4 mistakes when it comes to using HARO
One of the positive things to come out of lockdown last year was that I started exercising more by walking in the park for about an hour before I started my work from home routine. I enjoyed it for many reasons, not least because it became one of the only reasons that I would leave my house.
As life returned back to ‘normal’ and I became busier, I found that I was walking less and less until finally, I just wasn’t walking at all. Wanting to revive this healthy habit and develop some others, I decided that I would incorporate ‘become more healthy’ into my plans for 2022.
But by the following month, I had succumbed to the statistic about people tending to give up on their resolutions by February. It started out well enough, drinking water and moving around more, but I found that this quickly escalated into feeling guilty about eating certain foods or beating myself up when I didn’t sweat that day.
I also found myself becoming more critical of my body, frustrated that after all of my sacrifice and effort, I couldn’t see any ‘positive results’ to make it all worth it. “You didn’t even start this journey to lose weight, though,” I remember saying to myself out loud in response to my negative self-talk. “You just wanted to be healthier.”
It was then that I realised that I had internalised diet culture’s message that healthier means thinner and that certain foods were inherently good or bad. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed in myself. These were thoughts that I had not had since I was a teenager who loathed her plus sized body because the world told her to. It had taken me a long time to shed those beliefs and truly love myself, only to find that I had never really formed new ideas of health that included me.
In order to rectify this mistake, I interviewed experts like:
Monique Melton, anti-racism educator, author, international speaker and founder of Shine Brighter Together
Chrissy King, writer, speaker, fitness and strength coach, and creator of The Body Liberation Project
Trina Nicole, body confidence advocate, dancer and founder of The Curve Catwalk
and collated their expert advise into an article on How To Become Healthier Without Succumbing To Diet Culture for Black Ballad.
Continuing in this spirit of rectifying mistakes, today I'll be switching gears from talking about my recent blip with diet culture to talking about the ones that I had with HARO initially and what I now do to avoid them (so that you can too!) For example:
How to use HARO for PR Success
Since last week, I've had the pleasure of doing 2 presentations within a 4 day period
The first was on "How to Overcome the Toxic Cultural Beliefs Holding You Back" with The 360 Lifestyle Support Network and the second was on "How to Attract Your Ideal Clients and Get Paid What You Want Through PR" with the London Chapter of IAW (The International Association of Women).
I'm not going to lie, I was quite nervous about them for a number of reasons.
I tend to prefer the back and forth of interview scenarios, which I'm more used to, and I don't enjoy creating anything graphic related.
What ultimately helped make both presentations successful and stop me spiralling into overwhelm was the fact that I have a system in place for creating good presentations.
This includes:
Writing my presentation out as an article first
Assigning each point made in the article to a slide
Getting the presentation designed
Practising beforehand
Presenting on the day
Speaking of 5 step processes, this is also what helps me stay on top of HARO enquiries and will do the same for you too:
4 reasons to use HARO for PR Success
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Authority Magazine on "How Journaling Helped Me Be More Calm, Mindful And Resilient". This week the article came out.
The great thing about this opportunity is that it landed straight into my inbox via HARO (Help A Reporter Out)- a platform that "connects journalists seeking expertise to include in their content with sources who have that expertise". In other words, once you sign up for HARO, it means:
3 pieces of PR advice for my younger self
As we entered the new year, one of the trends that caught my attention was the resurgence of the ten year challenge on social media. This got me thinking about who I was ten years ago and what I would tell that version of myself if I had the chance. In the absence of that kind of technology and know-how, I wrote an article on what millennial women want Gen Z to know for Black Ballad- outlining my advice to the younger generation coming up after me as well as the advice of 10 other women that I interviewed. While that article features general life advice, here’s what I would tell my younger self about getting started with PR:
3 tools for overcoming limiting beliefs holding you back from PR success
Last week I mentioned that one of the common mistakes that people make, when it comes to mindset work, is thinking that it's a one-time thing
This is because, in the same way that real gardens need maintenance to ensure that weeds don't get out of hand, so do our minds
I also promised that I would give you some of the tips and tricks that I like to use for renewing my mind on a regular basis and that you can too
So here they are:
4 common mistakes in overcoming limiting beliefs
Do you know how some people have a "green thumb"? Well my mum has a black one! Like, seriously, in my 34 years she's only succeeded at keeping one plant alive...and that was in the last 2-3! This is one of the biggest reasons that she concreted her garden just before the pandemic. She had more grass, weeds and stinging nettles than actual flowers. And she'd always lament about having to garden again whenever the grass, or anything else, grew back.
According to James Allen, the author of "As a Man Thinketh" (mentioned in my previous blog post), our minds work in a similar way. He states that:
"A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind".
In other words, like any garden, our minds will always either produce flowers (positive thoughts) or weeds (negative thoughts) but the weeds will grow out of hand if left to their own devices. With that in mind, here are 4 common mistakes that people make when it comes to preventing this, especially when it comes to PR:
How to overcome the limiting beliefs holding you back from PR success
Last week, I mentioned that one of my favourite quotes and illustrations on the importance of mindset is "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7)
You can find the others here if you missed it
"As a man thinketh" (based on the King James translation of that scripture) is also the name of one of my favourite self-help books
So if you're looking for further reading on this topic, definitely look it up, sis!
It's second chapter begins:
"A man's mind may be likened to a garden... Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers...with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances and destiny".
In other words we go in the direction of our belief system(s) and this is why mindset is so important. However, limiting belief systems can be overcome.
Here's how you can do that: