I had an AMAZING Lent in 2024.

Like, to the point that I said to my husband on Holy Saturday, "I'm kind of sad Lent is over."

I know. It was weird. But also amazing.

And then, I had a rough summer spiritually. Dry season, dark night of the soul, desolation, whatever you want to call it — it was rough.

Thanks to God's grace and a wonderful retreat in early September, the worst of it passed, but I could still feel the lingering effects hanging around through the fall.

So I was HYPED for Advent. 💪

This is going to be it, I told myself. Lent 2.0 to heal my soul.

To ensure it was the best Advent ever (my first mistake), I set up goals AND systems for success:

1. I decided I was going to read one chapter from Luke every day, since it lined up perfectly with the season to finish on Christmas Eve.
2. I was going to pray the St. Andrew's Novena and actually remember to do it by setting up a reminder on the Hallow app to pray it every day.
3. The Hallow series for Lent was a huge part of why it was so transformative, so I also decided to do their Advent series.
4. Plus, Fr. Mike was doing an Advent series and obviously I wasn't going to miss that.
5. PLUS we were doing Mary on the Mantel for the kids.

And here's the part where I failed:

It actually worked!

Seriously. I did all of the series. I'd miss a day or two of the Hallow or Fr. Mike series, but it was easy enough to catch up.

I think for the first time ever, I actually did the full St. Andrew's novena.

Thanks to my husband's help, Mary was hidden around the house every day.

I read Luke 24 on December 24 at 11:15 pm.

Every single Advent to-do was checked. ✅

And?

It was a pretty lackluster Advent. 🙃

I will say, Fr. Mike's series was amazing. And my first few days of reading Luke I did have some nuggets of deep connection. And I certainly had some moments of inspiration from the Hallow series.

But with Lent, I could see a marked difference in who I was before Lent spiritually versus after.

With Advent? I was just someone who had completed a lot of spiritual to-do lists.

Because I didn't know which one would "work," I did all of the things — but I didn't do any of them well.

I think if I had just stuck to reading Luke and maybe the Fr. Mike series, a lot more would have penetrated my heart and caused change.

But instead, I spread myself too thin, trying to do all of the things, and focused more on accomplishing each day's tasks instead of letting them seep into my soul and transform me.

Which is EXACTLY what happens when you try to do all of the marketing things, too.

You know, this guru tells you that Pinterest is where it's at.

While another lauds Instagram.

And another email, and still another Facebook ads, and a third who can't stop talking about how SEO transformed her business.

So you try to do all of the things and figure you must be the problem because none of them work.

But likely, it's because you're taking your super limited time and stretching it between 10 different platforms instead of finding one and doing it really, really well.

If you instead took all that time and focused on ONE thing, you'd probably see better results.

That's why about a year and a half ago, I decided to only do one thing in my business: email.

(Technically SEO too, but I don't have much competition so I don't have to really do much for my keyword.)

Much to the chagrin of many virtual assistants who cold email me, I have not used my Instagram to its full potential.

I never run ads for myself.

I don't have a podcast, a YouTube show, an elaborate PR schedule, active blog, or TikTok.

Not that I wouldn't love to have all of those things if I had the time, or that I don't think they'd help me grow faster (okay, maybe not TikTok, but the rest of them).

But between doing so much for my clients plus being a stay-at-home mom, there just isn't time to do all of those well.

So, I stick to email, and it drives more business than I can handle, precisely because I'm not trying to do all the things.

So I want to challenge you as we go into this season of goal setting to actually just pick one marketing thing to get really good at this year. Just one thing to focus your energy into it.

Once you do that and if you still have regular marketing time every week "left over," then and only then can you add something else.

How do you know what your one thing should be?

Well, it's different for everyone, but here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Do you have more time or money? Money means you can pay for ads, SEO strategist, or PR firm to help you grow faster. Time means you want to prioritize organic content, which will grow more slowly but cost little to nothing.
• What kinds of content can you create easily? i.e. If you hate public speaking, YouTube probably wouldn't be my first pick for you.
• Where are your people? How do they like to consume content and marketing? It doesn't matter if TikTok is all the rage if your target audience is 65+.

If you don't know the answers to those questions or want to know specifically what the "one thing" is you should prioritize in your marketing in 2025, I can always answer that individually in a consult!​

I promise you that doing one thing really well versus many things mediocrely will always produce better results.

(If you're a Parks and Rec fan, the ever-wise Ron Swanson says it more crassly, but memorably.)

Now, if your "one thing" in 2025 is going to be email marketing, I have something I'm going to be doing in January you're going to love.

I can't quite tell you all the details yet, but I CAN tell you it will be:

• A combination of teaching + doing (so you'll learn some strategies and then actually put them into practice)
• Super affordable.
• E-commerce/maker focused (but you're welcome to join even if you're a service provider, author, coach, etc., the examples might just not be totally relevant)
• And yes, I did say "we" — because I have a wonderful, incredible, fantastic co-host!! 👀 (Who actually came up with this idea, so you can thank her and the Holy Spirit!)

So for now, think about what your "one thing" for 2025 will be, and if it's email marketing, definitely meet me back here next week and I'll spill the beans with all the details!

For His greater glory,

Emily