Today kicks off the 1st video in a 4 part deep, detailed and action inspiring series all about growing your offline presence!
I’m about to let you in on EVERYTHING i’ve learned about building an offline presence over the past nearly 9 years as well as what i’m currently learning along my way. I’m sharing this to open your eyes to a new perspective, a different way of thinking for you to then apply in an actionable way that will create the most fulfilling offline experience for YOU.
Building my offline presence is the umbrella for what i’ve done to help me stay offline for coming up on 9 years this August. It’s been my main focus and mission in my life to live it in a way that is fulfilling enough offline to not need to go on social media to connect with people, or receive validation for my life and my choices.
Over the next 4 weeks i’ll be breaking down the 4 main areas that make up my offline presence and this you guys is meant to go beyond the listen! you’ll be challenged in each episode to take specific action to get you active in growing your offline presence, starting today!
I want nothing more than for you to be ale to have the support you need, the love, the connection with yourself and people in your life offline. So i can’t wait to share what i’ve learned about building my offline presence and what i’m still continuing to learn!
Presence with YOU(self)
Alright now lets get into what i’m calling the debut of your offline presence! WE’re beginning with the most important palace to begin building. YOU.
Yep, you. We’re starting with the building of the most fundamental part to the foundation of your offline presence.
What does your presence with yourself mean. This means awareness, this means getting to know you, this means spending time alone with you, your thoughts, your desires, your insecurities and everything in between.
Where my journey began
I want to take you back to Carly Circa 2014, i graduated high school. Started college going down the path that i watched everyone around me go down only to not long after find myself feeling stuck feeling unsatisfied and suffocated. Feeling LOST. I needed to get out of where i was. And i was in a place to i was young, didn;t have any responsibilities yet aside form figuring out me who i was etc. So my boyfriend and i moved south and got space from our lives up here so we could spend time alone, figuring out our individual desires insecurities and everything in between.
I remember when I first started thinking about living my life offline. Before i thought about this how id o now as building my offline presence i think about the summer of 2015. I was literally living in a dessert, feeling completely lost and disconnected from myself and where i was headed.
I did something that ended up being very pivotal in my life this summer. It began with a trip or two to barnes and noble. Buying my first journal that hadnt been gifted to me. This meant that I was ready to get to know me. I was wanting a place to get all my thoughts out of my head and onto a page, at the time i had no clue how this would end up helping me be able to navigate this season and who i really was away from noise and distractions. It was quiet, sacred time and my husband then boyfriend and i would spend time each day writing in our journals and talking about life.
This resulted in many great findings! It was incredible to have the experience of having nothing to do all summer but do what you wanted. To figure yourself out. This was the summer Mr that I found myself in the gym taking pictures for a blog I was going to start sharing my fitness routines because it something people had always asked me about and always told me I should do(ah see everyone else telling me I should teach them how to get fit, but that’s not something I actually wanted to do) I was being heavily influence a lot by what i was seeing and this was 2015 so at the time influencers were really starting to take off and i live in utah which is like influencer hub so i feel like i was seeing a lot of that and feeling like this is what i should be doing too.
So here i was feeling pulled in all these different directions and journaling about it along the way to get closer to myself at the core–and doing so resulted in once the summer came to a close in August, we moved home and i deleted my instagram.
The Pivotal decision
Okay this decision was PIVOTAL in building my presence with myself, i needed to turn off the noise to get closer to me.
So this summer away- journaling trying to find what i wanted from my life led me to deleting instagram. Was the very beginning of my foundation to begin building my offline presence.
And was the very pinnacle for what my life has become today. Which is to be clear- confidence in who I am and where i’m headed, clear about who I want to be and who i currently am, where i need to improve and what i’ve done to improve thus far. fulfilled in my relationships, present with my children, making time for my hobbies and interests and trying to make a impact as i try to fulfil gods will for me. In a nutshell, peace & joy in my unique path through life.
Now before you stop listening because you’re thinking hmm. How can I do this without moving hours away from your house, creating that much physical space form your current life- how can you do this starting today without making huge life changes? Unless youre in that season and able- i’d highly suggest it!
There’s plenty to do without moving away to find yourself and get to know yourself, this is something i’ve been doing since moving home all those years ago, it just looks slightly different.
The Specifics
Here are the specifics of what i’ve done/do to continually grow my presence with myself.
- I’ve become ultra self aware
- Prioritize time to myself
- Journaling was huge for me in the beginning but i’ve since not used this as much. Id love to get back into it.
Now i’ll break each of these down into actions and into clear steps to take.
Self Awareness
Beginning with self awareness.. This is an essential place to start, How can you know where you can build, if you don’t first know where your foundation is set to be built upon?
Now how can you become more self aware? We become self aware by being HONEST. By looking at where we’ve come from, looking at where we currently are- then taking what you’ve observed, what you’ve found and asking someone who knows you-if they observe these things about you as well. Or what they see in you. This is important because while we don’t have to put to much stock in what other people think about you- its important to know how you appear to others who really know you at least for me it’s been so so helpful in becoming more self aware.
