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Whatever it is you’ve been critical of yourself, just stop today. #vatip 
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Hi and welcome to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant. I’m your host and your virtual co-worker, Tiffany Parson. Today is episode number 121.
You know, I had one topic before I hit record, but I had so many stop and starts, stop and starts, and I thought I need to talk about how we’re overly critical of ourselves. So let’s just talk about that.
We can be our worst critics, right? That keeps us from moving forward. It keeps us from pressing the record button. It keeps us from hitting the publish button. It keeps us from hitting the send button because we’re so critical of ourselves.
Have you ever recorded your greeting on your phone and you listen to it again, oh, it’s not right? Listen to it again. It’s not right. It’s not right, and then you end up going with the first recording because now after the tenth one, the first one sounds not so bad.
Or selfies. You take a picture, take a picture, take a picture, take a picture. It’s still not right. It’s still not right, and then you get frustrated with yourself and you go back through them all again and realize the first one wasn’t so bad.
How many times have you done this? Too many times and then it just gets to the point where you know what, I’m just going to go. I’m just going to press it, just like with today’s podcast. I was going to do a Facebook Live and record the podcast all at the same time, but then I started feeling the pressure.
It’s like don’t worry about it. You spent 15 minutes on that trying to get the lighting right. It just wasn’t looking right. I did a little test video and the lighting was fine. Nothing was wrong with the lighting.
If you’ve listed to the podcast for a while, you may know this because I’ve shared it a few times. Whenever there’s like a technical glitch or a mind trick or something going on, I know whatever the topic is that I need to talk about is very important, and this is very important.
You’ve been over critical of yourselves. You’re beautiful. You’re smart. You have the knowledge. You have the experience. You have everything you need.
Press play, send, publish, go, do, whatever it is to get yourself moving. It’s the second month of the year and you promised yourself in October that you would get this done. Are you trying to make it perfect? Are you criticizing the tenth draft when the first one was fine?
If you’ve never been to my website, maybe you’ve only seen the YouTube videos, I have my virtual assistant, Shannon, transcribe the podcast as is. I don’t take out any ums. “So” used to be my word. I don’t know if I still say that a lot all the time. But we don’t go through and edit all of that out. I’ve always wanted this to be real just like you’re right in front of me.
Whatever it is you’ve been critical of yourself, just stop today. Maybe you feel like your skin is not smooth enough or there’s a spot somewhere. Nobody knows about it but you, even if you are on video. See, I could point out all the imperfections that I see in myself, but you probably don’t see them. But if I start pointing them out, yeah, you’ll see them.
But when you play back your video and you see yourself, you’ll see how wonderful and amazing and beautiful you are on camera, and your voice too because sometimes we hate listening to our own voice. But people on the other end will appreciate your truth, your authenticity and become your friend or your virtual co-worker or however it plays out. Enough is enough, right? Enough is enough.
Now, I don’t even remember what the other topic [laughs] was going to be about for the podcast. I’m just going to keep talking until it comes. I just finished recording training for the Virtual Assistant Business Owners Circle. V.A.B.O.C. Whoop! Whoop! Just finished doing that and if you watched last week’s podcast, episode 120, we are really diving into that topic really good. I’ve given them some action steps, some things to start with.
We do business training. We have a business training video, a skills training video, and then we all come together for a live Q&A where they can ask me questions. Not just about the month’s training, but about anything in regards to their virtual assistant business and we discuss it from there.
Anyway, that’s my pitch for the Virtual Assistant Business Owners Circle. Sometimes you may wonder if I have a mentorship program or what have you. That is it, the V.A.B.O.C. and it just started at the end of 2017.
It’s been something that I have been wanting to start for a while, something that I did attempt a few years back and it has had different iterations until I got the right feel and figured out what would work best, and I just press send, press play. We’re doing it. It started with a free webinar first and then led right into the program.
So anyway, nothing has to be perfect. You’re awesome.
Let’s see, what else do I want to say in this podcast? I’m going to pause. Yay! I figured it out what the other topic I wanted to talk about. A typical day in the life. Actually, no, not day in the life. Today was, for about five minutes, really, really lonely.
I want to talk to you about the loneliness of working from home. But how, if you’re an introvert, it’s like super, super helpful. You have the advantage because you don’t need a lot of people around you to get energized or motivated.
This is what a typical day looks like for me. I don’t set an alarm clock. I just get up. Some mornings, it’s at 8:00. Some mornings, it’s at 9:00. Some, it’s at 7:00. I don’t set an alarm clock. Some people are really strict about alarm clock and things like that. Well, I function better when I don’t have to have an alarm clock, and I feel really good when I get up early on my own, and early to me is 8:00. All right, so I feel really good about that.
So I decide what kind of day is this going to be? Am I going to wear comfortable clothes? Am I going to put on a full outfit? What does it look like? It usually is dependent on my schedule. Is this a recording day or will anybody see me? Will I need to take a picture? You know, what’s going on today and then decide to get dressed from there.
