PSA: you were taught to censor before you ever started your business.

I cared so much — but because the system was never built for the way my brain works, I struggled so much.

I still remember sitting in classrooms feeling like something was wrong with me. Like I was missing the memo on how to be “right” even when I was just trying to participate.

Fast forward to today, and even as a creative business owner with the freedom to literally design my own days, those old fears still show up!

That sticky, sneaky feeling of “What if I’m doing it wrong?”

Does any of this sound familiar for you? If so, you’re so not alone. 🫶

I think a lot of us were taught that being “correct” was the gold standard. But what happens when we step into a role where there is no correct — just creative? 🦋

School trained us for fear of making mistakes. And that fear blocked us from showing up unapologetically and uniquely and beautfiully imperfect in our business, in our content, and in our life.

So, what happens when we stop trying to get an A+… and start creating like it’s our own beautiful experiment?

Watch, listen on or read the podcast transcript for more. ♡

thestudioviolet.com | @thestudioviolet | Work with us ♡

The transcript —

 I had such a hard time in school. I think it's because I have a really creative mind and I really only learn from doing things. And if you went to traditional schooling, you probably also felt that we had to sit down and listen a lot. And I think back to all the times that I've had teachers tell me I was wrong when I tried to participate or, or even on tests where I just got so many tests.

Back with CDs. Oh my goodness. I really, really struggled in school and it felt really bad because it's basically telling me that trying different things is wrong and it tells all of us that, I think I still have lots of. Feelings about it that come up in my work every single day, this feeling that I'm so afraid of being wrong, especially in high school where they put this pressure of, you know, if you are getting bad grades and you're not gonna get into a good college, if you don't get into a good college, then you're not gonna get a good job.

And if you don't get a good job, then you're not gonna make a lot of money. If you don't make a lot of money, you're not gonna have a house. And all of this pressure. Especially where I grew up in a really affluent town with really smart people. I was stalking a bunch of my classmates the other day on LinkedIn, and a lot of them are like lawyers and doctors now.

there's a lot of that fear of being wrong, even though I'm graduated from high school and graduated from college, but it still comes up in content creation in my work is this fear of what if I'm doing it wrong? There is a right way to do things. That is one of the biggest differences in being a business owner and following your dreams, whatever they may be, and letting content creation be the path to bring you there.

And what they teach you in school, how they tell you that school is training you for life. I have a lot of feelings on it. I'm sure there's a lot of parts of school that do train you for life, but there are a lot of parts of school that I think make you feel like analysis paralysis because. You have this fear of getting things wrong.

Hello, I'm Kira. Welcome back to the podcast artist at Studio Violet. Feel free to subscribe on YouTube and Substack so you can get more inspiration on how to attract your absolute dream clients through content creation so you can romanticize your business and your life happy you're here. Being in school kind of taught you that there was a right and wrong, especially.

I'm thinking even like beyond math class, obviously there's a right and wrong with that, but in English, having one book to read, you know, we all had to read Huckleberry Finn. We all had to Read To Kill a Mockingbird. There's only a set amount of acceptable answers to even when we were writing papers about it, there was only a set amount of answers, which in concept makes sense.

But. What I found is then when I started pursuing dreams, I thought there was a set right and wrong path. When I went to theater school, I would always listen to podcasts about how people got their big breaks, and I'm like, okay, well that's the right way to do it. And if I follow that exactly, then I will be able to also have that happen to me.

And because I'm not that person, it's just not gonna happen to me that way. Even in content creation and in business, there are, I think, certain things that we have to do, right? We have to pay our taxes. We have to probably file as an LLC or an S Corp or a C Corp at some point. But there's this, there might be this little voice in your head that is telling you that you're doing something right or wrong when it comes to content creation, which is what we talk all about here.

It is all about breaking this conditioning, at least my perception of content creation. When I work with clients, it's about. First, reminding them that there are absolutely no rules to content creation. No rules at all. People have done so many different things. People have posted videos of them dancing to the same song, but in different settings, and they've gotten a bunch of followers.

There's people who have really punchy, fast talking hooks and reels that are really, really cool. That's gotten them a lot of followers. There's people who have never posted a reel and that's gotten them a lot of followers. There's people who've blogged and don't put their face on it and blog them and put their face on it and blog and adhere to every single SEO rule and blog and adhere to zero SEO rules.

There are absolutely no rules. But if we're treating our content creation and our business like school, we're going to feel like we can't do anything. We're gonna feel this analysis paralysis that like every step I take, someone's gonna tell me if it's right or wrong. Like I'm, I can't do anything. That's how I felt when I first started creating content.

