For many years, I have been told time and again things like:

And EVERY single time I would get a comment like this, externally I was saying “I’m not really sure - I don’t really stop, I guess!” but internally a battle was raging.

You see, in my own mind I wasn’t doing enough, let alone launching a hell of a lot of things like peopled seemed to think I was doing. I would constantly tell myself that no matter how much I did, it wasn’t ever enough and I needed to BE more and DO more.

A lot of this came about through various things and situations that happened in the past, that I then allowed to consume and control the way that I did business.

For too long, I let fear rule the decisions I made in my business. I let fear hold me back and I let it stop me from moving forward in the ways I have been dreaming of for so long.

Fears?! Really?

Yep, fears. If you name a fear, I probably experienced it. I was afraid of failing, of people accusing me of being a fraud, of not being good enough. I was afraid to be myself, even though I advocate that to all of my clients, my audience + my friends + colleagues. I was afraid to speak out and voice my true opinions because I thought I would have another troll appear to belittle me and make me feel worthless. And, more than anything, I was afraid of judgement - both good and bad - and how that made me feel. I was afraid of people judging what I did to their own expectations, judging the decisions I made, judging who I am as a person and more. And more than anything, I was constantly judging myself.

Now the problem here isn’t having these fears. They will come up whether we are brand new in business or have been running a business for 10, 20, 30 years. They’ll come up whether we’ve not even made any money yet, we’re making a few grand a month or we’re making big bucks day-in, day-out.

The problem instead is how you handle the fears that come up.

For far too long, I let the fears I had rule me and my business.

I let it stop me from moving forward and upwards, from making decisions that mattered, and I let it hold me back and stay at the same level over and over again.

To the outside world, it looks like I was doing a lot - and that I had the confidence to pull it off. In the past few years I have published two books (one with a publisher + one self-published), I have been growing my followings on social media + started being a little more visible, I’ve been featured many times on various podcasts, interviews + websites and I’ve even become a published logo designer.

Yet what isn’t seen in the highlight reels we choose to share with the world is the inner battles that I, and so many others, have been fighting: coming up with ideas for products + services and either “launching” them (believe me, simply adding it to your website and hoping people will find it ISN’T a launch) or planning them so thoroughly only to abandon them part way down the path of creation.

There have been so many ideas, good and bad, that I have squashed out of fear of releasing something that people may judge and out of fear of releasing something that isn’t QUITE as perfect as I want it to be.

Take a moment to sit and think. What have you not released, launched, created or shared with the world? Why didn’t you do it? Dig deep - was it fear, in whatever shape or form that might be, however big or small?

If fear isn’t your immediate answer, I’m willing to bet that a good proportion of other excuses (because, #sorrynotsorry, that’s what they are) might be a lack of time, being unable to fit it in alongside everything else you’re doing, or something similar.

On one hand, that makes sense. On the other, however subconscious it is - this is fear telling you to stop. One excuse after another. And I truly believe that if you have a great idea that you know can help people - you have a duty to share it with the world. And what’s even better, is if that idea lights you up then you will make the time, you will fit it in, you will do everything you can to get this idea off the ground and out into the world.

Getting a grip on your fears

Take another moment to think of someone you admire in business, who is further ahead than you. Maybe they’ve launched their own online course, maybe they’ve built a huge community around their message, maybe they simply have more clients than you. Maybe they’re admired by many, they have created a movement, they are visible + on a much grander scale than you.

Have you got your person now? Perfect.

Then I have a truth for you:

The ONLY difference between YOU and THAT person is that they took action.

When I take the time to look at what I have done in my business, there’s a hell of a lot there. I wrote out a list of all I have done during the coaching I received on my positioning a couple of months back - and there’s probably more there that I’ve missed. But while there is a lot on that list (and it’s all great stuff, things I am proud to have done and achieved) I also know the amount of things I’ve also held back and that I could have launched.

Again, that one difference between me and the people I most admire in business is that they did it anyway, fear or no fear.

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Ashley, of Fire and Wind Co., recently started a campaign that has swiftly turned into a movement, of women entrepreneurs who are ready to share with the world why they’re not the flawless creatures social media and the online world can make us out to be (however conscious or accidental that may be).

Looking at this campaign, having a heartfelt conversation with my biz bestie and taking the time to allow all of that to sink in gave me a chance to reflect on all of the ways I’ve truly held myself back over the years.

And do you know what? This reflection happened LAST. WEEK.

