Sis, Do You Want to Be Great or Nah? How to Put Your Vision into Action

by Akeele Hughes

Have you ever heard the saying, “You are your own worst enemy?” Well, it’s accurate. We are the reason why we are either hitting our goals monthly or why our goals are still sitting on a whiteboard for the past three months, unbothered… mocking us. Everyone is different and we are all at different places in our lives because of the choices that we have made. I started my podcast, A Moment with A, at the beginning of 2019. I have learned a lot about myself and what it takes to truly be a great podcaster. Here are a few nuggets that I’ve learned in the past nine months that have blessed me and will take you from vision to action plan.

How to Put Your Vision to Action

You have to make a choice

Each day when you wake up you are either going to have the mindset to be productive and accomplish your goals or you will have a spirit of procrastination that will keep you in the same place in your life. Statements such as “Oh, I will start planning tomorrow,” or, “I don’t have time for an episode this week,” are tricks of the enemy. You have to rebuke those spirits on sight. If you have time to stroll through social media or binge-watch a Netflix series, then you have time to write down your goals, spend 15 minutes networking, designing your logo, responding to emails, or completing whatever it is that you are putting off.  

I speak life into myself every morning by spending time with God and reassuring myself about my purpose and about how I am going to use my platform to help others. I am not perfect and some days I still struggle with making the right choices but we have to hold ourselves accountable and realize that we are the biggest roadblock. 

Write your vision down

If you follow me on social media you know that I say this a lot. Write down your vision and make it plain. It is one thing to have ideas and plans in your head, but it is another to thoughtfully draft your business plan, write down your monthly and weekly goals, and have a step-by-step plan for accomplishing them.

For instance, if my monthly goal is reaching 400 podcast listeners, then I break down my monthly goal to a weekly one – reaching 100 listeners per week. The same methodology can be used for monthly sales goals. Break down the numbers so that you know how many products you need to sell every week. Does this require extra work? Yes. Is it worth it? Hell, yes! 

Know your endgame

What do you hope to achieve from your podcast? Awareness? Followers? Status? A television show? Define your endgame. You should never start anything without knowing what you want from it because you are not working towards anything, you are just working. I am in college, so I know my endgame is to graduate. My endgame for my podcast is to have a consistent and sustainable platform for Millennials to openly discuss the issues that affect our lives. What is yours? 

Be teachable

Girrrrl, you do not know everything and that is okay! I take pride in being a sponge and soaking up as much knowledge about podcasting and blogging that I can because I want to be better. The only way to improve is by learning from other people or videos. If your mindset is “Oh, I don’t like advice,” or “There’s nothing that this person can teach me,” you set yourself up for a long, unnecessary, difficult road. 

Networking is a powerful tool and having like-minded individuals around you can potentially help you see things from a different lens or even help you come up with a better way to do things. Create a target goal to meet a certain amount of people every month and learn new podcasting skills. Stay in the practice of constantly learning.

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Believe in yourself

Sis, you are the bomb.com! If God placed it on your heart to start anything, it is for a reason. You must walk in faith and confidence. You can’t trust those second-guessing thoughts because you can second-guess yourself out of a blessing. I have had podcast episodes or Instagram videos that God has told me to post and I will stop myself from posting them because of silly thoughts and doubts. I question what people will say or what will happen if no one listens. 

I have sharpened my mindset to believe that even one ‘like’ or one listener is one person that I impacted because I believed in myself and listened to my heart. Your mind is the strongest tool you have and if you can train your mind to be positive, baby girl, you are winning. 

I saw this post on Instagram and it just stuck with me because it gave me a “Yasss, girl” moment. The post read, ‘When the Devil whispers, “You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm”, the Queen replied, “I am the Storm!”’ I love that post because it applies to every area of our lives. 

We are the center of our podcasts. Our podcasts do not exist without us, therefore, it is up to us to make a choice, every day, to keep our vision alive and put it to action. 

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