How I Became A Content Creator While Battling Endometriosis

Endometriosis has been, by far, the most random and unsuspected challenge I have had to face. Even still, I have a life to live. I have always had dreams and I didn’t want my new health complications to get in the way of that. So I started to research passive income strategies and business models. I was determined to take the lemons of being a debilitated stay at home mom, and turn it into the lemonade of being a luxury travel agent, model/influencer and e-commerce six figure income earner.

To manage my life and balance my physical health, mental health, family life, and finances, I came up with a list of boundaries. I created it with my endometriosis, my cycle, and my self care needs in mind to make sure that as I build other aspects of my life, I’m not ignoring myself or self sabotaging in the process. So here’s the list:

Don’t schedule your content:

• Be mindful of possible endometriosis flare ups. This could disrupt your content schedule and cause unnecessary emotional distress.

• Instead of filling the week with a task per day, make a short list of attainable content goals that will include content you can post even when you’re experiencing a flare up. This list will be a visual reminder of what to complete when you’re feeling well and what to do for content when you need to rest.

• Physical capabilities fluctuate with chronic illnesses like endometriosis and PCOS. Having unexpected physical limitations, due to pain, means that your content will be slightly different from what you may see others produce. Choose seated poses, film seated tutorials or reviews, and when making traveling content, use all the amenities available for your safety, comfort, and convenience. Be gentle on your body while still checking off your list and getting your coins.

Learn about each week of your cycle:

• Understanding each cycle week and what the feminine system experiences during each, will help you understand your hormonal changes, your physical needs, and how to work through each phase with grace and self love.

• Once you understand the cycle scientifically, observe your body and how it changes in comparison to what you’ve learned. The cycles shift and are very synchronized to the rest of our body. So if you learn to work during the best part of your cycle and rest when needed, you will reduce negative symptoms that interfere with your lifestyle.

• Introduce yourself to nutritional practices that benefit your cycle, increase your energy levels, and promote mental clarity. Avoiding inflammatory foods, habits, and environments gives your feminine system a chance of properly processing the nutrients it needs to restore homeostasis. Eating and drinking pH balancing produce, using herbal remedies, and replacing unhealthy sources of fats, sugars, milks, and proteins will also increase your energy and vitality. The more vitality you have, the more available you become to show up for yourself and make your goals a reality.

Make your self care routine gentle:

• First, start by assessing your current self care routine. What do you do for physical self care daily, weekly, and monthly, to maintain your body? Is your routine full of self care tasks that make your body fatigued? Or do you avoid certain acts of self care because it causes pain? Recognizing your current self care pattern will help you identify where you’d like to make improvements.

• Secondly, get acquainted with new self care methods. Instead of doing strenuous workouts (even if you are a fitness influencer), you can try a more easy flowing type of exercise that will not trigger pain to those affected areas within your body. Instead of taking a long hot shower, you can shower first and then rest in a relaxing bath to decompress and avoid lower body pain.

• Also, when it comes to skincare and makeup (even if you’re a beauty influencer), make it a seated routine if possible. Use, work with, and promote brand products that allow you to sit in front of any table or vanity while using their products. Avoid heavy soaps and chemical products that require a lot of rinsing so that your routine doesn’t always require standing at a sink for long periods of time. Adjust your makeup routine to be concise and clean to prevent long seated makeup sessions and reduce inflammation triggers in the skin.

Be discerning and authentic:

• Discernment is key when building a personal brand. Being clear on your demographic, your marketing techniques, and income funnel will help create a healthy work flow.

• Remain true to your journey by being authentic. You are a business woman, but you are a human being first. You deserve genuine supporters and they deserve to connect with the person behind the brand they love. So be sincere, be informative, don’t be a gatekeeper, and share only what you feel comfortable with people knowing.

• A relatable brand owner makes a successful brand owner. Many women can relate to chronic health issues because many of us suffer it in silence, ourselves. No matter what your niche is, you can inspire your audience with your story and your journey. Women want to see that the ideas they imagine for themselves are possible. Living through your truth and sharing that will be a positive representation of a lifestyle that may sometimes seem impossible without your example.