Yes, that’s right. I’ve been running my business for almost 4 years, working under the Rachilli brand I created for over 7 years, and I’ve only just realised how badly my fears have been holding me back and made the change.

I’ve been doing so much work over the past few months to look at my brand, my positioning, the work I’m putting out there (both products AND services) and the message I want to share with the world. And heck, it’s a terrifying experience.

And even through this time, I’ve been making huge changes. But I’ve still allowed that fear to take a grip sometimes and the changes I’m implementing haven’t happened as quickly as I would have liked.

But, as of last week - all of that has changed. Even though it scares me, I’m doing it anyway.

It can be so easy to say those words - but taking the action, to keep moving...that is what matters most. For so long I would kid myself, telling myself that I needed to work through these fears before taking any more steps. But in reality, all that did was hold me back time after time. It as just another excuse, another reason to stop and stay comfortable.

And although it feels like a switch has been flicked now that I've realised this, it also feels like nothing has really changed. I have finally embraced who I am, wholly and completely. I no longer feel like a fraud because I am walking my talk + following the lessons I teach to my own clients, my audience and the people I surround myself with.

I am finally unapologetically ME, being both the crazy-pants, hyper person when I’m with people I love to be around (seriously - if you want proof, just ask any member of the Conquer Club who have been on a call with me when I’m in the chat. I can’t hold back the crazy OR the excitement + everyone gets to know about it!) and the quiet, introverted person that needs her own space. I’m being more real, more raw, instead of showing the highlights that we inadvertently start to share. I am becoming + embracing the polished mess I know I am (yep, lover of the contradictions here).

And I’m embracing these sides of me in my own business, for my clients and for my own products and services. Instead of trying to be one or the other, I’m harnessing my strengths and combining my creativity with my knowledge of business + brand strategy. This is where my two passions collide + where I’m strongest - something that has been proven to me since I embraced this in the past 2 weeks, let alone in the past couple of months.

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So please, if I have any point to make, let it be this:

Your fears will come up at any time, and it’s likely different fears will come up for you at different points in your journey. You absolutely have the power to heal and move past these fears...but before you do that, keep moving forward. Don’t allow your fears to hold you back and stop you from releasing your magic into the world. Allow yourself a moment to panic or get scared, but then do it anyway. Show the world that you are more than your fear - and more importantly, show yourself.

When you run your own business, there are (let’s face it - MANY) times when you’ll go through a period of huge growth. That growth might feel uncomfortable, or it might be the thing you’ve been waiting to happen for what feels like years. Those periods of intense growth can be uncomfortable, can make you want to curl up into a ball and howl at how hard running a business truly is - but they are also an opportunity.

I had one of those growth spurts just a few months ago (followed by another two since then). The growth hasn’t always necessarily been in tangible ways that you can track - such as a spike in my email list size (though I had that at one point too) or a huge growth in my client base.

In fact, many of these growth spurts have been internal, that have happened to me, not in spite of me or what I am doing. One of these moments of growth helped me realise that I wasn’t walking my talk as much as I should be doing. I realised that I wasn’t showing all of my true self, in my business OR in my brand.

This was a huge realisation for me, as it’s something I quite happily preach (yep, I get all excited about it) to my clients + to everyone I get to speak to branding about.

I truly believe that your brand should be a full, unapologetic representation of you. Who you are, your values, your beliefs, your loves. It should be a visual insight into who you are, the message you want to share with the world + what matters most to you.

But was this what my own brand was doing? The short answer: No.

The long answer? My brand is great. It’s getting noticed where I want it to get noticed. I’m getting the attention I know that it deserves. I spent a lot of time + hard work on creating the visual brand that you see on this site, here, today.

But this brand is not a full representation of who I am and what I + my business stand for.

Sure, it shows my attention to detail, my love of colour + texture and it shows the prestige, polished side to my brand that I love. But there isn’t enough of ME.

And that I’ve been hiding is the crazy-pants, slightly cuckoo, full of laughter, smiling all the time kinda person. The person + business woman + designer that values creativity mixed with strategy.

My brand is missing the polished yet creative mess that is me.

And with that realisation, I knew that I needed to rebrand. While my current brand serves a purpose, it doesn’t let people really know what they’re in for when they come into contact with me - whether that’s through reaching out to me personally, following me on Twitter or Instagram or even working with me. At the moment, my brand feels like it is a façade and glosses over what truly matters to me.

