Guyssss I’m not sure what I did for Mattie James to personally attack me all over the internet this month but ummm. I feel some type of way for real.

How did Mattie attack me? Well, I’m glad you asked.

So MJ had a consistency challenge this month in her fb group Bossfluence. The challenge was to post new content on our blog every day from July 6th – July 31st, which would amount to 20 blog posts. But on top of orchestrating the challenge she would go live every week to share tidbits and basically snatch my edges unprovoked. Basically, I’m in my feelings because:

she proved that i’ve been lying to myself

Ya’ll before this challenge, I had a total of 8 blog posts. One would think that I must have just started this blog. Nah, I started it at the end of 2018. Most experts say you should post 2-3 posts per week, I averaged 1 every what 3-6 months because “I’m so busy”.

Somehow my “so busy” behind has binge watched Married At First Sight, Indian Matchmaking, Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce, Little Fires Everywhere, Dead to Me, and Lord Knows how many other shows and movies since March alone.

But I was perfectly comfortable in my delusions and it sounded damn good on paper, I mean I am a single mother, I do have a full time job, and I do run a whole other business on top of that. Right? Don’t I sound too busy to write? How dare she pull back the curtain on my Too Damn Busy Facade.

she disciplined me like i was her kid

Ok, wait. I don’t mean she like literally spanked me. But she definitely virtually spanked me when she posted this:

Ouch! The realization or, I should really say, admittance that if I just set a routine and was consistent and disciplined enough to follow it I would be super productive at churning out blog posts stung a lil bit. Because what it really means is that I was being flat out LAZY all this time and that my desired output was far greater than my work ethic. I wanted professional influencer notoriety from putting in hobbyist work. That’s just bad math kid.

She literally did a live IG video going IN about people not being consistent and with every sentence I felt like I was getting my legs tagged with a switch. “You said you’re consistent but you haven’t posted on your blog in two months!” TAG, “You talking about you’re trying and you posted 3 blogs and didn’t promote them or share them anywhere” TAG “You get consistent for a week and don’t get thousands of people checking for you so you give up” TAG! wheeeeew OK OK I WON’T DO IT NO MO’ I PROMISE!

I have since accepted that as long as I write in the mornings when I’m at my most creative and most productive I can actually do this!

she confiscated my excuses

Oh man I had plenty (yes on top of the “i’m just too busy” one). Then it became well I don’t know what to write about, my website isn’t done, I don’t have enough good photos, I don’t know if this reads well or if I should do a rewrite, I haven’t done enough research.

The rules of the challenge were simple – posts had to be 150 words and at least 1 photo. Dassit.

And with that, she walked around collecting all our excuses like a math teacher collecting student’s cell phones before a test. Welp! Guess I better show my work. I mean, guys, my IG posts are longer than the minimum word requirement!

What was really funny is that I uncovered 4 blog posts I had completely written and just never posted (one I wrote in 2017 and didn’t post until 2 weeks ago smh. It end up being the 2nd most popular post on my blog to date). I found about 5 blog posts I had started writing but hadn’t finished or just needed tweaks and another few blog post outlines that needed to be written out.

All that said, I feel some type of way that Mattie spent the entire month of July pulling my card, snatching my edges, coming for my neck, dragging me, reading me and I didn’t do anything to her! But I am so very grateful for her mentorship from afar and for this good kick in the butt. I needed it!!

My Results

• Between July 6th and today, I posted 15 blog posts on this website
• I also posted 15 blog posts on the Wandering Moms website
• The total blogs I wrote and posted across both sites is 30!!

How I’ve benefitted

• I now have a system that I know works. I know when I can/should write for maximum productivity.
• I now think more holistically about my blog and how to weave stories across platforms and continue to tell that same story over a few days.
• I have a backlog of content that I can plan to promote for the next several weeks. For the first time ever, I am AHEAD!!!
• We now have so much more content and resources on Wandering Moms blog that my business partner and I have been meaning to write for so long.
• I’m not overthinking content anymore JUST WRITE IT!

what else i accomplished during this time

• Made updates to my website (more to come) and the Wandering Moms website
• Submitted pitches to two brands
• Appeared as a guest on a podcast
• Tripled the size of my content idea list
• Launched a Digital Conference
• Developed branding and digital assets for the conference
• Started updating my lead magnets
• Pre-recorded all of my August Work From Anywhere Wednesday content
• FINALLY sat down and recorded a YT video with my daughter

This has been an AMAZING MONTH! This challenge was everything I needed when I needed it. Thanks Mattie, I’m definitely feeling some type of way – GRATEFUL