If you’re not used to being honest with yourself. This may feel uncomfortable. It might feel like a gut punch but its one out of love! Something my husband and I used to do often at the beginning of our journey was tell each other 5 things the other was good at/ or that we loved about them and 5 things they could do to improve.
This is a great exercise and super eye opening because often youll find that the person you do this with will say things about you that they love that you might not have thought about thats a strength, and they can help you see what you can do to improve.
This is also a great exercise to do with just yourself as well once you start to get better at being honest with yourself.
I still to this day often ask my husband what i can do to improve, and what i’m currently doing well at, its something that helps us in our relationship and personally! I consider myself a highly self aware person. And i attribute a lot of that to doing these exercises often!
Prioritizing time alone
Alright next thing i’m doing to continually grow my offline presence is prioritizing time to myself.
This is time without distraction time to think time to hear your thoughts over the ones of others and the world. So how do we create this space? For me it’s been largely being offline. Soendinf down time not in the distractions of the world and being with myself physically and in my mental space. This might be uncomfortable if you’re not used to being alone. But once you keep getting the reps in a working on this muscle it will grow and it will become more comfortable. It’s sitting in silence in the small moments of the day and tapping into you.
Move through the discomfort intentionally! Keeping the big goal In mind.
I’ve also in the past before children taken myself to lunch and spent time alone. Eating a meal in silence and talking to yourself in your hea das if you were with someone esle catching up, catch up with yourself.
This can be hard when I have kids it’s looked different in each season of life. But I find time in the small moments in my day and at the end of it.
Okay this one is great and one that has fluctuated as the seasons of my life have evolved an changed. I used ot have a lot of time to myself in the early years of marriage. My husband has always startd work super early so i always have spent mornings alone (until kids of course) and then i would always get home from work before him and have time to do what i wanted to do and work on projects for me and dabble in my interests. But this quickly changed once I had kids. And I choose to and feel blessed that i’ve been able to nurse my babies for the first year which if any of the moms listening have done or do/ you know it’s very all consuming and for awhile there you really dont have much time to yourself. So this last year i had a baby and she actually turned 1 today, and adjusting to life with the two kids- about 5 months into having absolutely no time to myself between the two- i realized i started to feel like I really needed to start prioritizing doing things for ME. Life as a mom is so much giving and it’s great but its also really hard to be giving of everything all the time and feeling like you don’t have time to yourself. But i was committed to a year of nursing i wanted to do that, so i decided to take my evenings and start spending time with myself, which when i have time to myself this is what i do! I write, i create i have the chance to be creative and try to make an impact on the world which is so fulfilling to me and really makes me a happier mom, wife, and person! So im just entering a season with my baby turning 1 where i’m able to have as much time away as i need so i’ll take a saturday and go write in a coffee shop for hours on end and its really nice to have more time to myself and it keeps me close to what fills me personally up as an individual.
So to build more presence with yourself- prioritize time to yourself. Doing things that fill you cup and if you don’t know what fills your cup, this is a great opportunity to get to know you! To pick up hobbies, try old ones out and to get active in those things whatever they end up being for you!
Journaling
Final step to building offline presence with yourself that i’ll cover today is journaling. Mindfullness.
This was PIVITOL in the beginning of my journey to building my self presence, PIVITOL. I don’t make as much time righ tnow to journal like i used to but i would highly recommend prioritizing this if you’re at the beginning stages of becoming self aware and getting honest and trying to sort thorugh feelings and behaviors. If you’re really wanting to get to know you, JOurnalling is a must.
I’d recommend buying a new journal- one that hasnt been written in hyet befor and one you pick out yourself that can be your self discovery journal/ self presence journal. Dedicate time each day to dumping whats on your brain and to answering specific prompts to get deeper into the core of you. This is a great place to write out the 5 things you love about you and the 5 things you want to improve. You can write about your deepest desires for you rlife and for th person that you’re wanting to be here as well.
Those were the 3 things i do or have done in the past to build a strong foundation for my self presence. And i hope you’re not feeling overwhelmed. I feel like i went over a lot but i wante to make this details and make it actionable for you.
Recap
To recap what we went over today in our first episode of the building your offline presence with yourself here’s what we just went over:
I shared my story of why it was so important to build my offline presence with myself during a time where i was feeling lost and influenced by what i was seeing on social media.
We went into detail about 3 things i currently do or have done to build the strong foundation i sit on now of self presence they were:
- I’ve become ultra self aware
- Prioritize time to myself(even if its late at night!)
- Journaling was huge for me in the beginning but i’ve since not used this as much. Id love to get back into it.
My friend, I want you to know, your relationship with you is so important. How you know you, how you feel about you, often reflects in how you treat others. How you show up for yourself and for those you love most!
It’s crucial that you take the time to get to know you, especially in this world where we’re constantly being told to do this, be that, look like this- its so easy to loose your true self in todays world.
Thats why building your offline presence has never been more important never been more critical.
I couldn’t be happier or more proud of you for reading today and I hope you take action on beginning to build your offline presence with yourself today! It’s the most valuable use of your time it will give back to you more than anything else will in this moment.
I appreciate you so much and i’ll catch you next week as i pull back the curtain on the second aspect that goes into building your offline presence. I hope you have an amazing week!
xx
Carly
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