I was like, oh my gosh, well all of these people are telling me that I, I should be doing this and I should be doing that. And I was just hearing those teachers and. Many adults in my life telling me what I should and shouldn't do, and should and shouldn't say. And the beauty of creating content for your business and starting your business as a whole, by the way, is that you get to make the rules.

This is your business. This is not your teacher's business. It's not your parents' business. It's not a anybody else's business other than yours. You get to decide, and I think that's a part of school that they really did not. Train us for is us being able to make our own decisions, saying actually this is how I learned, so this is how I am going to get my information.

Or you know, this is how I'm going to write about this. So that's what you're gonna accept. None of us are used to that.

You are in charge now, and the fun part about this is that. Now you get to say what you believe in and say what you want. Now you might be thinking, well, what if I say something and then people think, you know what, if I say something and it's wrong, right? I, I was so nervous when I started posting blogs 'cause blog, you know, blogs are like a thousand plus words and every single word I would type and I would get so scared.

What if this isn't right? Oh my gosh, what if. What if someone else comes at me and says, this information isn't correct? And I wasn't talking about how to do brain surgery. I was talking about how to be more creative and tips for artists and things like that. And what I realized is there is a assumed perception that everything you say is coming from you, right?

It's on your account, it's on your blog, it's on your YouTube, it's on your podcast, it's this. Assumed perception from other people that this is your thoughts, right? And that's gonna be different from someone else's thoughts. So this feeling that you have to get everything right, whenever you talk about something, you don't need to feel that anymore because when it's on your account, when it's coming from you, everyone's going to assume, okay, this is coming from.

Her life experiences from her perception, from her assumptions. And again, unless you're like, Hey, I've decided a new way of brain surgery and all the doctors got it wrong, no one can really argue with your experience and your perception, your lens on something. There's a profile picture with your name on it, and that's all the explanation you need.

It took me five years to realize that. It's coming from you. It's coming from your background and no one is gonna come at you and say that that's wrong. Imagine content creation is like when you're in.

Oh, a group workshop in person or a dinner in person. When someone asks you. What is it like to run this business? You might say, it took me a really long time to get started, but now running a business is the best thing I've ever done. Running a business has been challenging.

It's been eye-opening, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're going to, everybody in that room is going to say, okay, that is her experience about running a business. If they wanna know someone else's experience, they're gonna ask someone else. That's the exact same thing as content creation. Someone's going on your account and they're basically asking you, what do you think about this?

So you don't have to over justify being like, this is my experience guys. I'm not right all the time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I started doing that and then I realized people around my account, they know that I don't know everything. They know I'm just a human being, it reminds me of this theme that's going around on Instagram and TikTok.

I don't know if you've seen it, but it's like forgetting. You have free will and the only video I can think of is when someone's cooking at their kitchen and they're like, forgetting I have free will. And then they bring over a chair to sit down in front of the stove so they don't have to be standing for 20 minutes while they cook something.

You know, standing in the grocery store and realizing you can get anything you want. I think this is a great way of remembering that content creation and running a business as a whole. You have free will. You get to choose what you wanna say, and people are coming to you because they wanna hear what you have to say and they know that there's other people who are gonna say things differently.

I think a lot of people also think, um, when they're creating content, like, oh my gosh, I need to be the only person that they're watching. I need to be the only, you know, if you are a. An HR consultant, oh, I need to be the only HR con consultant that this person is following. When in reality if they care enough about HR consulting, they're probably following a bunch of different people.

And that's amazing for you because they love your perception and they love someone else's perception, and they love information about this as a whole. And so they're getting a bunch of different angles. On HR consulting, that's a, that's an amazing place to be. If you're in their pick of many HR consultants, that means that they value your voice.

It's like you're on a panel they wanna hear multiple voices. When I work with clients, I like to help them create kind of their own definition of even certain words so they can remember that you can define, you can define what things mean to you.

I'll give you an example. I sometimes, not often, but sometimes in blog content or any content across Studio Violet, I'll say. You know, it feels perfect, or I'll say perfect. Usually I say beautifully imperfect, but I know that whenever I say perfect, because people have interacted with my brand for long enough and they're deep enough in my brand, that they know that I'm all about imperfection and being messy.

I know that my own definition of perfect is different than the dictionary's definition of perfect, and anyone who comes across my brand also knows that. So if I say, ugh, you know, make content that just feels ugh, like perfect. I don't know if I've ever said that, but if I ever did say that, I know internally that my definition of perfection is very different.

It's like organic and, and human like. I don't find ai. Perfect. I find ai, right? Sometimes I don't even know like inside of the box, but when someone, you know, I, I think nature's perfect because it's messy. And that's the beauty of really understanding your brand and your brand messaging and creating a content system like we do in Studio Violet, because then you can give yourself that permission to not have to hold onto every single word you say and not.

