Intentional Blogging with @surelymichelle

Who is surelymichelle?

I'm Michele Amon, and I'm the creative mind behind the Surely Michelle blog. It is Christian blog catered toward young Christian woman. Through this blog I serve my unique daily take on all things Kingdom faithfulness and fashion. So, I write in and create content within those four categories.

But aside from that, I am on route I'm aspiring to finish off my masters in international development. I love talking about international development, community development, fixing poverty etc. That's where my academic career lies.

I am the second of nine children.

French fry lover.

I love to dance.

I love to sing.

I'm a worship leader.

Prayer warrior.

Pastor's kid.

What is the story behind the name "surelymichelle?"

Quite literally God gave me like the vision of Surely Michelle! Though it was birthed in May 2020 of this year, God gave me the vision in November of 2019. I was in a period of fasting and prayer, just praying towards the year 2020. And truthfully, I had plans to launch a boutique in 2019. But funny enough, my book of plans got lost. So I threw that out the window, moved back home and I was just really praying. Like, "God, why did you move me back here to Toronto?" After that prayer, I fell asleep and I had a dream. In that dream God literally showed me the name Surely Michelle on a clothing label. When woke up I just remembered, "Surely Michelle." I could have never thought of that on my own.

As I prayed more intentionally about the name, I heard God tell me: "You need to start this as a blog. You're going to get the boutique. But, I want you to impact souls and I want you to impact lives first, so, start this as a blogging medium." Now for me, blogging is not my thing! So for me this was like, "Are you serious, God?" Plus, I didn't want to put myself out there as a content creator. I really just wanted to start my store but God's like, "No, I want you to profit souls first before you profit dollars." So that's where this has started from! And by the grace of God, it has impacted many lives from around the world. I'm just blessed to be doing what God has asked me to do in this current season of my life.

What is your purpose, how is God connected to that?

Purpose at times for many of us has become so confined to an occupation, profession, or a spiritual calling. But now I've really come to discover that purpose is more than just one thing. Truthfully, it's multi dimensional. The Bible tells us that we were created to worship, but it also tells us that we were created to do good works. It tells us were created for God's purpose, but it's also told us that we're purposed to be ambassadors of Christ. So my purpose truly is embellished with many different assignments in this life. These are to help me fulfill my ultimate call which is to be a voice and mouthpiece for God. All of this helps me fulfill the ultimate mission we all have, as believers, which is to go into the world, and preach Christ everywhere. So that's how God is connected to my personal purpose.

What does it mean to “Be Intentional?”

I mean, everybody talks about "being intentional." When looking at the word intentional at its most basic meaning, it means "deliberate or to do something on purpose." And when I think about it, I'm reminded of the infamous scripture that we all know, Joshua 1:6-8 where he tells Joshua to "be strong, be courageous." He doesn't say Joshua "do strong, do courageous." He says, "be strong, be courageous." So, what does that mean? It literally means to become strong and become courageous, or in other words, exist as strong, exist as courageous.

When I think about being intentional, I literally think of existing deliberately every single day. There's this new slogan that I always say nowadays: "Make your life count, make every single day count." That means being intentional about every single day. Exists deliberately every single day. Make deliberate choices every single day. One of my mentors told me that average happens to people, but extraordinary doesn't happen to people. Extraordinary people are extraordinary because they're willing to do what average people are unwilling to do. If I truly want to be extraordinary it will cost me the price of being intentional. It will cost me the price of being deliberate about the decisions I make, so that I can truly fulfill the purpose, the assignment, the call, and ultimately my mission as Christ's Ambassador here on Earth.

Why is it important to live intentionally in your field?

My sphere of influence spans across the board. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not just a blogger or a digital creator. I'm a worship leader, daughter, student, employee, entrepreneur, etc. When your influence has a voice in so many different rooms. People are counting on you and watching you to see how best you will intentionally steward your gifts, your talents and your abilities. Basically everything that God has deposited within us. So it's important that I live intentionally so that those people are not let down. But even more so, God is watching me! It's so important because I have every responsibility, every duty to bring God back a return on his intentional investment within me. All the gifts, all the ideas, all the abilities, talents, skills and grace that he's bestowed upon my particular life. I have every responsibility to bring him back a return. For me, my return is souls. So if I choose to live intentionally in these spheres of influence, these spaces of impact that I've been graced with, I have a higher chance to win others to Christ for good.

What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

Quite literally, the first thing I do when I wake up, is I always say, "Thank You, Jesus." For the last decade, and it seems so corny or cliche, but literally that's what I do. There are days where it you know spills out with so much elation and then there are days where I'm struggling to get it out. But no matter what transpired the day before, the first thing that I do it comes out of my mouth. It's a praise and it's "thank you Lord for waking me up this morning."

What is one thing you are being intentional about in your life right now?

EXERCISE! A lot of people see me as a girly girl, but really I played basketball for, 7-8 years of my life. I definitely am into sports and keeping in shape! I currently go on a walk, for an hour (at the minimum) almost every day of the week. Within that hour I've told myself I have to take 5000 steps and I beat that record a couple times recently, so I increased it to 7000! I've been very intentional about keeping up with my own personal health goals because health is wealth at the end of the day.

What is ONE piece of advice would you give to the girl who is struggling to be consistent with blogging?

The one piece of advice I would give is to plan your content on a quarterly basis. Blogging is demanding and requires a lot out of you! Writing takes a lot of creativity and intellectual power. You want to know what you're going to be saying to your audience. I say plan quarterly (every three months) because if you try to plan your content a whole year out, you'll to bite off more than you can chew and things change. Giving yourself that three month period is like giving yourself like little test periods. This helps to develop your writing and to develop your content. That will take you towards your end goal for blogging, whatever that may be.

If you are a blogger who is looking to monetize yourself, if you try to plan just month to month, it is actually more taxing because you have to literally sit down every single month and think of something. You may also leave each month deflated. With the quarter system, you have the next month to look forward to. What's also great is that you would already have the next month planned out. As a blogger who does a lot of series, it's really important that I plan my content in that manner. It helps me to review and edit. So, planning quarterly would be my best advice I could give to any girl who is struggling with blogging!

How can we stay connected with you?

You can stay connected with me through Instagram and Twitter and Pinterest and soon to be YouTube by searching for @surelymichelle. I love connecting with new people. So, don't hesitate to hit me up and connect with me!