So yes, my brand is now in the process of being updated. I’m going through that point that most designers will tell you exists - where you know what needs to change, you know how it needs to change, but now you need to find the time to just. do. it. (Nike have a point there, y'know).

Most of my clients come to me when they need a revamp of their current brand - it’s actually rare for me to create a new brand completely from scratch. When I look at the patterns from potential client calls, as well as my own experiences with this, I realised there are a few key reasons that come up time and time again that show you it’s time to rebrand your business:

1. You’re taking your business to the next level.

This is one of the most common signs I see when it comes to revamping your brand. But, if anything, this can sometimes be the worst time to rebrand your business (even though it’s probably needed). It all depends on how you handle this when it comes up.

Your business is evolving - and you know that your newfound clarity on your message + what you are here to do in the world doesn’t match up visually or mentally with your current brand. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll feel like you can’t do anything in this growing stage of your business until your new brand is launched.

The problem with this is that you are allowing your current brand to hold you back. I did this myself for around 1 whole month before I realised that my current brand is more than strong enough to stand up to the work I want to do, right now. It’s not exactly what I want it to be...right now. But it is more than capable of holding up the fortress while the new brand is being created.

The problem wasn’t my current brand - it was more about my own mindset to push through and get the work done, regardless of the outside circumstances. Once I realised how silly that was, I following through with the plans I had created, instead of putting things off and then making zero progress.

The key takeaway here: your business is growing, and that’s brilliant news! But don’t let your rebrand hold you back. Instead, use it to help educate you on what matters most to you in your business and keep moving forward.

2. You’ve already evolved your business and you feel like your brand doesn’t speak your language anymore.

This is one of the best times to rebrand your business or your offering. You’ve done all of the work to evolve + grow your business, yet you now feel stuck because your brand just doesn’t match up to the bigger vision you now have. Here, you have all of the pieces that you need - you just need to put them together.

When it comes to redesigning your brand at this stage, all you need to ensure is that your brand is growing WITH you. It’s important to note where you’re at right now, but where you want to be in the future. A truly powerful brand is one that provides a solid platform for your business that allows you to grow as and when you need to.

Key takeaway: By having your big picture vision for your business in place, you know what you need your brand to be capable of. Your brand should help you achieve your goals, not keep you stuck where you are now - or worse, behind where you should be.

3. Your current brand follows a lot of “design trends” or feels outdated.

Now I’ve been teasing a lot in the past couple of blog posts about design trends (think - glitter, gold textures, specific layout styles, and so on) - and I promise I’ll get to it soon. But a clear sign of you needing a rebrand is when your current brand follows a lot of design trends and doesn’t have its own clear identity.

Your business AND your brand both deserve to be unique. To be unapologetically you, in both your brand + business, you cannot have a brand that visually reflects styles of somebody else.

In the same way, if your brand followed design trends of the past, or is even simply a few years old (it happens!), it’s likely that business or brand is starting to feel visually tired and out of date.

Your brand deserves to have its own unique qualities - and it’s high time you need a rebrand if you are blindly following design trends instead of creating a brand + business that is truly, unapologetically you.

[Funny side note: This post is even more timely than I expected, with Instagram pushing out an update to their app + familiar icon just before I clicked publish. I’m in love with their new UI + although their app icon is a huge departure from their old one, the branding system they’ve created for Instagram and its sister apps (Hyperlapse, Boomerang and Layout) is divine. What wonderful timing as a great example!]

Choosing a designer to work with on your next creative project can be a scary task. After all, you want to find someone that understands your vision but can translate all of your best ideas into something that not only looks beautiful, but serves its function too.

But when you do find the perfect designer to collaborate with, who can do all of the above and more...how do you prepare yourself to work with them - and to take full advantage of their time and talent?

As a designer myself, I’m so excited to share with you my top 5 tips for prepping to work with a designer - bear in mind that every designer will work differently, but this should give you a good headstart:

1. Don’t be afraid to question the process.

Every designer will have a different set of systems and processes that they use when working with their clients. This is for good reason - these systems are in place to help streamline the work that you do together and take full advantage of putting your creative ideas together with the skills of your designer.

That said - do NOT be afraid of asking questions, particularly when you don’t understand something or want something clarifying. A good designer will not be worried or phased by you questioning something and will want to reassure you and ensure that you are happy with the end result. I know that you know your business better than anybody else, so this is something I actively encourage my clients to do. Asking questions will make the end-result of the work we do together better - no doubt about it.

