How I'm keeping sane in Melbourne's Stage 4 lockdowns

After being COMPLETELY unprepared for Sunday's announcements on how Victoria is going to come out of covid lockdown, first things first I had a doona day. Literally moved from bed at lunchtime to the couch for afternoon Netflix binging on Monday. Did I have stuff I should've been doing instead? HELL YES! But something I've learnt the last couple of years is it's OK to just escape reality for a little bit to help your mind process something. I could have jumped up at 6am and hustled the day away to generate some income, but with age comes wisdom and in my 40s I've learnt so much about myself, my nature, my response mechanisms, how to nurture the most productive version of myself....and it ain't by hustling!

I'm more of the slow burn type, the tortoise in the race, not the hare, and I'm a-ok with that.

The other thing I notice about myself is when things get tough, I tend to distract myself with the old shiny object syndrome. I cannot tell you how many amazing new business ideas I come up with when the going gets tough in my main business, Rondelle Designs. And if I'm totally honest, I only fully realised this about myself in the first round of lockdowns back in March this year. So now, knowing this about myself I'm refocusing that scared, excited energy that needs something new and fun to work on, into other areas of my business instead of letting it run wild into brand new projects that have nothing to do with my current business model. For me in Melbourne lockdown 2.0, that's massively focusing on my YouTube channel!

It was 3 years ago that I started my youtube channel. I uploaded one video and it was SOOOO BAD it scared me off the platform and I felt like a total loser when it came to video creation! Then last year, my youngest daughter (12 at the time) became monetised on YouTube with her animation channel. What is monetised? It means she get's paid each month from Google Adsense depending on how many ads were viewed by people watching her videos. Let me tell you....when your 12 year old child gets her channel generating income, it gives you some serious inspiration to get your own shit together!! So I fiddled around and uploaded a couple more dodgy videos but I really didn't have a clear vision.

Fast forward to lockdown 1 in Melbourne and I was doing some facebook live craft videos for kids who were schooling from home. I LOVED this so much! It did two things for me. 1. Made me feel a little more comfortable in front of the camera and 2. reminded me how much I love showing people how to make creative projects.

So after that, I started taking video creation for youtube a little more seriously and created some better (but still bad) DIY videos. Then I got distracted by life as things went back to normal. Then HELLO lockdown 2.0. This is when I really felt things getting tough and messing with my mind and grand new business ideas started popping into my head. I took that energy and sat it down in front of the tv to watch YouTube video after youtube video on how to grow your channel. And right now, I am the most excited I've ever been about my business in a long time. I feel like the quietness of this lockdown, the extended time to just be with my thoughts and reflect on where I am in life and business as well as being able to ask myself the questions..where do I REALLY want to go, has given me so much clarity I can't even tell you.

And I really feel I've finally cracked the code on how to stop sabotaging my own business when things get tough by still allowing my energy to flow to a new, exciting project. I just need to make sure that project is within my business and is inline with my core business values and where I'm steering the Rondelle Designs ship.

I'm excited to see where I can take my YouTube channel, not just to generate a whole new income stream once I get to the stage of being able to monetise the channel but just because teaching people how to be more creative and also helping with creative business tips lights me up inside. I get so much joy in seeing people embrace and explore their creativity, and grow in confidence to share their own creativity with the world. Would I have gotten to this point in 2020 without Covid lockdowns? I'm not sure, probably not. I know this thing has reeked havoc on our world and literally killed so many people, but as someone who NEEDS to be optimistic and hopeful or I will fall apart, I'm glad that I'm able to sit in gratitude for this quiet, reflective time. And I'm glad to have been able to make some big changes in my business. And I'm so grateful that I've realised that sharing creativity with the world is what I'm meant to do along with continuing my own art and making journey.

Want to check out my YouTube channel? Rondelle Designs YouTube Channel

 You tube Channel home page Rondelle Designs

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