‘How to be a Faith-Filled Virtual Assistant’ Guest Post By Julian Palmer

Your Story is a series by WonderfulWomen where you will read inspiring Guest Posts from women around the world. Here they share their experiences, stories and things that matter most to all women.

Today’s Guest Post is by Julian Palmer. Julian is the owner of JuliVAglobal and specializes in Social media graphic designs, WordPress and Autoresponder Maintenance. She also assists fashion-focused LadyPreneurs who craves virtual order in the backend of their business.

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How to be a Faith-Filled Virtual Assistant

 

I am working from home online, ask me if this was possible 10 years ago I would have laughed in your face and said do what?

Now before I continue with letting you know about myself as a virtual assistant, let me introduce you to my journey of becoming one.

Stay in your own lane.

I had left university for a little into a year and was unemployed, living with my mother and had student loans piling up. Now to add to that I was slowly drifting into depression because I was overwhelmed by just finding a job in itself.

I was a bit tired of waking up and not being able to achieve most of my dreams that I had started to write as goals in my life. The funny thing was that because I was at home most days and occasionally volunteering at a local school, I kept sawing an advertisement on my television on how to make money from home.

As curious as I was I never had the courage to jump on it because I was cautious that this was a scam. I was still holding back because a big part of my life was missing something that I could not explain.

Funny enough the New year of 2015 I decided to do things differently I wanted a change so I committed to give my life over to the Lord and try to research some more on this advertisement that I kept sawing popping up every day on my Television. I was waiting a good three months before I jumped onto the opportunity to see what it was.

The Ad in itself was simple; it was a boot camp in my country on showing others and myself how to make $5 from joining freelancing sites such as Fiverr and Odesk. At first, I was disappointed that I was going to start work at $5 USD but I looked at it in a positive way and said to myself that I was literally going to be home and I was not making any money before that.

Every day for a week I signed into these platforms and prayed to God for a buyer to see my services and buy from my gig as they were called. And within that week I did get buyers coming to my store and buy my services starting at $5.

As happy as I was, I was still not content with my new famed achievement, I did continue to pray and thank God for providing these buyers and the opportunity to start paying towards my student loans.

I felt the urged to try something new but I did not know what it was and how to. The beginning of this chapter came with its up and down but each day I remember to still give God thanks for this new way of making money from home.

The challenging part was that my family did not understand how I was making this money and was also a concern if it would be a stable way of earning in the long run. I too was having doubts myself.

 

Let God take the wheel of your journey

From the doubts of others, including myself I felt a nudge to do a research. I remember one day just waking up and asking the Lord to direct my path to what was his will.

I can’t tell you if it was the Holy Spirit nudging me on how to research other ways to stay at home and make money online. But every time when I keyword my search and changed them I kept seeing this free forum nudging me to join and become my own virtual assistant.

Yes, I waited a while to sign up to the free forum to claim my gifts but it didn’t take me long to know that I had to enhance my skills. It took me a year to research on becoming a virtual assistant, what I needed to do to start a business as well as to enroll in courses that I can use to enhance my skills.

From that year I must tell you that even though I was literally not making a lot from those freelancing platforms as much as when I started, God stepped in to gave me the guidance to research what I needed to do to become a virtual assistant, from there I joined the VAnetworking free forum and from joining there the owner herself invited me to be a moderator of her site.

Pray and let God do the rest.

I can’t tell you how many times during my journey of starting my virtual assistant business how doubtful I was. Anxious and scared was only an understatement of how I felt. My main fear was if anyone would take me seriously from working from a freelancing platform to starting my business.

Another fear I had was if I would have customers to maintain my business. I was up one night crying wondering why I was at this stage of my life, from making no money to making money then back to square one to not making any at all.

The thing about life is when you are up today; there will be challenges along the way. I prayed for guidance and even though I was not clear on my path I know God had put me here on this path for a reason.

One of the things that I started to do was to network on social media namely Facebook. I told persons that I was offering virtual assistant services but a lot of persons did not take me seriously when I had shown them my previously portfolio from working from Fiverr.

Some who were interested only told me, that you have done well but still no concrete customer who was interested enough in my services. I do not know what happened on a particular day but I remembered a lady reaching out to me and saying she was interested in my services.

I must admit that I was overwhelmed with hearing yes I am interested but not now, but one Sunday on my way back from church I saw that I had received my first payment from Paypal from someone who was actually interested in my services. You couldn’t imagine how excited I was! My first paying customer!

I have always loved to thank God for the little things, even when I got one customer for having no clear way on what to do next. I still found time with God to thank him for something, even when I did not have any income coming in. I used the time to learn something new so that I can help others and myself.

I leave with you these words from my favorite bible verse. Psalm 119:11 11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. I have always used this verse through trying times, yes it might not be related to what situation I might be going through but I do remember where I came from the fact that I had no income, to where I had and then back to having none again.

God has helped me to see that no matter what I am going through his words has sustained me in difficult and good times and all I have to do is remember to keep his promise to me in my heart.

Connect with Julian

Instagram: instagram.com/julivaglobal/

FB: facebook.com/JuliVAglobal/