Confession: I really don’t like filming my yoga videos.
I love teaching yoga – I don’t love messing with a digital camera, having to retake shots over and over again because of technical difficulties, editing in film software programs and then waiting for hours as my computer is overtaken by exports and processing. And that’s just to get a file that I can upload to YouTube, which also sometimes takes hours depending on the quality of the video, the file format, and the internet connection. Oh and the memory left on my poor computer, which oftentimes is none so I have to start all over again and make sure that all my previous videos are moved to an external hard drive. Sound complicated? That’s because it is.
In all honesty, I’m pretty over filming yoga videos for right now. If I had the money, I would hire someone to do all the filming and editing and exporting and uploading. That would be fun. Right now it’s not.
And when I’m not having fun, it’s hard to motivate myself to do anything.
Working For Your Core Desired Feelings
Recently I’ve been working on Danielle Laporte’s Desire Map framework – a process designed to help you really drill down to how you want to feel and then plan your days, projects, months and years based on those core desired feelings rather than a ToDo list. It’s a radical approach for someone who has always understood what needs to be done to complete a project and then does it despite how I might feel about it.
In the core desire feelings approach anything that doesn’t make you feel good (or however you want to feel) goes away; unless of course what it is that you’re doing is absolutely necessary for your survival or the survival of someone else – think cooking dinner for your kids, paying your bills, etc.
Since it’s become quite obvious to me that filming yoga videos isn’t my favorite thing in the world to do and it doesn’t make me feel empowered, vibrant, ease, connected or free, I’ve had to do a lot of thinking over the past week about the evolution of this blog.
It’s been a long time coming considering my recent transition to more full-time work. And the conclusion I’ve come to is this:
Why I Started AshleyJosephine.com
A little over a year ago I started AshleyJosephine.com as an online platform to build a community of women interested in health and wellness – and not just the theoretical approach to it but the action doing, achieving and working toward higher states of being, both physical and mental.
At the time I was enrolled in an entrepreneurship program and my desire to make money and create my own business was strong. But it’s never felt quite right. For one, I’ve made 0 money from AshleyJosephine.com, which makes it a big epic failure in the business sense. I have to be honest with myself though – I haven’t really offered anything you could pay for.
And I didn’t want to. Why? Because I’m a marketing person and I understand that to make money online you play a numbers game. That numbers game essentially breaks down to a percentage – 2%. 2% (if you’re lucky and good at writing sales copy) will actually buy what you offer. That means if you have 100 subscribers to your blog, you can reasonably expect 2 people to buy what you have to sell. If what you sell costs $50, then you might make $100. But that’s before you take into account the time and money you put into creating whatever it is you’re offering. So you’re probably going to end up in the red. Thus, the numbers game breaks down such that to make any money online from selling products or services you must have a list of something like 20,000 people to get to a point where you maybe can make a living from your online business.
Our beautiful community has 230 women right now. Which is awesome. But not sustainable for a full-time online business.
I also know exactly what I need to do to get to 20,000 subscribers – and I don’t want to do it. That doesn’t make me feel vibrant, free, empowered, ease or connected either. It makes me feel exhausted.
Thus, the purpose behind AshleyJosephine must evolve as I evolve in my own wellness/entrepreneurial/life journey.
The Evolution of Wellness
Yoga is a funny practice. I’ve seen so many students come to yoga for the first time looking for a good stretch, or a workout, or stress relief, only to find months later that they’re eating healthier, are happier in their relationships, and have an overall cheerier outlook on everything. Your yoga practice is a gateway drug; it evolves into so much more then a stretch or a workout when you stick with it. Eventually you become more interested in slowing down or speeding up – your tastes change as your circumstances change.
And businesses/blogs are the same way. They evolve as circumstances evolve.
Moving forward, at least for the time being, there won’t be any new yoga videos. You can head over to my Free Yoga page or to my YouTube channel for 50+ free videos thought :)There may be some videos of me explaining more about Ayurveda. Those are much easier to create. But really, I’m a writer, not an actor.
Some other things you can expect to see on the blog include:
- healthy recipes – people are always asking me what I eat
- more information on Ayurveda
- meditations – audio is also significantly easier to create
- healthy and wellness related exercises and activities
At the end of the day, this blog isn’t a business – at least not right now. It’s a lifestyle blog and it’s meant to be a resource for you to come to learn more about alternative health and wellness. I’m here to provide value and to be a resource. That means I’m going to write what I think will be most valuable for you. That also means I might not have something valuable for you every week. As long as health and wellness makes me feel ease, empowered, connected, free and vibrant, I’ll be sharing it with you.
I hope you stick with me on this journey. I only expect this blog to get better and better as we continue. But I also understand if it’s no longer relevant to you. You can always unsubscribe from the email newsletter list at the bottom of the email. And if you’re not on the email list but what I’m going to be sharing sounds interesting to you, then hop on the list by signing up on the registration form below (it’s at the bottom of the blog on the website). I’ll be happy to have you around.
Wellness Wednesday newsletters are also going away. Instead, you’ll be sent a notification ever time I post something new on the blog – don’t worry, right now I’m not posting more then once a week, if that, and at most you’ll get something 3x a week. But you can bet it’s going to be information you want to read.
As always, I’m very open to feedback so let me know what you want to know about when it comes to alternative health and wellness in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer your questions in a future blog post.
The light and wisdom within me honors and acknowledges the light and wisdom within you.
NAMASTE!