2. But TRUST in the process.

That said - you also need to be comfortable with putting a lot of trust and faith in your designer. They know what they are doing - they have the skills to take your incredible vision and turn your message into something visually amazing.

Trust in your designer - they know what they’re doing, have often trained for many years (and I’m a big believer in that our training never ends!) and they can make decisions for your brand and designs much more objectively than you can. As a designer, I am always invested in my clients and want them to succeed - and the work I do will reflect that.

3. Know WHAT you want.

This might seem a puzzling point - after all, if you’re hiring a designer for something, you might think you know exactly what you want. However - I would encourage you to dig a little deeper. Ask yourself questions you might not have considered before: what is the objective for this piece of work that’s being created? How do you want your dreamy, ideal audience to feel when they see this design (whether it’s your logo, a graphic or your website)? What is the purpose of this work - where will it be used, integrated, etc? What is the larger vision that you have for your business? How does this vision play into the work you want completed?

All of these questions - and many, many more - will help you to discover exactly what you want from the work and will help you to communicate this to your designer more clearly. And the clearer the spec you hand to your designer, the more likely the work you get back at the end will match what you envisioned from the start.

4. Prepare a brand style board.

One of the most useful things you can hand to your designer is a brand style board. Yep, that’s right - I’m giving you an excuse to go Pinterest crazy! Firstly, start off by creating a mind map of different words you’d associate with your brand. Think of feelings you want to evoke with your ideal audience, words that you would use to describe your business and look at the language that your ideal audience use when interacting with your business. Using all of these words, start searching Pinterest one word at a time and add all images that you connect with to a special Brand Style Board. This is an invaluable resource to pass to your designer, because they’ll get a great insight into your favoured styles and will help you communicate what you want much more easily.

5. Bring all your passion + energy into the fold.

This, for me, is the most important thing you can do. Get excited about the work you’re doing together with your designer and bring all of that excitement, passion and incredible energy into the fold. Enjoy the opportunity you have to work with your designer and really appreciate the effort that goes into creating your work. I get so heavily invested in my clients and their work - I truly want them to succeed and hope that my work will help them to do that. When my clients feel the same way and are truly excited by the opportunity to collaborate...it’s a designer’s dream come true.

Please note: This post was first featured on Passion Junkie but is now being republished on the Rachilli blog.

When it comes to standing out in the online world, it’s pretty hard to look unique.

Take a look at a few brands and businesses that are in the same field as you. I bet that preeetty much everywhere you look you’ll find gold textures galore, really hard-to-read text overlaying some obviously-not-stock-but-is-stock photo images and glitter. Glitter everywhere.

Now these are just a select few of my pet peeves (I’ll explain more of why these are a BAD idea to include in your brand another day), but can you see the problem here?

None of these businesses or brands are powerful, because they’re all trying to be the same.

To create a truly powerful brand, you have to accept that you are a creative-minded person, with your own opinions, your own values and your own beliefs. And own the heck out of them.

While there are 3 main actions you can take to build a more powerful brand, I believe that you have to start from within. And by that, I mean dig deep to figure out exactly what matters to you. Ask yourself some of these questions: What do you believe in? What do you stand for? What matters most to you in your work? What message do you want to share with the world? What do you really want to say?

The key to knowing all of what you want to say - and doing it? Don’t be afraid of what other people will think of you.

It’s easy to say you believe in something, but until you start sharing it and injecting all of that goodness into your brand + business at a larger level, I’m sorry - but it means nothing.

Once you know what you want to share with the world, you can start to take action. And that’s where the 3 secrets to a powerful brand step in.

1. Connection

Now I’m talking about true connection, that REAL relationship that you choose to build with somebody - not making friends with everybody you see in Facebook groups. In business, you want to build connections with three types of people:

  1. Your audience. These are the people that value your work, your values and the message you share. Without an audience you have no business. Your audience are the people that become your valued customers, who will shout about you + what you have to say, who will support you and want to learn more from you. And the win-win is that the more value you give, the more that you put out into the world…the more your audience will grow.
  2. Your customers. These are the people that buy from you. In my business, I have two types of customers: my clients (for my 1:1 branding and website design work) and those that purchase my products (my books + courses). These are the most important people in your business. Keep your customers happy and they will turn into adoring fans - over deliver on the experience your customers have with you (from pre-sale to well beyond) and you’ll have an incredibly powerful army of customers who will continually bring more of their friends into the fold - and into your tribe.
  3. People that are in the same field / industry as you - but are further ahead. Jim Rohn is quoted as saying that “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. I’ve always loved this quote and I’m (now) fiercely protective of the energy I choose to surround myself with. There are more than 5 people that I love to spend time with, but by also allowing myself the permission to spend time with people further ahead in their business and on their journey than me, I get the chance to learn something new. I don’t pretend to know it all and I love it most when I have something new to learn. By surrounding myself with people that lift me up and inspire me to reach the level they’re at, I get to learn so much - whether it’s around mindset, a new design or development technique, or that really - realising that everyone (even at a super high level) is just a normal person, like me and you.

A few practical ways that you can start connecting more are:

Once you start focusing on connection as one of your primary aims in business, you are one step into creating a more powerful brand. It’s so easy to not focus on building real relationships and focus on the numbers - like building your list, your twitter followers or Facebook page likes. But in the end it’s the true connections you’ve made that will create a long-lasting, long-term difference in your business.

2. Consistency

I’m laughing as I write this one, because this is something I’ve REALLY struggled with. But that said, consistency is one of the most important things you can create in your business.

When you are consistently getting in touch with somebody (not so often that you’re RIGHTINTHEIRFACE 24/7), you start to become familiar. And familiarity is what builds trust. And trust (and credibility) is what makes a member of your audience more likely to become a customer.

Consistency isn’t just sending out your weekly email newsletter (though that will help). Consistency is built into everything that you do as a business and everything that you release into the wild. This might include:

  1. Your Visual Brand. This is everything from your logo (though evolutions of brands are great to see, please don’t change it all the time. A good logo should be timeless and free of gimmicks) through to your colour palette, your typography styles, photography styles (and filters) and more. The more consistent you can keep your visual brand style, the more familiar your audience becomes with you and your brand. If that is visually a bit crazy with loads of patterns - great, but keep it that way. If it’s polished and clean? Great - but keep it that way.
  2. Your Tone of Voice. This is all about the words you use when communicating with your audience and breaking it down even further, can be your language style, writing style and so on. Any point that you communicate with your audience through words, you want to make sure that the tone matches the style you’ve been using for a while. If you don’t eff-and-jeff (swear, for those not from Northern England like myself) then don’t start planting the f-bomb into your sentences. Meanwhile, if that’s your jam then go right ahead and keep swearing. But again: keep it consistent.
  3. Frequency. This is down to when you send out info to your audience, such as your weekly newsletter, “important" social media posts (like launch posts) and so on. If your audience becomes used to seeing your newsletter on a specific day, it’s something they can look forward to. If they don’t know when you’re going to get in touch, you can’t build that sub-conscious excitement and anticipation. Keep it consistent.

Consistency is normally a challenge for anybody - it’s harder than it looks to keep up with a schedule that can easily suck hours out of your normal working week. But the payoff is more than worth the time it takes to implement and consistently communicate with your audience.

Believe me when I say consistently creating content (try saying that fast 10 times!) is one of the biggest challenges for me - but there are a few things that help me personally to cope with that challenge:

  1. PLAN. Yep, this one deserves to be in capitals. Plan, plan and plan some more. By planning what you want to say in advance it makes it a heck of a lot easier to be committed and to follow through. Plan both what you want to say in a broader way by creating an editorial calendar, where you plot what type of content you want to put out, which days and when. I recently got the chance (at long last!) to work with my biz bestie Layla Saad, who helped me figure out how to more powerfully position myself and my work. Part of that work was guiding me to create an editorial calendar and it’s been a HUGE relief to see everything set out in a way that makes sense to my (often kinda crazy) brain. Also take the time to plan out each individual piece of content, so that you know the points you want to cover and don’t go off on mindless rambles. Mind map (or brain fart, as I like to call them) around the topics you want to cover, and then put them in bullet points. You’ll be surprised how much easier it is to create content when you know what you want to cover!
  2. Create a routine. I’m a huge fan of routines. And lists. By combing the two, it’s a creating content consistently match made in heaven. If you create a routine to how you create your content, it will only help you switch into the mindset much quicker. I find that having a specific way that I start writing my written blogs helps. I brain fart (mind map) around the topic I’m covering, pick out the key points and break it down. Then I take the time to get into the headspace (for me that sometimes means meditating, cuddles with my two crazy dogs or popping my favourite classical track on. At the moment it’s The Piano Guys with "Beethoven’s 5 Secrets”) before I sit down and WRITE. And as my wonderful client + friend Kelly Azevedo likes to say - just keep your bum on the chair ’til it’s done.
  3. Stay committed. It’s really hard to keep creating things - particularly when you have a day where you simply can’t be bothered. But stay the course and keep doing it, even when it gets hard. Having a schedule and a content calendar will help, but they mean nothing if you don’t do the work. Find a way to make creating your content fun and it will be a lot easier for you to stay committed.

