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Category Archives: 10 Day Blog Challenge

Day 10: Success! Challenge accepted and completed!

Me on top of Carrowkeel in Ireland, kissing the sky (photo taken by Shelley Leatherwood).

Me on top of Carrowkeel in Ireland, kissing the sky (photo taken by Shelley Leatherwood). Success!

 

Day 10 Challenge: I want you to think back to the journey you’ve been on in the last 10 days. I encourage you to read through all your posts to celebrate all that you’ve written, learned and experienced as part of this daily blog challenge. And in today’s blog post, I want you to write about:

  • What you enjoyed most about your experience of taking part in the blog challenge
  • Your favorite challenge day and why
  • The biggest takeaway you’ve had from it
  • The next step you’re going to take to make your freedom plan a reality

For all of the blog posts in the 10 Day Blog Challenge, and what I learned from them in summary:

Day 1: Blast you, Mercury in Retrograde! – you can have a shit day and still bounce back… because after all, those days will happen!

Day 2: Living the Freedom Lifestyle – when I let my little ego steer, it chooses wrong. Only my intuition and heart-centered decisions lead to the best results.

Day 3: Where I realize that some of the elements of my perfect day are already true… – what happens when you have a clear vision for yourself and what your day can look like? That perfect vision starts to become reality.

Day 4: Unlock your superpowers… you know you have them, right? – sometimes you don’t know just how much you know until you are asked!

Day 5: The success plan: it starts with nipping procrastination in the bud – The venue may change, but the habits do not, and that is how consistency is built. It finally clicked in my mind that THIS is how people keep up with what is important to them. (you know, like the blogging thing)

Day 6: Tarot Tribes and Business Besties – the magic of a business bestie can apply to entrepreneurship or working for “the man”… we all need support: why not find people walking along the same proverbial road?

Day 7: Take done over “perfect”, any day of the week – lots of aha moments found here, where I release perfectionism… an over-polished blog post once a month is no substitute for a good-enough blog once a week. The magic of the internet? Shine it up later! The world needs your words NOW.

Day 8: Mini-Adventures, and Rainbow Hair Really Trying NOT to Care – otherwise known as “What I Learned from Radically Changing My Hair”

Day 9: Tarot, on the go, anywhere! – What a working holiday would look like, if I were a full-time tarot reader… for now, vacation is vacation for me, through and through: though it would depend if I had clients local to the area I was vacationing in!

Day 10 (you’re on it right now!)

Favorite challenge and why: Day 3…. Visualizing the perfect day, because it made me realize since the 30 day blog challenge that visualization of big goals really does work, and my perfect workday is moving closer to being achieved than I thought possible before I wrote about it.

Biggest takeaway: I CAN blog consistently, if I try. If I make it a habit, I can do anything consistently. I am also learning to embrace my imperfections, and releasing the blog (and newsletters) before I think they’re ready (Day 5), because if I really released them when I thought they were ready, I would never release anything at all!

Next steps: Continue to blog once a week: and for real this time. No matter how undone I think a blog is, it will still go up… And I can tweak it whenever I want to. That’s the beauty of a website, right? It can change whenever you do, and as much or as little as you want it to.

Thanks for sticking with me as I started (and completed!) this blog challenge. Following through is a big sticking point with me, so as I pat myself on the back for writing the final blog post, I will also congratulate you if you read it all! Yay, we did it!

Blessings,
~*~Hilary~*~
www.tarotbyhilary.com

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 10.

I’m doing the 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge from Natalie Sisson! Want to join me? It ends today!

Day 9: Tarot, on the go, anywhere!

The last time I did a reading while on vacation... for a cast member at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida, in tandem with my BFF Elizabeth LaBarca LMT!

The last time I did a reading while on vacation… for a cast member at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida, in tandem with my BFF Elizabeth LaBarca LMT!

 

Day 9 Challenge: Imagine you are on a long holiday in Portugal (or wherever your dream destination is). There are castles to explore, secret bars to discover, and sunny beaches to laze around on. In today’s post, I want you to write about how you will balance your adventure and work while you are away on this holiday.


I actually did this in Natalie’s previous 30 Day Blog Challenge (which I didn’t get through, I’ll admit… I gotta say, 10 days in a row blogging is much easier than 30!). This was the exercise for Day 4 of her 30 Day Blog Challenge: location independence. In the 2 years since that challenge, she has changed her tune on what location independence looks like and feels like to her, and I’m sure I have too. Let’s take a look at what location independence means to me, today.

