These actionable tips will make your creatopreneurial journey much more enjoyable.

Photo: Keira Burton

I’ve been invited to two podcast interviews this week.

I’ve never done it before, and I don’t even know how I got here. All I know is that back in October of 2020, I was on the verge of becoming depressed, and then I found writing. Since then, I’ve never stopped writing online.

Since taking writing seriously for the last seven months, I’ve been able to build an online community on Twitter, sell my coaching services, start a paid group membership, and have landed my 3-month writing project as a freelancer.

I say all this to motivate you. I never meant to be a writer, but it’s a journey that I want to keep going despite having multiple passions in life and online.

Here are the five simple habits that have had a compounding effect on my journey.

1. Document your “big” and “small” wins every time.

When I hired my first coach, she would always ask me my “wins” for the week.

I never celebrated my “small” wins a win because I didn’t think they were worth celebrating. But when I started writing, it was a new way for me to see “winning” in a different way. I considered everything as a win.

If I wrote today, that was a win. If I published today, that was a win. If I got a new follower, I tracked it and documented it as a win. When you do this, you train your brain to focus on the good things in your journey.

The entrepreneurial can be lonely so do this as a way to track your achievements. This also helps you avoid looking at the results that may be hard to see at the beginning. When you look back six months from now, you’ll be amazed at the things you have achieved.

On rainy days, you’re also less likely to give up because you have been winning despite not feeling it that way.

How to do this:

1. Use Google Drive or any other notes app to document your wins. Update every week or every month.
2. Take screenshots of your wins along the way and use your gallery to remember when they happened.

2. DM a new person at least once a week.

This is my way of giving back to other creators.

Since the beginning of my journey, I would get random DMs from total strangers on Instagram and Twitter about how they liked my articles on Medium. My heart always felt so warm because I thought, “wow, this person took the time to look me up on social media without me telling them to.”

Since then, I would DM a creator if I liked their work. I did this whether it was a video, a blog or a podcast recording especially if it helped me in any way.

When people did this for me, I felt appreciated. So, I want to let others know that their work is appreciated, making them less likely to give up on their own journey.

Even if you don’t get a response, you at least showed your appreciation. So don’t take it personally.

How to do this:

1. Look up your favourite creator and influencer and let them know who you are and why you enjoy their work.

3. Hop on a zoom call at least once a month.

Back in March, I jumped on at least 15 zoom calls.

I was growing fast on Twitter and I wanted to take advantage of that growth. I wanted to learn how to help new creators confused in their online journey, so I opened my calendar to people.

Here are the results from these calls:

• I realized I know more than I think I do
• I developed strong relationships with other creators
• I was able to sell my mentoring services without feeling sleazy
• I was able to invite people into my paid membership program without feeling sleazy

The point is, good things happen from jumping into zoom calls.

And you certainly don’t have to open up your calendar. But I do want you to know that jumping on zoom calls will help you be comfortable in making you talk to strangers online. Once you start to be recognized, meeting new people online will be inevitable.

You might as well get started now.

How to do this:

1. Note who are the people you keep engaging with. If you’ve developed some sort of relationship with them, ask if they’re willing to hop on a Zoom call.
2. Make a free Calendly account and update your schedule every month. This gives you the flexibility without having to go back and forth on “what time are you free.”

4. Find one person behind you and mentor them.

Creators are so obsessed with building an audience.

That makes sense because that’s what the successful creators told us. Create for two years, build an audience and then monetize. But, what’s wrong with mentoring one or two people as soon as you have one month or even two months of experience?

You’re at day 60, and the person you might want to help is at day 0. That’s a lot of knowledge gap that you can help the other person with. I started mentoring two people for free as soon as I had 2 months of experience on Medium. I didn’t think I was above them. I thought that “we’re all in this together.”

I didn’t want to be alone in my journey, so in exchange for their time, we made a group and meet biweekly to learn and grow together.

One of the things that I’ve found fulfilling in helping others is when they get results by doing the work.

Some have made their first dollar online, while others have gotten asked to post their work in big publications. And it’s equally rewarding as my results, if not, even more.

I became confident in mentoring other people because I did it for free. I also became confident in charging for my mentoring services because I know I was getting people results.

How to do this:

1. Tap into your personal or online network. Find people that you want to help with and do it for free.
2. Make an accountability group with the person and meet every two weeks.

5. Level up your skills through free or paid online programs.

I recently signed up for a money mindset program.

I am learning that money is abundant. That means there is a lot of money in the world. And money is just a tool that people give value to. I used to think of money as something hard to come by and that I could never make it easy.

But these days, I’m changing my mindset that money is just a tool.

These days, I see money to help me grow as a person and make my dream lifestyle come true. So I spent money on a writing course, writing community, and mindset programs.

While these things may seem like a waste of money, these things speed up my learning and growing process.

Instead of suffering for a year or two, I shortened this suffering by paying someone else who has experienced the same thing.

Inevitably, you’ll still make mistakes and learn along the way (which is what you want). But, instead of making 100 mistakes, why not make it to 10?

Of course, don’t spend the money that you don’t have. Since there are no guarantees in life, this is where you need to use your judgement. There are fraudulent courses out there, but there are also genuine people who want to help others.

So, be careful who you want to learn from.

How to do this:

1. Find courses and communities you want to invest in.
2. Find people who have taken their courses and talk to them directly about how they found out about the program.

Final Thoughts

The creator and entrepreneurial journey are hard.

In the beginning, it’s hard to see results. So these habits can help because your focus is somewhere else. If you’re constantly looking at the vanity metrics (followers and earnings), you’re most likely to give up fast.

So, put your focus somewhere else, like documenting your wins and celebrating them. Find people you want to connect with and build strong relationships with them. Or find other people that you can help with because there’s always one person behind you.

And if you’re able to, invest in yourself. The return will be hard to measure, but it will be something that you’ll be thankful for later on.

Use these five simple but powerful habits and make your journey more enjoyable.

This post originally appeared here.

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