Only work with brands that support your health:

• Health is the truest wealth, so everything you do to build monetary wealth should contribute to your physical health. Work with brands who are intentional about wellness, nutritional, and lifestyle messaging and promotion.

• Focus on brands that are centered around Women’s needs, outside of commercial partnerships. Do they operate or sponsor any charitable Women’s organizations? Do they follow through on their healthy claims with trustworthy products and conduct research regarding the health claims they make?

Give back when possible:

• Being a woman with Endometriosis often feels more like a life of deprivation than abundance, but your experiences make you abundant with knowledge. Your self advocacy makes you abundant in confidence and determination. Your endurance makes you abundant in gratitude. Your story becomes a gift of exposure, perspective, and community for other women like you.

• When you realize that your testimony is both informative and lucrative, you will see the results through social media monetization via content creation. Once the money starts flowing in, don’t forget to bless those who supported you while you were ill and look out for those who may be struggling due to illness. Pay your blessings forward, and be a cheerful giver.

• Giving does not always have to be monetary. You can give time by volunteering or give support by joining a support group for women’s health. You can share healthy meals, simple recipes, gentle workout flows, and coping mechanisms. You can even give acknowledgement by reaching out to others who are ill, for a wellness check.

Support other rising influencers and creators:

• When building your own personal brand and platform, it is important to scout and support like-minded up and coming creators in your niche. This helps you establish genuine virtual engagement, exchange promotional tactic blueprints, and boost your visibility through collaboration and conversation. Plainly, when you support kind hearted creators, they support you back, boosting your insights, introducing you to new virtual spaces, and new audience members.

• Follow and begin learning from content creators who post filming and editing tutorials for the content styles you resonate with most. This guarantees that you are not only learning every time you are scrolling, but that you are learning techniques that are simple to apply to your filming and photography routine or checklist. Many creators are happy to post how to videos at your request and answer any questions you may have about how they achieve their content style and quality. Do not follow gatekeepers. Protect your peace.

• And of course, prioritize quality or quantity. It is okay to be inspired by influencers with large follower counts and celebrities that you admire. However, be sure that most of the accounts you follow are interacting with their audience just as much as their audience is interacting with them. You deserve to follow creators who resonate with your creativity enough to follow you back without being prompted to engage. You can make sure that someone has online decency and courtesy by doing your due diligence before ever hitting the follow button. There is no need to fill your feed with distant, disengaged, or disinterested individuals or businesses. Your audience should be full of the platforms you pour into all the time. If it does not reflect mutuality, release them from your virtual space to make room for equal exchanges in time, energy, and empowerment with others.

Represent yourself:

• You know yourself more than anyone else and that will consistently work in your favor because you then get to represent yourself in business deals and relationships. Allow brands to connect with you, not a PR delegate or agent. They must understand from your perspective how their products or services align with your brand vision and your human needs. Without your voice, they will brief you like everyone else and respond to you without understanding your position or niche.

• Use clear messaging when posting and creating so that there is no confusion about your partnership and audience demographic or work ethic. Show brands your creativity by repurposing previous work, modifying and updating your platforms to reflect your transitions into structured creative services, and having a professional way for them to book and compensate you for your valuable professional work.

Use tech for help

• Adjust your recording strategy by using tripods with lighting and a bracket for your phone. This allows you to free your hands up and avoid fatigue from selfie content. Some tripods have tracking capabilities so you don't have to stop recording to reposition the phone or tripod. Get a full body sized tripod (64"or taller) so that you can capture your content at the right angle whether you are seated or standing.

• Use editing apps that offer royalty free background music, video templates, and editing features that share directly to social media to save time and energy. Editing can be time consuming and cause mental burnout without proper strategy. No work is worth your oeace or me talking health. Let the software help you accomplish the results you are looking to achieve.

• Try scheduling your content once it is captured and edited. Schedule raw footage as well as edited content to give authentic variety. This posting technique gives you free time and reducing the anxiety surrounding the desire to post consistently. Once scheduled, your posts will perform as detailed, keeping your feed consistently active on days when you may need a break.

By being more intentional about your content creator journey, you give yourself a more organic creator experience that flows rather feeling forced or strenuous.