Wow it’s nice to be back here. I took a break from blogging for the past week, but I’ve been sticking with my intention to create more than I consume. I was busy rewriting and rebranding my website, which I finally unleashed into the wild yesterday.
This experience of developing my website was very different from the previous one. Early last year, I launched my first coaching-only site and it was excruciating. I’ve been responsible for the strategy and design of hundreds of websites over the years, from 5-page small business sites to multi-thousand page behemoths. All of those were easier than sharing a part of myself that turned out to be profoundly meaningful and precious to me (I am not a precious person). When I launched that first coaching site, I immediately shared it with a handful of friends – as a form of desensitization therapy to help me get over the vulnerability hangover. It was a very cringe-y time.
I felt a similar discomfort when launching this blog. It was so uncomfortable, in fact, that I kept it completely anonymous for a month. This time, it only took a couple of weeks to become comfortable with this new form of sharing myself.
Writing and designing the most recent incarnation of my website was an entirely different experience. I enjoyed it! I enjoyed the writing, and I enjoyed the personal challenge of integrating the two faces of my professional work – coaching and consulting. Before this version, I had maintained two separate sites, using two versions of my name (Anna and Ania). I didn’t know how to combine the two, because I was still understanding how to integrate parts of me that seemed to be incongruent – the consulting career that I only rarely enjoyed, and the coaching which is indelibly connected to who I am at the core.
This time, I wanted the experience to feel easy and fun, to enliven me versus leave me feeling depleted. I decided to focus on thoughts that aligned with ease and joy, so that my experience would be one of ease and joy. It worked.
♥ Anna