It was after dinner. 

I had cooked spaghetti, and the kitchen looked like an actual crime scene. 

A meatball massacre. 

A gnocchi graveyard. 

There were meatballs and sauce strewn all over the floor and noodles hanging from my antique hutch. 

I looked across the island into the living room to see that both toy boxes had been dumped out and scattered. 

I felt the discomfort welling in my chest. 

The visual clutter was taking a toll on me, and I know myself well enough to know that I there’s no way I’d sleep unless the two most trafficked areas in our room—the kitchen and living room—were reset. 

I looked across the room at my husband for solidarity, only to realize he also had his hands full, busy wrestling with an alligator our one year old to get her diaper on. 

When we finally made eye contact, he looks into the depths of my soul, and I think surely he’s about to say THE thing that I’m thinking (something along the lines of what the actual ???)

But instead, he starts singing, “You’re Gonna Miss This” by Trace Adkins. 

I straight up cackle out loud, and realize that he’s actually so freakin’ right (don’t ever tell him I said that). 

So often in parenting, I find myself in the river of misery—up in the middle of the night with a sick baby (our current situation), in the hard stages of teething, the tantrums, the potty training, and wishing we were just over the hill and onto more independence.

I’m sure you’ve been there too, wishing you were on the other side of a hard thing—

But I learned something this week that made me appreciate the hard a little more. 

I was listening to Myron Golden talk about mistakes he sees entrepreneurs make, and that one of the biggest he sees is that they try to avoid discomfort in business and fast forward to what’s on the other side. 

He shared that when you wish yourself out of a hard season, you’re missing out on an immense opportunity to learn and grow and adapt, to acquire the skills and the identity that you need to step into the person you deeply desire to be. 

And to that I say this: Whether you’re in the thick of it, in parenting, in business, or just in life in general, understand that being in the river of misery is part of the process, and it will make what’s waiting for you on the other side so much sweeter.

Cheering you on! 

Content Marketing Tip of the Week:

Hashtags. Are they in or out?

Definitely IN, especially when it comes to carousel posts.

Be strategic and use them in the same way you’d use keywords for SEO like your location, your industry, and any searchable terms relevant to the content of your post.

With our management clients, we still prioritize hashtag strategy and here are some of the results we saw in January.

Loved this week’s newsletter? Read Content Chronicles No. 1 and Content Chronicles No. 2 here.