On the last week of November, I decided to take my One Little Word (Brave) a bit further and attended a workshop called “Courageous Content“.
I’ve been thinking about bravery a lot lately – what it means and how I can truly be brave. The word spoke to me at the beginning of the year, a reminder of what a very special person told me to be, once we learned my Dad was dying. “Be brave, Aggie.”
Does bravery mean being fearless? Because I feared what life would be without my Dad.
Does bravery mean being strong? Because I was tired of “looking strong” but feeling I had no control over everything.
The original definition of courage was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.
But as Brene Brown said in her TED talk about vulnerability, “Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language — it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart — and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.” And that meant accepting imperfection, embracing vulnerability and opening up yourself, risking all the negative things that might happen in the process, simply because you had the courage to be yourself.
WOW. When I watched Brene’s TED talk video, I knew what being brave was about. It’s opening up your true self, knowing the risk of being hurt, but doing it anyway.
The workshop reinforced what I have been learning about bravery over the past months and more importantly, just gave me a fuel of courage to plow through what I’ve been dilly-dallying about for a while when it comes to blogging again – and that’s to be open (embrace the risk being vulnerable) and share myself again.
Goals are what fuel your courage to create great content.
KNOW YOUR WHY.
Martine of Make it Blissful started the workshop with a reminder for us to look at the bigger picture. Know our WHY. She stressed the need for us to create goals (our WHY) as it fuels courage to take action. I love that. Martine has been such an inspiration, I’ve been following her for the past year and even consulted with her when I started blogging again and her whole personality just radiates bravery for me. During our talk she actually told me that I have great content on my blog already, so what’s stopping me from sharing it and taking it out to the world – that statement alone was such an affirmation that I’m on the right path (or I’m doing something right – I just need to be brave!)
Be courageous because you have a unique story that only you can tell; a special gift that only you can give.#courageouscontent
Courageous content creators are story tellers.
Courageous content aims to reach people’s hearts, not just reaching a thousand page views.
Rhiza of Chasing Dreams then proceeded to differentiate successful content from courageous content. Now given my stalking abilities (haha), I discovered Rhiza’s blog when she hired me to be part of the inbound content marketing team of Spiralytics (she’s my boss, if you really think about it!). And I fell in love with her blog, the design and how personal yet private she was when it comes to sharing her cute little twins and life. It somehow reminded me of how I was when I started blogging (those cute quotable quote toddler years and early years of married life) but Rhiza’s blog is a thousand more times well-designed and organized (She links to past posts really well, you tend to click and read some more!).
She talked more about what really is courageous content creating – it’s really, at the heart of everything, about YOU (your beliefs, your WHY, your goal, your mission). It’s not blogging to gain page views or SEO or even page rank (though it comes AFTER writing for YOUR BELIEF), it’s really about telling your story.
WOW. Can I just say how very tailor-fit the workshop was for me? It was like having a hammer go through my head everytime I hear about courage and story and tell your story and bravery and courage and….you get my point 🙂
So what for me is courageous content?
..it’s about telling your story without fear.
Courageous content creation is telling your story without fear. It’s being brave about authenticity – showing your REAL self. If you are like me, you overthink about what to share and what not to share. But being courageous is really putting yourself out there. For a long time, I’ve been on the fence of changing what I write about but you know what? Change is an inevitable part of improving oneself. I fear about being criticized about blogging again or being judged but hey – as long as I am firmly grounded on my WHY, I’m good. And as I’ve learned from the workshop, I might lose my present audience, but I will gain the RIGHT ones.
If you are a blogger who wants to gain a boost of courage to pursue what you want to achieve or someone who wants clarity on the direction they want to take (we had a few non-bloggers in the workshop, they just wanted to see how to make blogging work for them – what brave women!) I highly recommend this workshop. I know they are going for a rerun of this next year so make sure to follow Make It Blissful’s Facebook page so you can be updated on the workshops they roll out (I think I’m a workshop addict – I love attending!)
Thank you Martine and Rhiza for encouraging me to chase my dreams and follow my bliss.
Aggie Aviso describes herself as her family’s storyteller and memory keeper. A mom to two kids ages 14 and 8, she is certainly past the age of sleepless nights and adorable pigtails. However, motherhood stays exciting, more meaningful and yes, more challenging. She takes it all in stride, knowing fully well that moments pass by in a blink of an eye. As Gretchen Rubin famously said, “The days are long, but the years are short.” She has discovered how wonderful it is to have those fleeting moments in time documented in their family books and has made it her personal mission and passion to be able to tell their stories for her future grandkids. You can read more about her here.. Subscribe to blog updates and the occasional letter here.
