I thought I’d be able to run around town without a brand forever, do whatever on Instagram, not take myself too seriously, write about silly stuff that I spend time thinking about, but then the silly stuff became my favorite stuff and not having a brand has only held me back from reaching my full potential as a blogger. Why have I delayed in branding myself for so long? Straight up… I’m afraid. Here are my fears.

Low Self Esteem – The idea of branding “me”, marketing my “lifestyle”, and taking editorial-style pictures of myself and my dog and my friends feels embarrassing. I mean, do I really think I’m so awesome that I need to take 100 different pictures of my coffee to get the perfect one? I don’t. It takes a certain sense of self and some real courage to brand your life (your writing, your pets, your clothes, your thoughts) and to do so in consumable, shareable, pretty little bites. This is what I have to attempt to do now. All for the sake of moving forward.

I’m Old – I always think of myself as someone who is pretty youthful. I listen to the same music as the “kids”, I use Snapchat, I had a Tumblr account in 2010, I’m pretty down with technology. But where I am old is that idea of a self-brand. Kids these days grow up knowing how to do this, when to do this, and why to do this. I grew up not worried about my Social Feed aesthetic but rather the cool kids liked my new shirt. I need to think more globally than I’ve ever had to before.

I’m a Writer – Pretty pictures have never really been my thing. Do I love them? Do I aspire to take them? Do I wonder how people take these pictures daily? Yes, yep, totally. But the actual skills and patience to take a really killer social media picture has always escaped me. Words and I are buddies, soulmates, we know each other well. I have to welcome photos into the inner circle of my life and I am terrified of doing so. It’s a whole new skill set I need to learn.

I’m Impatient – Sitting around and rearranging words on a page? Sure. Sit around and play with lighting and a filter? Not so sure. I’m often eager to move on to the next thing so to sit and perfect an image for a social media channel seems so silly. But I understand the importance of creating beautiful, well-thought out things to represent a beautiful, well-thought out brand or idea. I do it all the time at my day job, so why not with this?

As you can see I am in well over my head with this stuff and a little panicky but my first line of defense is education. Second is preparation. And third is well… follow-through I guess. A lot of changes to come and I’m pretty concerned but this seems like the most logical next step.

Wish me well………please?