Once you start building your routine into communicating and displaying your brand consistently to your audience, you’ll notice that your engagement should start to lift. People love consistency as it feels familiar to them - and you can then use it to your advantage, by being inconsistent to really get the attention of your audience at a time outside of the norm.

3. Credibility

In any business, trust is a huge factor in whether someone or not will buy from you. In online business? It’s even more important. We don’t have the advantage that brick-and-mortar stores have by being able to be there, right in front of their customer. Instead, we have to use the previous two points, and many more, to help convince our audience that we are trustworthy, credible and an expert at what we do. The advantage we do have is that we can use many more neat tricks to convince our customers to buy from us…24/7.

Building credibility isn’t something that will happen overnight - it will instead take time and due diligence to build up slowly, over time. If you think about Spiderman or Superman helping their own cities - the trust didn’t arrive straight away, but instead built up over time as they helped more and more people out.

In the same way, you can build credibility and your reputation by being someone that gives back to your community, your audience and your customers. Make sure that every level of interaction that they have with you is top notch and without fault. One simple way of doing this is to create nurture sequences for people that join your email list, so instead of them being thrown into your weekly newsletter, they are welcomed gently into your online tribe.

But remember as well: that nobody is perfect. If you want to build credibility and get your audience to trust you, you need to be real and down to earth with them too. Keep it real, share your struggles AND your achievements and don’t be afraid of being vulnerable. Try to think of a time when you felt more truly connected to one of your favourite online entrepreneurs - I bet you felt reassured and that they were like YOU when they shared where they were truly at in that moment in time.

So there you have it. The 3 secrets to a more powerful brand.

These are things that you can put into action straight away - but results won't necessarily happen overnight. Take the time to implement them properly in your business and you’ll notice a huge difference in the way your audience engages with you and connects with you over time.

I’d love to know - which of these do you think you struggle with most? For me - it’s consistency. Let me know your own in the comments below.

Have you ever felt that something is out there, calling directly to you? Is there something pulling you towards something great - but unknown? Do you ever feel like there's something bigger than you, just waiting for you to help bring it to life? Have you ever dreamed so big and so far that it scared you?

And now, I wonder...have you ever allowed yourself to feel that calling with all of your strength, all of your passion and all of your power?

For the past 18 months, everything has been leading me towards one thing. I know now that one of my callings is to create a revolution of soulful, visionary - yet empowered - entrepreneurs. And everything I've done since then is working towards that "end goal", though I personally doubt it'll ever end.

Elle Luna wrote an incredible book on choosing your "must" over the "should". That was my tipping point, where I realised that I truly had to pay attention to what the world was trying to tell me. I had to listen to my intuition and understand that I am here for a reason.

I've always felt a desire to change the world. When I was younger, I'd tell myself "But you're no scientist, you can't cure the world of horrible disease. There's no way you can change the world." Now, I realise that if we have a mission that we feel - or rather know - that we need to complete, we can access the true power that we hold inside and use this for good.

I know that truly incredible design can create lasting impact and change for the better. I realised that my own calling, to create a revolution and to change the world, was in reach simply through the very skills, knowledge and talent I have inside of me. By empowering other entrepreneurs, helping elevate their businesses and make the world more beautiful one entrepreneur's brand at a time...I'm creating the change that I truly desire.

So you might wonder why this is a call out to you: the soulful, visionary entrepreneur who longs to create something good through your own work.

Well the reason is quite simple.

I know that I wouldn't be where I am now - or where I will be in 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years time - without taking the time to truly realise my own potential.

Knowing what I am capable of gives me the power and the determination to carry through on my mission, even when it becomes difficult to do so. Entrepreneurship is not an easy thing - it is something that is full of ups and downs, plenty of roundabouts and twists and turns. But when things get hard to deal with, I know that I can come back to that pure vision that I have for the future and remind myself of my own potential. And it is that which offers me the power to move through my life and work towards the dreams that I have for my life and those around me.