A working holiday for me would be the opportunity to connect with my clients from that part of the world (if applicable). For starters, I would likely announce that I will be in that part of the world or town, and am available for in person appointments. Those would be my first priority for the “work” portion of my day, and I would likely schedule them of a morning, so that I can leave my afternoons and evenings free to go exploring, and/or tackle email or phone readings. But first dibs would absolutely go to people in that neck of the wood first.

Additionally, I would definitely keep in mind that portion of the world: what is it known for? And schedule accordingly. If it’s known for sunny beaches, I wouldn’t be scheduling clients during the day, would I? Unless I want to get my tarot cards sandy, that is! (which is an option, absolutely… tarot reading in the sand, bikini-clad reader? Yes please!) If it’s known for its hot spot nightclubs, well then, either I’m doing readings during the day, and/or working with a local club to nab a spot doing readings… not really a club person to begin with.

Let’s now look at what I wrote on this subject two years ago [edit: THREE years ago, actually!], and see if my tune has changed…

The original post can be found here. And I realized during that time, I was very focused on the tools that would help me be location independent, and not so much the attitude or energy that goes into it.

All I really need is my deck, my phone, and my laptop. Portable tarot reader, on the go for YOU! 🙂

From there, I broke it down into the tools I need for each type of reading I do.

For email readings: Tarot deck, my laptop, my phone/camera.

For phone readings: Tarot deck, my phone, my laptop (to email the recording of the reading after the session ends).

For in-person readings: Tarot deck, transportation.

Blogging: My laptop, my phone/camera.

Social media: My laptop, my phone/camera.

Since then, I have added on some tools, like headphones, like my iPad, like my timer, like a scheduling system so clients can book themselves online… but in general, the sentiment is the same: all I need is me and my cards and a client to perform the readings. I have heard of some readers forgetting their deck and having to read someone’s cards “in their minds” (as in, they visualize card images coming up in their heads). I am NOT that impressive… or, at the very least, I haven’t had to do that yet!

I’d also like to state that this is very different because it is asking to describe a working vacation. In general, when I go on vacation, I go on vacation. But the reason why I do that is because I do have a full time job along with my tarot reading business, so my full time job provides me with those vacation days. It would be different if I was during tarot readings full time, and what I described above would very likely be “the plan”, in that scenario. Again, one of the benefits of being a part time tarot reader. A bit more flexibility, and a bit more buffer room.

Blessings,
~*~Hilary~*~
www.tarotbyhilary.com

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 9.

I’m doing the 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge from Natalie Sisson! Want to join me? It’s going on until September 19th, so hop right in, the water’s fine!

Day 8: Mini-Adventures, and Rainbow Hair Really Trying NOT to Care

Day 8 Challenge: Like I said, today is a fun day. So I want you to go out and do something that you’ve wanted to do for a long time. Go out play, enjoy, and come back and write about what you did. Also, write about how you can make such adventures part of your new lifestyle.


The assignment today was a mini-adventure, but it ended up being simply a relaxing day with a bonus little luau at the local watering hole. I wore a rainbow lei of fake flowers with glittery sparkles in my now rainbow hair, and got a few looks and compliments about it, and some complaints from a few parents (why’d you do that, now my teenage daughter wants to!). The perks of being an adult, I guess? Though I did get a few comments of “Oh, I’m too old to do that to my hair.” What am I? 5? Do you really have to be below a certain age to dye your hair colors that you enjoy?

Hawaiian luau at the Public House!

A photo posted by Hilary Parry Haggerty (@hilary_tarot) on

I feel like the bigger mini-adventure really happened last week, when I spent 5 hours at the salon getting the now fabulous rainbow hair that everyone has been noticing and talking about all week. And I learned a few things from that mini-adventure.

What I Learned from Radically Changing My Hair

There will always be people that don’t like or agree with what you do. These people will believe that their displeasure will actually matter enough to you to feel they need to voice their displeasure to you about it. My recommendation: smile and nod, and still feel however YOU want to feel about it. Don’t allow them space within your mind or heart if you personally love your choice.

You may become very visible.

You may become very invisible.

^ the invisible part of it surprised me, but I realized that it may simply be people not wanting to deal with you because of your choice.

It’s only hair.

OMG, it’s my HAIR.

^ Sometimes this can be a 50/50 love/hate war going on in your head, even after you’ve done it.

Bottom line? I love my new hair, and I love mini-adventures, and I love doing things that sometimes scare me or put me outside of my comfort zone.

I hope you had a fantastic Saturday!

 

Blessings,
~*~Hilary~*~
www.tarotbyhilary.com

This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 8.

I’m doing the 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge from Natalie Sisson! Want to join me? It’s going on until September 19th, so hop right in, the water’s fine!

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Tarot Beginners