Perfectly Packaged Series

    In January, I started writing about having a creative block. During that time I began to realize that I'm perfectly packaged. Perfectly packaged to me means that I'm a writer, I self-publish my books. I'm also an educator. I'm a mommy. I'm a Believer. I'm a daughter experiencing the first year without her father and I assist with caring for my mom. All of those things make me who I am.

    During the pandemic and even afterwards I heard a lot of people talk about niching down and just focus on that one thing. As a self-publisher, I have assisted several authors with releasing their books. What I found was that niching down wasn't working for me in the way that I thought it would. 

    So a lot of my posts on social media were about self-publishing and about the books that I have written. I created www.lindarinsights.com & I also have a Google site. I was doing all of the things. However something was missing.

    Through those experiences I began to realize that by niching down I was leaving out parts of me.  Those parts of me are just as important or even more important than just sharing about one thing that I do. I think that helping people to bring their book to life is incredible. I also know that my life experiences are incredible too.

    Below, I've included links to all of my blog posts in the perfectly package series. I hope that you enjoy reading each post. Know that you don't have to niche down. Your life experiences are designed to encompass the whole of who you are. You are creative and knowledgeable and I don't think you can set that aside just to niche down.

Releasing the Pressure to Niche Down

When “Niche Down” Costs You Parts of Yourself

Nothing Was Wasted

Leadership Without a Title

Perfectly Packaged - When “Niche Down” Costs You Parts of Yourself

    I told myself my niche was self-publishing and writing. I created the website and the social media pages. I did all of the things. That wasn’t wrong but it wasn’t complete. What I didn’t understand then was how much pressure that advice carried, or how quietly it asked me to leave parts of myself behind.

    “Niche down” started to feel less like guidance and more like an eraser. It suggested that my story needed trimming. That my experiences needed editing. That the parts of me shaped by illness, grief, faith, recovery, leadership, motherhood, and survival were somehow extra. I felt like I had to choose one lane when my life had clearly taken many—and none of them were accidental.

    Every role I’ve held informed the other parts of me at the same time. Niching down didn’t make my work clearer, rather it made it feel disconnected from me. And over time, that disconnect created quiet resistance. Not because I lacked discipline, but because something in me knew I was being asked to shrink.

    There’s a particular grief that comes from trying to make yourself more “marketable.” It doesn’t show up all at once. It shows up in hesitation. In daily self-reflections. In the feeling that you're leaving too much unsaid. I didn’t realize it then, but I was grieving parts of myself while trying to brand the rest. In those moments, the branding didn't feel fulfilling because so much of me was being left out. 

    I was leaving out so much that makes me relatable to single moms, divorce moms, women of faith and women who can't see it yet but they are thriving in adverse situations without having the language to it. I named the whole of who I am. Mom. Believer. Educator. Writer. Survivor. I'm every woman. A multi-talented woman who has a publishing company designed to help others tell their stories.

    Now, the writing comes easier. The ideas connected. The resistance softened. Not because I had finally figured out the “right” strategy—but because I stopped abandoning myself in the process. 

    This is what perfectly packaged actually means to me now. Not polished. Not minimized. Integrated. Whole. Honest. Every role informing the other. Nothing wasted.

Perfectly Packaged - Releasing the Pressure to Niche Down

 

    For a long time, I heard the same advice over and over again: niche down. Make it smaller. Make it clearer. Make it easier to explain. I thought my niche was simply self-publishing and writing. And while that’s true, it was never the whole truth.

    What I didn’t realize then was how much pressure that advice carried. It made me feel like I had to flatten my experience to fit inside a category. Like I had to choose one lane when my life had clearly taken many. Writing wasn’t separate from healing. Publishing wasn’t separate from grief. Coaching wasn’t separate from lived experience. They were all informing each other at the same time.

    Now I see it differently. My niche isn’t a single service or skill, it’s the intersection of my story, my voice, and the season I’m willing to write from. Its creativity shaped by recovery. It’s guidance rooted in lived experience. It’s helping others give language to what they’ve survived and what they’re still becoming.

    So no, I didn’t niche down.
    I named the whole of who I am.

    And that’s when everything began to make sense.

    I realized that I'm perfectly packaged. I am a

• Writer 

• Coach 

• Survivor 

• Mother 

• Faith-rooted woman

• Creative who understands grief, recovery, and rebuilding

Every role informed the others. Nothing was wasted.