Hold yourself to, oh my gosh, I said this today and I'm saying this this other day. We're layered human beings. We have our own definition for, for things. There's a reason why people follow us because we have such different perspectives on things and it, it's, it's just so much easier to create content from that perspective.

There are really no rules. I can say this forever. There are no rules to creating content and. Remember that every time somebody is coming to your content platform, they are literally asking, Hey, what do you think about this? And you're just giving your perception from your life experience, and that's why people are working with you too.

No one's going to want to choose AI over working with a human being if they really want bespoke. Human backed experience. I have seen why people, I mean, I use ai. I use AI with my clients. I build a content creator, an AI content creator for them. But when it comes to going to AI to ask them about different options, there's this funny thing that happens where you'll ask AI about, Hey, you know, can you, what?

What should I do with my business? Should I do this or that? And it like, might pick something. But if you go back and say, actually, I don't like what you said. Can, they'll say, oh, you're absolutely right. You know, uh, yeah, I like your idea better. So it doesn't really give you discernment at all. The reason people are gonna wanna work with you, that dream clients are going to come to you and adore listening to you is because you have discernment about certain things.

You have certain definitions of certain things, you have life experience, and they know that coming to you, you don't know everything, but they actually are coming to you because they want that specific life experience that you have. They don't want to have to make the effort of trying to make a decision and trying to ask AI the right questions and be like, well, is it really, does it really mean this or this?

You wanna go to an expert to tell you exactly what they're doing, what you're doing wrong, and what you should be doing instead. I've hired systems experts who have built automations for me, because I know that I literally don't have knowledge on that.

I've hired branding people because they have told me basically, okay, this is what your brand should be, because I, I know branding, but when it comes to my own business, I'm just going to choose every single thing. I'm never gonna be able to make a decision. I wanted to hire someone to say, tell me what colors to use.

And now you're following me. So you're gonna see if I don't use those colors, like I need you to hold me accountable. We hire other people because we want their unique perspective. And going back to this concept of like, we're constantly used to self-censoring. We're constantly used to analyzing every single thing that we've done, like.

We are blocking ourselves from being able to fully show up online and reach those clients who are like, oh my gosh, I've been dying to work with you. I love your content. And that feeling from your end of, ugh. I wanna show people my Instagram. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Follow me on Instagram. I'm always on it. Go to my website.

I love my website. I want you to feel that way. I want you to feel so excited about showing all of your content platforms because you've created a world for them to dive into. I call websites, digital homes 'cause it feels like you're in someone's home. And I want you to feel that pride so that when you're in conversation with people, or again, when they happen upon your amazing content, and then they wanna follow you, they see that there's a party going on, and hey, you're.

You started this party and you have certain, a certain vibe that you've created. You've created some definitions around certain things. This is the way that we hang out here in this home. We don't see perfection as the generic way of perfection. We see it as more like nature, messy and, and beautiful, but in a kinda wild way, right?

You get to decide how you host this party. How you design this digital home, how you run this business, how you invite people in, and the scary thing I know is that people, oh, you're. Gonna, some people aren't gonna get it right. I don't think lots of men come to my channel 'cause it's all purple and super feminine.

And that's honestly totally fine with me because I love working with women and it's the subtle but not so subtle parts of the branding, of course, which we can work on if you need branding, but it's also the way that you really step into your ownership of this. Beautiful business that you have of you're in charge now.

And having analysis paralysis is not only gonna do yourself a disservice, but it's gonna do your clients a disservice because there are people who are doing this work already, right? As much as we don't wanna think it, there are people who are doing the work you're doing already. And if your clients could choose between them and you, and you know how amazing your process is.

Wouldn't you wanna make it so easy and so enjoyable and so seamless for them to fall into that by being yourself and being clear so they can at least clearly say, I don't wanna work with her. Or, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I've been looking for.

I'll give another example for me. I. Not really a, not really a definition, but I always say that content creation is a form of self-expression, and it's an exercise every time you do it.

So that's why when we create systems, I'm helping you create a never ending well of content creation that almost feels like you're journaling because every time you create content, you are actually understanding your. You're kind of reckoning more and more with who you are and what your business is, that you become more on brand every time you create.

Not really definition, but my, my view of content creation, I could probably make that into a definition. What is a part of your industry that you can define yourself, that you can make a definition for, and how can you shape that into the work you do? The content you create your website. any sort of messaging that you have when it comes to your business.

If you feel like you need support in creating a content system, let's hop on a fit call. I would love to see how we can work together. I'm really, really so glad to know you and so grateful that you're following along. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.

Bye!