Then once I’ve made my decision, I’m up, I’m showering, I’m having breakfast, and I’m on my way. I’m looking at emails. I’m looking at social media. It’s more like, you know, a quick overview of what things are looking like. Not responding to anything, just looking.
So I go from email to Facebook to Instagram and the news. I read the news. Some people don’t think they should read the news, but to each his own. I read the news, see what’s going on, and I read headlines really quick and then I dive into specific articles of interest.
Then it’s off to the races. I’m on my computer. I’m doing client work the rest of the day. Once the day is done, depending on what day it is, do I have to get something ready for my VA? Do I need to send her my social media content? Do I need to send my podcast episode? Do I need to do my training video? Do I need to get those emails out? On and on and on, so it just varies.
Fridays are really short days. I don’t do a whole lot on Friday. I do client work for about four hours or so. I don’t schedule meetings or anything like that on Fridays because my mind is gone. Like Tuesday through Thursday are my better days for meeting people and talking to people. Monday and Friday, no, because Monday is usually really busy and Friday is like smooth sailing.
Anyway, that’s what a typical day is like. But it can get lonely. I don’t know how many people will tell you that, that it can be lonely working from home.
But I’m an introvert. You know, every now and again I’ll get a little lonely. But then I realize I probably just need some more water. Maybe I need to go to the bathroom. Maybe it’s just because I’ve got some things that I need to do, but that’s part of procrastination. Oh, I’m feeling lonely, but it’s really just procrastination.
But if you’re introverted, like I said, you don’t need a lot of people around, then that is to your advantage because you can work all day long for a number of days – and this is probably the dangerous part. You can work all day long for a number of days and not leave the house.
I put up a post on Facebook the other day about my excitement because I don’t have to – it was a Monday night and I was excited I don’t have to leave the house until Friday. Whoop! Whoop! Yeah, that excites me.
When I’m busy during the week, I’m like, oh, my gosh, we’ve got all these things to do this week, and then I have to think about what I’m going to wear, what I’m going to do with my hair. I mean, it’s just a whole lot involved to leave the house, and it may sound funny if you leave the house every day. But once you get used to working from home and not having to leave, it is like a real pain.
Like I love hanging out with friends and family and stuff like that, but it’s a lot of thought involved. Like if we have things to do on the weekend, I get up early so that I can have time to relax and then time to get dressed because it’s going to take me a while to figure it all out because I haven’t had to do it all week.
Right now, if I’m leaving the house, I’m going to the gym. I teach a fitness class so that I can be accountable to myself to actually workout. Otherwise, it’s easy to put off going to the gym. So I teach. No choice, I’ve got to be there. It works for me.
Anyway, so that’s what a typical day looks like. I make sure that I am getting up and stretching. I don’t drink all the water that I should. I probably don’t eat as often as I should, which is not a good thing. It’s something that I really have got to get ahold of in 2018 because it’s just not healthy.
So anyway, if you have questions for me, you’re curious to know what, you know, maybe something I left out or I’m just taking for granted in regards to being home. Just let me know what your questions are. You can just, if you’re watching this video on YouTube, just post in the comments below. If you’re driving and you’re listening to the podcast, just when you get home, post a question on my Facebook page and I’ll answer you there.
I’m trying to think of something else. Oh, I keep my phone – oh, look at me. I’m looking for my phone but I’m recording on my phone. I keep my phone on do not disturb, and the only people that can get through during the day are those on my favorites, so my phone is not dinging all day. This is how I’m able to just stay focused. Even on the weekend, I keep it on do not disturb.
So the only people that can get through are my husband and my mom because, otherwise, I’ll hear dings. You know how your apps have notifications. (Oh, I keep hitting my desk.) Your apps have notifications and then emails dinging and all this stuff. No, I keep it on do not disturb and then put, you know, the people that you want to hear from, especially in case of an emergency and stuff, put them on your favorites and this is how you can stay focused during the day.
My days are very, very quiet, like listen. It’s quiet like this all day. Some days, I’ll turn the TV on and have it muted so it’s almost like people are there but they’re not, and some days I’ll unmute it and just have it down really low. But it just depends. Other days, I may listen to training videos or webinars and stuff like that while I work and it feels like they’re all, you know, with me. Again, me being a huge introvert, that helps a lot.
I’m not sure how extroverted virtual assistants do it. If you’re an extrovert and you’re a virtual assistant and you’ve been doing this for a while working from home, share with me as well. Post in the comments below. How does that work when you’re used to, you know, you like being around a lot of people? I don’t know. I’m curious about that.
So anyway, I won’t prolong this particular episode. I may be kind of rambling, but just consider this hanging out with Tiffany for episode number 121. Anyway, thank you so much. I appreciate you for listening. You can find me on Facebook every single day. Facebook.com/TiffanyParsonBiz.
So I look forward to seeing you next time. I’ll be a bit more orderly. How about that? It won’t be so much hanging. So let me know what your questions are. Thank you again. I appreciate you for listening. Have a wonderful day.
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