📦 Here's an example: I've been going to the gym since I was 15 years old - more or less. Sometimes, I'm excited for a workout. Most of the time, I just get it done because burning calories feels easier than resisting dessert. 🍦 Until recently, I thought I had to find a form of exercise I'd LOVE. Something that I'm almost addicted to. That's how I ended up joining the college cheer dance team 7 years ago: I always enjoyed dancing so I thought dancing with a group of girls might be the fun exercise I've been looking for. But it wasn't and I was out of the team six months later. So I continued to look for my "thing." I joined a women-only boxing club, went to dozens of different yoga and pilates classes, did Zumba, started to play padel tennis, ran, and tried spinning classes. I enjoyed all those different exercises but didn't get obsessed with any of them. So I thought I had to keep looking and trying new things. It was only earlier this year that I realized I don't have to choose. I can do all of those different things that I enjoy - as consistently or inconsistently as I want, and it's perfectly fine because all I really need is to enjoy what I'm doing. This posting inspired me to flip the script and look at my life differently: Instead of putting pressure on myself to find "my thing," I realized that the whole point of doing any of those activities is to do something I enjoy. And apparently, I'm not the kind of person who enjoys doing the same kind of exercise all the time. I like weight training, dancing, yoga, hiking, and so much more. And the beauty of life is that I don't have to pick a form of exercise and stick to it. I used exercising as an example here, but this is true for other areas of your life too. Over the last four years, I worked with thousands of writers and I saw over and over again how they limit themselves by trying to fit into certain boxes. But guess what? Being a modern-day writer means that you can leverage your skills and message in various ways to reach more people and have a greater impact. The only requirement is that you allow yourself to be more than just a label. When we try to fit into boxes, we limit ourselves by thinking about what we can or can't do. But just because you write or create content doesn't mean it's your entire personality. You can love your day job, be a great friend/parent/sibling to your loved ones, have different hobbies, and write on the internet whenever you have something interesting to share or explore. I've been writing online since 2018, have published more than 600 articles, and I still don't like to call myself a writer because it's only a small part of who I am. I'm also an entrepreneur, marketer, editor, coach, daughter, big sister, friend, Swiftie, fiancee, and so much more. I always hated networking events because when you're asked what you do, people want to hear about your job. But you're not just your job. It's just a (small) part of who you are and what you do, far from being your entire personality. That being said, as I'm taking the day off to celebrate moving into the next chapter of my life, I hope that you're taking a deep breath to embrace and celebrate all the different aspects of your own life. It was a huge relief to me to realize I don't have to put a label on who I am or what I do. I can just be me - doing the things that make my heart happy and exploring as many different facets of my personality as possible. In the end, that's probably what life is all about anyway: Doing things you like with people you like.
PS. I'll be exploring northern Italy until Monday, so if you have any recommendations for places to see, things to do, or sweets to eat, text me on Instagram! 🇮🇹 👋 Want more?
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Write • Build • Scale with Sinem Günel
I help you write confidently, build your audience, and scale your income. Subscribe for first-hand insights and actionable strategies to turn your ideas and knowledge into a thriving digital business, so you can make money doing what you love.
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