Designing a Life That is Right for You with Stephanie May Wilson Episode 329

Designing a Life That is Right for You

Today, I’m bringing you the delightful Stephanie May Wilson. She is an entrepreneur, an author, and a mom of twin toddlers, which is super impressive. Stephanie shares the behind-the-scenes, which are so valuable to hear women talking about how they got to where they are and processing the details that no one ever gets to talk about. 

Stephanie is an author, a podcaster, and a speaker. Through her books, her courses, and her chart-topping podcast, Girls Night with Stephanie May Wilson, she has mentored more than a million women as they cultivate healthy, thriving relationships with God, their friends, their significant others, and themselves. 

Her latest book, Create a Life You Love: How to Quiet Outside Voices So You Can Finally Hear Your Own,  is not just a guide, but a warm embrace. It’s a passionate journey on how you can rediscover your own authority and build a life you’re finally excited to live.

Let’s dive into designing a life with Stephanie. 

How Stephanie Started Designing Her Life

You know I love the behind-the-scenes, and I asked Stephanie how the beginning of all of this was for her. Stephanie said that after college, she got an opportunity to travel the world for a year, and the organization asked her to keep a blog about her travels. This way, family and friends back home could keep up with what she was doing while traveling, and she just had to publish once a week. 

As she was blogging for the organization, she noticed other bloggers who had their own blogs branded toward them, and she wanted that. Once she got home from the traveling, she created her first blog. She created her little community around her blog, and the organization she traveled with hired her on staff full-time. 

However, that eventually came to an end, and as she was in the online world, she noticed people were creating courses about business. Well, she didn’t want to teach about business, but she realized that people had a lot of questions about dating and since she had mentored sorority girls before she created the course Love Your Single Life. Stephanie had more than 7,000 women go through the course, and even at her book signing there were women there who told her they did her course and were there with their husbands. 

What Is Working for Designing Your Life 

Stephanie shares a great example of how it’s quality over quantity – she says that her Instagram following hasn’t grown in years. And sometimes she loses followers after posting instead of gaining, but she hasn’t been able to put the best effort into Instagram because she has twins who are three years old. However, her publisher and PR team were fairly impressed with the response from her community to her new book. She has gotten great Amazon reviews and amazing turnouts for her book signing. They told her, you don’t have the biggest Instagram following, but your people show up. It’s all about engagement and connection with your audience, no matter the number. Quality over quantity. 

Keeping Motivation 

Stephanie says that at first, she was careful about who she followed on Instagram because if someone posted things that crushed her spirit, she would mute them or unfollow them. Now, she’s more careful about how much time she spends on the app. There is an app Stephanie uses called Freedom that locks her out of her phone for hours and helps her avoid doom scrolling or comparison scrolling. 

This can help you with more designing and less comparing. 

Advice for Those Who Want to Start Designing Their Lives 

Stephanie says, do it and start soon. She says when comparison starts to creep in, she asks herself, “Are all the problems in the world solved? No? Then there is still need in the world.” 

The second advice is to get to work. She recently heard a quote saying that it takes a while to get good at something, but most people waste so much time even waiting to get started that they never actually start the process. And she shares how the technology side of podcasting was very intimidating for her in the beginning. So she wrote herself a sticky note that said, “It’s okay to be a beginner.” And this is a reminder to you that everyone you see who has done something for a long time, remember that they, too, started somewhere and weren’t good in the beginning either, but they get their reps in. Get your reps in! 

The last thing is that it takes time to build anything good. Most of the time, the people who succeed the most are the most stubborn because they refuse to give up. 

So go start designing your life! 

Listen or Watch now:

iTunes.

Spotify.

YouTube.

Favorite Quotes: 

“Nobody is perfect, and nobody has it all together.”

22:49

“There are seasons of creating and seasons of promoting, and the seasons of promoting are really loud and public, but they are just not constant for anybody. “ 

23:53

“There is still massive need in the world, and until there is not, you have work to do.”

24:51

“It takes a while to get good at something, but most people spend so much time waiting to get started that they never even start the process.”

25:16

“You have to get through that terrible part to get good at something.”

25:46

“It takes time to build anything good.”

26:12

Links to Great Things We Discussed:

• Stephanie May Wilson Website
• Stephanie May Wilson Instagram
• Create a Life You Love: How to Quiet Outside Voices So You Can Finally Hear Your Own
• Girls Night Sweatshirt
• Freedom App
• Headache Hat
• Ursa Major Golden Hour Face Moisturizer
• OSEA Ocean Cleanser
• Frownies
• Secret Superpower Quiz
• Create a Course
• Alli on YouTube
• Remaining You While Raising Them
• Little Things Studio

Little Things Studio is a woman-owned small business bringing daily reminders of beauty and truth to your home and life. These thoughtfully-designed products are made in the USA and focus on the rich words of hymns and the beauty of nature. 

Hope you loved this episode!  Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and slap some stars on a review! 🙂

xo,

Alli