75: Nobody Told Me How Long Building a Personal Brand Actually Takes

🌟 The Part Nobody Warns You About

I was at a kid's birthday party a few weekends ago. One of those Sunday evening things where the adults just stand around holding paper plates. My daughter doesn't let me leave these parties, so I brought my laptop and parked myself on a bench, working on a carousel in Canva while she played.

A mom I know sat down next to me, saw what I was doing on my screen, and said, "Oh, I love watching you on Instagram. I watch all your stories."

I wanted to disappear.

Five and a half years into this business. Over 125,000 followers. A membership with 150+ women inside. And a mom at a kids' party telling me she watches my stories still made me want to crawl under the bench.

That's what nobody tells you when you start building a personal brand. It doesn't stop feeling exposed once you hit some number. The discomfort doesn't graduate into confidence on a schedule. What changes is your relationship to it, and even that takes a lot longer than anyone admits out loud. If you're in the thick of it right now, wondering when this starts feeling normal, keep reading.

💡 Where This Actually Started

My Instagram journey didn't start with The Creative Bodega. It started in 2017, when my husband and I opened our CrossFit gym. He handled the workouts. I built out the nutrition coaching side, and I was pushed (read: forced) to start showing up on video to promote it.

I wasn't a registered dietitian. I didn't have a stack of nutrition certifications. What I had was my own health journey and a genuine excitement about helping people, something that had been missing from every job I'd had before that. So every week, I got on camera and shared one tip, something I was personally working through, nothing polished. I remember thinking, "who is going to take me seriously?"

People started listening. Not because of credentials I didn't have, but because I showed up every single week with a real point of view. My own sister-in-law, who is far more fit and active than I've ever been, started coming to me for nutrition advice. That's when I understood building a personal brand had nothing to do with a logo or a color palette. It was reps, done consistently, whether or not anyone was clapping.

🎯 What It Actually Takes (Not the Cute Version)

There's a version of "just be consistent" floating around that makes it sound simple. Decide to show up, results follow. That's not what happened for me, and it's probably not what will happen for you either. Here's what it actually took.

You have to genuinely love the topic. Not like it. Love it.

This is the non-negotiable most people skip. You are going to talk about this thing on days when nobody seems to care. On days when your engagement drops, your follower count goes down, and the post you were proud of gets 10 likes, one of them from your sister. If you don't love the topic itself, no strategy is going to carry you through those days. The only thing that gets you through is genuinely wanting to answer someone's question about it.

I have a close friend who recently told me she wants to make an extra $1,000 a month, and her plan was to become an influencer. I love her, but I had to be honest. She doesn't post now. She's a consumer, not a creator. And when I asked what she'd actually talk about every week, something she cared enough about to show up for consistently, she didn't have an answer. The goal was the money. The content was just supposed to be the vehicle. That's backwards, and it doesn't hold up.

You start before you feel ready, and it stays awkward longer than feels fair.

I recorded stories by myself for months before I got even remotely comfortable. I still can't record if my husband is home. If I hear him walk upstairs, I stop recording immediately and wait for him to leave. I'm not the most outgoing person. You don't get comfortable and then start. You start, you do a few thousand reps, and you get less uncomfortable. That's the order.

You pick a format you can actually sustain, and you commit to it for 90 days before you touch anything.

One story a day. One post three times a week. One newsletter every single week without fail. Make it smaller than you think it needs to be, and then actually do it. I would always rather someone add on later than overcommit, under-deliver, and quit. Start small and start sustainable. That will outperform sporadic brilliance every single time.

✅ Why Consistency Beats the Highlight Reel

The posting-and-ghosting cycle, where you post heavily, burn out, disappear for three weeks, and come back apologizing, does more damage to a personal brand than showing up imperfectly every day ever could. People need to be able to count on you. Why would anyone hand over their email, their attention, or eventually their money to someone who disappears?

I didn't fully understand any of this back in 2017. I figured it out by doing the reps that felt pointless at the time, showing up on days I had no idea if any of it was working. But staying consistent long enough is what eventually gave me the data back. It's what let me get less precious about the perfect caption, the perfect hook, the perfect lighting, because I'd posted enough times to know none of that is what makes or breaks you.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I still don't know if it's fully working, five and a half years in. I'm still figuring it out. If you go back to the gym days, I'm closing in on 10 years of doing this, and I still nearly died a little bit at that kids' party. But I showed up again the next day anyway.

🛠️ What I Actually Used to Get Here

Nothing fancy. My early reps happened on Instagram Stories, the same free tool that's sitting on your phone right now. My newsletter started the same way, no fancy platform, just me hitting send on a list of maybe 40 people. Today that list is over 12,000 people, and more than half of them open it every single week. None of that came from a tool. It came from doing the unglamorous version of the thing over and over until the data started telling me something useful.

💪 If You're in the Reps Right Now

There's no finish line where this all feels easy and the results are guaranteed. There's just the work, done consistently, because you actually love the thing you're doing. If you love it, the reps become worth it. If you don't, no amount of strategy is going to carry you through.

If you're in that early stage right now, putting in reps that feel like they're going nowhere, trying to stay consistent when it's not paying off yet, come join us in The Content Coven. It's my membership for female service-based solopreneurs, and it's honestly one of my favorite things I've ever built. Monthly trainings, build-it-with-me calls, guest speakers, monthly challenges, and a community so you're not doing this alone. Doing it alone is the hardest way to do it.

One thing to know: The Coven has been open since we launched, which means you've always been able to join anytime. That's changing. I'm moving toward an open and closed model, so the only way in eventually will be through a waitlist, with doors reopening sometime toward the end of the year. If you've been on the fence, now is genuinely the time.

If this resonated, drop a comment below and tell me where you're at in your own reps right now. I read every single one.