Ep #144: Vision Boarding for Food Bloggers with Heather Christo

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Find ways to stay inspired day in and day from this discussion with Heather Christo talking about vision boarding for food bloggers. It can be difficult to stay motivated and inspired as a food blogger. Today’s guest, Heather Christo, shares how she creates an annual vision board to keep her inspired and accountable to her dreams! Do you love feeling passionate and inspired? Then you’ll love my talk with Catherine McCord on Positivity for Productivity. You might also need a lovely dose of Jessica Merchant sharing about ways Food Bloggers can Maintain Passion!

Find ways to stay inspired day in and day by this discussion with Heather Christo talking about vision boarding for food bloggers. It can be difficult to stay motivated and inspired as a food blogger. Today’s guest, Heather Christo, shares how she creates an annual vision board to keep her inspired and accountable to her dreams!

Before we get into today’s show on Vision Boarding for Food Bloggers, first I want to share with you about something new we’ve got going on at the Chopped Podcast. We started a Patreon account!

Support the Chopped Podcast on Patreon!

Now for the cost of oh, a cup of hot tea or coffee, you can help support this podcast. We work hard each week to deliver to you outstanding content so you can turn your food blog in the amazing business I know it can be! My goal is to bring to you interviews with other food bloggers — like coffee talk chats where it’s almost like you’re sitting that the table with us. That’s what today’s show is like too. When I’ve gone to conferences, I love getting some one-on-one time with another food blogger where we can openly talk about social media and recipe development with abandon. It’s amazing! But we also bring to you experts with knowledge about business or publishing or branding, and more.

There are several different levels of sponsorship to choose from, including one that gives you some time in a monthly group call with me.

Thanks in advance to everyone who helps support the show. It is greatly appreciated.

Heather Christo and Food Blogging

Today we’re sharing a blogger discussion with Heather Christo of the site by the same name (see link below) about Vision Boarding for Food Bloggers. Imagine Heather and I are sitting at a table in a coffee shop and you’re there with us! Because that’s what’s today’s discussion is all about — a chance to get to know Heather better and learn what inspires her about her blog and the way she runs her business.

We also talked about the big change in Heather’s diet and how that impacted her site. She first noticed it with her kids — something was not right. And after visiting plenty of doctors she finally got them tested for food allergies. She threw herself in the mix with that as well. And guess what? The results indicated that all of them had some pretty serious food allergies. Big changes happened in their lives as a result, including all of them feeling much better.

But what about her blog? Heather had a choice to make: continue publishing the recipes that had made her site so successful, or be authentic and share about her change in diet and move her recipes in that direction as well. It was a big decision to make.

Heather opted for authenticity and although her traffic to a hit at first, it eventually rebounded. People know when you’re being real and she was rewarded with increased traffic and engagement.

Vision Boarding for Food Bloggers

Heather also talked about Vision Boarding. Do you do this? I confess that I have a vision board that Adee and I made together about 10 years ago and I love it. It has a lot of colors and goals and I still have it up on my desk today. But I am thinking it might be time to make another one. Especially after listening to Heather talk about her vision boarding process.

I know I don’t have to tell you this, but food blogging is hard work. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves why we’re doing it. And as I said to Cara a couple of weeks ago, we have to send messages to our subconscious. That can mean making your bed in the morning. It can be tidying up your office. It can also mean having inspirational quotes around, and a vision board can be a great way to remind yourself of the vision you have for your life.

We all need these reminders, I think, because our conscious mind, the thinking side of our brain, takes over and starts getting critical. It might say things like, “You don’t have what it takes to be a successful food blogger.” Or some old subconscious messages might be activated and start saying, “this is too hard.” Or maybe you might here, “Only the naturally talented people can do it and you are just not talented enough.”

Ouch. Those all hurt! And if you’re like me, these can be stuck on repeat in your head!

If you hear something like that, just KNOW that this is some old message. You are enough and the way to help yourself get through that is to believe in yourself and having something like a vision board around to inspire you? Well, that’s just a another tip to keep you on track!

You are enough!

I was so inspired after this conversation with Heather. It was so fun to get the chance to talk with her and now to share it with you.

Tips on Vision Boarding

Here are a few of tips that help me when I’m creating a vision board:

  • Blank Canvas. Start with a blank canvas. I got mine at Michael’s. They sell a pack of 3 or 4 canvas boards and that worked great for us.
  • All the Magazines! My way of vision boarding is to look through magazines and find images, phrases, and photographs that inspire you. Of course, you’ll want to make sure it’s your magazine before you get out the scissors and start cutting it up. 🙂
  • Creative Markers. I made my vision board beautiful so I could leave it out on my desk. I used colored markers and glitter glue to add descriptive text and areas of emphasis to certain parts of the board.
  • Colorful, Playful Stickers. I stopped by the Scrapbooking section of Michael’s to get some playful stickers to add to my vision board. One was a little gold crown and I added that to a cartoon drawing of a young girl, symbolic of my wise, inner child.
  • Don’t think. Turn the pages of the magazine and try not to think about why you like certain photos or images or phrases. If something grabs your attention, cut it out. Create a pile of these images. Then choose from these and use a glue stick to adhere them to your board.
  • Your Inner Pablo. I like to have some acrylic paint around and I pick colors that appeal to me and paint around the major images I adhere to the board. Once this paint dries, I start adding the stickers and the creative marker process to really make my board shine!
  • Play some fun music! Make sure you get your creative vibe going by putting on some fun music. For me, the things I do carry a emotional energy to them. That’s why I’m careful about the emotional state I’m in when I do things around the house. For example, I did my vision board with Adee and we had great music playing when we did it. As a result, every time I walk by my vision board I remember that and it adds even more to me as a result.

I hope those tips on vision boarding for food bloggers is helpful.

Show Notes

This episode on Vision Boarding for Food Bloggers talks about resources you’ll want to check out:

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Thanks so much for listening to today’s podcast. I hope you found it informative and helpful to the work you do every day. Make sure you don’t miss out on any of the Chopped Podcast episodes by heading on over to iTunes to subscribe to the Chopped Podcast. While you’re there, provide a review and rating is a great way to help other podcast listeners find it too! That’s it for today’s podcast. As always, thanks so much for joining in the discussion!

Posted in Food Blog Resources, Food Blogging, Podcast