So my final question to you is this: what revolution are you going to start?

Answering that question might be a little hard. It might even make you fearful, for it feels too big to handle or for any one person to accomplish in one lifetime.

But know this: I believe in you.

By simply having these dreams and visions for your life and the change that you can create in the world, you already hold the power that you need to charge forward and just DO IT. It's all there - you just need to find it, nurture it and hold on to it.

Do not be afraid of owning that revolutionary power that you have.

We are all here to make a difference.

We all have a purpose.

You just have to find yours, and be willing to share it with the world.

— Rachel xo

[focus]Just over 2 weeks ago, I set out to create a product in just 10 days as part of Gumroad's #SmallProductLab challenge. And the amazing news? I managed to launch on time (in fact, a little early — as I thought the launch day was on our 10th day, not the 11th) and I have had actual sales![/focus]

Creating a product in 10 days is no easy task. I knew that when I started, but it was only when you get knee-deep in all the “stuff” you have to do that you realise JUST how hard it is.

I wanted to take the time to reflect on what I’ve achieved — and the lessons I’ve learned.
## Lesson 1: Be prepared.

Preparation for creating a product is a blog post and whole topic in itself, but be sure to take the time to prepare properly.

I had my product idea before I started the #SmallProductLab challenge, but the Gumroad team had a plan of action in place with ideas for what we needed to do each day — and assignments for specific days as well, to ensure we kept on track.

I can say without a doubt that if I didn’t have that action plan, I would have been totally lost. It’s taught me that having a solid list of actions to complete, and a daily schedule, help you to keep taking action daily and move forward to get your product launched.

Lesson 2: Clear your schedule.

I was trying to plan, build and design my product - all alongside my other client work (and I’ve been super busy at the moment). It was a LOT to take on all at once.

That said, I was pretty proud of the balance I managed to create. But the next time I create a product (which will be soon - I have the product creation bug now!) I’m going to make sure to set aside dedicated “creation” time, where I have no other distractions and I’m not trying to juggle a hundred balls at once.

Even if you’re busy, you can find the time to create your product. I worked for an hour or two in the morning, before my day’s work started, and then continued in the evening if I needed to.

Lesson 3: Look after yourself!

The major lesson I learned when creating your product is to NOT overwork yourself.

There are so many things that goes into creating a product - beyond just planning and creating the product itself, which is a task that could have taken up the whole 10 days if you’d let it!

There is marketing, promotion, creating, planning, structure, email lists, product set-ups, pricing…and even more than that. There is so much to think about and you’re crazy busy creating the actual thing that you want to put out into the world too.

And when you’re trying to balance your normal workload, creating a product AND (gasp) having a life - it can get pretty easy to forget to look after yourself. But make sure that you do, so that you can keep the momentum going once your product is created and out in the world.

The end?

Of course not. 🙂 If there’s a lesson that has been most valuable for me to learn, it is this:

You are capable of doing anything if you put your mind to it.

This is a sentiment that I had always stood by, but now feel even more strongly about.

I was so scared of putting myself out there and letting myself and my work be seen by a wider audience - instead of just working with my 1:1 design clients - that I self-sabotaged and decided not to work on anything.

When starting #SmallProductLab, the Gumroad team recommend that you set yourself a goal. It could simply be to finish, or it could be to make X amount of sales.

My goal was to have 10 sales by the time a week had passed of my product being launched. It turned out that I had 10 pre-orders before my product had even launched. That meant that come launch day, I had already surpassed my goal.
Taking part in this challenge has shown me that I’ve been able to create something out of nothing - and that ideas that we have can be successful, but more importantly can create change and help people.

If you’re sitting on the fence and you’re undecided if you want to create something from an idea you have…all I can say is take that leap. You won’t regret it. 🙂

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About Rachilli Creative Studio.

Rachilli is a creative studio dedicating to helping create more authentic brands for creative brands & businesses ready to grow deeper roots with their audience & build their business in a more aligned way.

Rachilli is also committed to helping empower other's with chronic illness to carve their own path and create a life & business that works for them and to lead the way by creating a platform for, and being a voice alongside, those with chronic illness in business.

Rachel, the founder, is an award-winning designer and photographer, published logo designer and author, and is dog mama to two - slightly crazy - pups, Storm & Jasper.

My Core Values.

Create with intentional flow.

Grow community through connection.

Be courageously creative.

Ground my work in deeper roots.

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