If you have ever thought about building a building a business around your ideas, then increasing your self awareness should be a top priority.
Part of what makes an effective thought leader is the opportunity for the leader to communicate how her ideas separate her from the norm. This requires digging deep into self reflection on what you believe about yourself and the world. That is why writing can be such a useful tool in increasing your self awareness.
I want to share 3 pivotal moments in my life when my skill as a writer unexpectedly led to deeper knowledge of self.
#1 Journaling helped me sort out my feelings.
Around the year 2009, I was going through a series of transitions in my life. I was grieving the death of my mother from breast cancer. I was dropped from a doctoral program. I hated my job in higher education — a career I had spent the last 10 years of my life preparing for. I was dealing with complications from uterine fibroids. And my marriage of 10 years was falling apart.
I wanted to wave a wand and fix it all in one fell swoop. But I quickly learned that adulthood didn’t work that way. I was going to have to crawl out from under the ashes of my own life and figure out a way to build something new.
But what would that new life look like?
I turned to journaling to help me figure it out. Rather than use a paper diary, I decided I would start a small blog to record my thoughts and feelings. I wasn’t new to blogging. At that point, I had been an education blogger since 2004. I was an early adopter of blogging technology. And truthfully, I didn’t expect for anyone to find it.
But I decided I needed a space for more personal expression. My education blog just wasn’t appropriate for that kind of content.
I decided to start a blog chronicling my journey to a healthier life. I was dedicated to learning how to make pancakes from scratch. I took pictures of vegetables I had never seen before during visits to local farmer’s markets. I was finally going to figure out what this whole vegan, vegetarian, and raw vegan movement was about.
But the first day I sat down to write a post, I had to take a pause. I opened up the WordPress content writing space intending to introduce myself to the internet and my new journey. But the only thing I could think to write in that moment was… “I don’t know who I am.”
I was in my early 30’s and I had to admit to myself that I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted, or how to spend the rest of my life. I had gone to school. I got the degrees and certificates. I worked too hard. I stayed out of trouble. I got married. But I was exhausted, about 100 pounds overweight, and angry because I felt like life owed me more than what I was getting.
So rather than continue to write, I surrendered to my feelings and folded my arms on my desk to cradle my forehead. And I cried.
Crying helped to get the raw emotion out of the way leaving room for me to turn back to my laptop and start writing. My first post was called, “I Quit.”
It was a manifesto, of sorts, of what I would and would not tolerate from life anymore. And for the first time I started to create a vision for the life I had been too afraid to ask for.
#2 The best way to use my voice as a writer was to be of service to others.
Living with fibroids as a fat black woman in the US healthcare system often felt like I was begging for someone to see me as human. I desperately wanted to understand why my body was betraying me. I was exhausted from having menstrual cycles that were so heavy that they left me unable to walk from the couch to the front door in my tiny one bedroom apartment. Most doctors I dealt with, no matter the gender or race, treated me like my fibroids were my fault. Their actions told me that if I just lost the weight, the fibroids would go away (not true…).
No one asked me about how my stressful life contributed to my weight. No one asked if I was happy. No one asked about the deep pain in my chest that had been there since my mother died. Just a lot of cold looks, aggravated sighs, and jokes about my lopsided, fibroid-filled belly.
I was expecting to be a quiet voice on my brand new health blog. What I quickly found out was that fibroids was a problem that women all over the world were seeking answers to. My willingness to be open about how my doctors didn’t care about my pain and feeling that my body was being invaded were experiences that my readers could relate to.
I received emails from women across the US, Kenya, Iran, the Caribbean, Nigeria, the Philippines, and more. All of them were hopeful that my willingness to delve into not just my worries, but the hope that I could find something worth teaching in my dedication to a healthy lifestyle. My blog had become a beacon of light for those who had even less information than I had about how fibroids was slowly ruining their lives.
At that point, I had become keenly aware that I had a responsibility to be honest in my communication about my experience. I had been shunned in the US healthcare system, but I created a community of women who trusted my voice. They let me know that I wasn’t crazy for asking for respect and human decency from my healthcare providers. They also affirmed that seeking out a more natural route to good health was an avenue worth exploring.
#3 Writing a book to be exchanged for money was proof that my ideas were valuable.
I had never viewed myself seriously as an entrepreneur until I wrote and sold copies of my first ebook.
After about a year of writing on my health blog, my readers started to ask for a book. They wanted something they could take and apply to their own lives to help them start to relieve their fibroids.
I had always been a great writer, but asking me to write a book felt like a whole new level of writing that I wasn’t prepared to meet. However, as always, life circumstances met opportunity and I was forced into becoming an author.
I was living in New Jersey, at the time, and Hurricane Sandy had just done major damage to much of the east coast. My New York City consulting gig teaching healthy cooking in elementary schools was put on hold. I also had a part-time job as a cook at Whole Foods in Manhattan. But there was no telling when I would be able to get back to work. I experienced sleepless nights wondering how I was going to be able to cover the cost of rent with no income coming in.
I had read all the instant internet fame stories and wondered if I could profit from the audience I had groomed over the last year. My intention wasn’t to make millions. I just needed about $500 to cover my part of the rent.
I racked my brain for days thinking who was I to ask people for money. I didn’t believe I had anything valuable to offer anyone beyond what was already available for free on my blog. What would my readers think of me if I asked them for a few dollars to buy something that I ultimately felt wouldn’t be that good.
But I was desperate.
So I pulled up the courage to send an email to my readers. I laid out a plan for what the book would include and placed a PayPal link at the end of the email. I only asked for $5 for those interested in pre-ordering. I hit “send” and went to bed, fully expecting not to have sold any books.
The next morning I woke up, dressed, and made breakfast. I opened up my busted laptop that was on its last leg and checked my email. I saw a pile of emails from strangers who willingly parted with their hard-earned $5.
I was floored.
That first day I sold about $100 worth of books. Over the next few weeks I was able to pull in enough money to cover my rent plus a little more.
That moment proved to me that my thoughts, my ideas, my experiences all had value. After a lifetime of allowing myself to be pushed to the side and discounted, I had finally found a space where my work was considered revolutionary and a welcome contribution to the world. My readers were so excited, in fact, that they were willing to part with $5 to get the book before it had even been written.
I’ve had many epiphanies about my life and what I am here on earth to do since those early days of my writing career. I’ve learned that growing your self awareness is a deliberate activity that asks that you go out and live your life and make all the mistakes in order to get the biggest benefit. I no longer expect life to serve me. I take full responsibility for the life I create on this plane.
I’m no longer living in New Jersey blogging for free. Now I’m a full-time business book ghostwriter, journalist, and content marketer. I have a location-independent business in Vietnam and currently preparing to relocate to Rwanda in the coming months. I am planning to become a land investor so that I never have to worry about not having rent money ever again. I found spiritual healing while living in Thailand. I explored ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples in Cambodia. I’ve gone paragliding over emerald treetops in northern Vietnam. I’ve done 10-day silent meditation retreats in Thailand and ran from strangers tasked with dousing me with ice cold water during Songkran in Myanmar. I’ve even picked up watercolor painting to help me wind down before bed. I live a full life finding new ways to express my joy everyday.
Join my community of Rebel Thought Leaders!
If you’ve got ideas you want to share that go against the norm, then you are in the right place! Take your valuable knowledge and learn how to create opportunities that can help you live the life of your dreams.
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Halona Black
Latest posts by Halona Black (see all)
- 3 Ways Establishing a Writing Practice has Improved My Self Awareness - September 1, 2020
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- Will Writing a Book Help Me Build My Credibility as an Expert? - January 19, 2020
