Day seven of my 30-day blog challenge and I thought I’d take the time to rant a little bit. 🙂

Positivity first: I am SO proud of myself right now for a number of reasons. First, I’m an entrepreneur, a businesswoman, a self-employed young person. I’m basically a child as far as I’m concerned. So to be where I am right now is pretty great. Secondly, I’m actually chugging my way through this blogging challenge. And now…

On to the rant!

It’s incredibly difficult to be a virtual assistant, or self-employed in general, at my age. In my mind, I see myself competing with degrees and 20+ years of experience from nearly everyone in my field. If not that, then I’m fighting with rates lower than mine and feeling self-conscious that I’m charging too much. I know that’s certainly not the case but the thought still creeps up occasionally.

I’m not necessarily uncomfortable sharing my age (even though asking is pretty much taboo for most people). I just always consider it an awkward reveal. It usually comes up during a “get to know me” call where I get the questions: “Are you married? Kids? Degree?” HAHAHA none of the above. And I’m okay with that. I just never know if they are.

This is still very much a learning process for me, as I’m sure it is with many of you. The concept I’m currently trying to grasp is that I can’t leave other people to determine my value for me. I appreciate criticism but I can’t let that form my entire opinion of myself, be it personal or professional.

Over the past year and (almost) six months of working for myself, I’ve slowly warmed up to actively branding myself and showing potential clients and connections who I am up front.

I’m weird. Get over it.

I’ve seen loads of people that present themselves with the utmost professionalism. They seem like they’re pulled straight from a Forbes magazine or something. But I have a sixth sense for oddballs and a lot of these people are putting on an impeccable front. I applaud you. Me, I can’t do it. Nope. Not at all. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, my hair is blue. Well, it was blue. I just really like the pictures I have up right now. 🙂 I change my hair about every two weeks because I get SO bored. And I used to worry about that. I never wanted to wear my natural hair in photos, but I wasn’t 100% comfortable doing headshots with my waist-length, bright blue faux locs. Not to mention my 7/16″ plugs and snakebites. Thankfully, I’ve finally realized I don’t care.

I’m eccentric. I’d like to work with people who can handle that. If the rings in my face make you uncomfortable, we might not work out. I laugh a lot. A lot. Especially when I’m nervous. (Social anxiety does that to you.) But I’m actually really funny. So if you can’t laugh with me, I probably won’t want to work with you. I’m teaching myself to only aim for personality types that can mesh with me. It only makes the future work easier. I can’t communicate well with people who are serious ALL THE TIME. Those people scare me.

There’s no sensible conclusion for a post like this, so…yeah.