Today we’d like to introduce you to Elena Sanchez.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Elena. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’m the girl who brings her teacup Yorkie everywhere. About eight months ago, I packed up my entire life into a car and moved across the country to the beautiful city of San Diego, CA! Originally from Orlando, FL where I graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor’s in Psychology. I am currently working on a Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling which is what brought me to San Diego!
My biggest passions are advocating & educating about mental health, traveling the world, and creatively expressing myself through fashion and lifestyle on my blog. I created The Lifestyle Playbook in 2015 as my secret creative outlet with the intentions of turning the blog into a platform to showcase, educate, and promote a preventive and proactive lifestyle instead of a reactive one. AKA always looking out for your future self and finding that balance. Think of it like a playbook filled with plans to achieve a balanced lifestyle.
The ultimate goal of The Lifestyle Playbook (TLP) is to build, inspire, and connect a positive community with like-minded readers. I believe as a team we can help make mental health more of a norm in our society and inspire other’s to help stop the stigma. Along with mental health, I love to share about my travels, fashion, tips, tricks, and time-saving hacks I’ve picked up along the way.
Has it been a smooth road?
I have definitely experienced challenges along the way in my mental health and blogging journey. My journey and passion for mental health started when I was 14 years old, reading a tiny paragraph in a Health class and knew THIS IS IT. During college, I volunteered to be a Guardian Advocate for mentally ill patients who were deemed unfit to make decisions for themselves. I shortly realized society and the system that mentally ill patients were required to go through was disorganized, completely dated back to the stone age (partly joking), and was sometimes not in the best interest for the patients. Even though we are in 2018, there is still SO much that needs to be done for mental health. Such as getting the conversation going to help end the stigma and having more available resources. I try to focus on being solution-based and doing my part. I truly believe in 10-20 years mental health will be at the forefront of our conversations.
I struggle sometimes in the conversations I have with people in regards to mental health as well. I am aware that some people who haven’t yet educated themselves on the topic will have a hard time understanding it. You can be in the best physical shape of your life but it doesn’t mean you will automatically be in a healthy mental place. When people are mentally ill it’s not always recognizable by their outer appearance like physical injuries (ex: broken arm). It’s helpful to understand that people can be mentally suffering even though they aren’t physically.
You never know what anyone is going through so please show love, kindness, and respect to anyone you meet.
I didn’t know at first how I was going to incorporate mental health on my blog. I didn’t know or follow any mental health bloggers, so I didn’t really have any guidance. Instead, I followed business savvy bloggers to pick up some tips and decided to carve my own path with how I wanted to introduce the topic to my readers.
STRUGGLES WITH BLOGGING:
Since before my mental health journey began, I always had a fiery entrepreneurial spirit and knew I wanted to own a business and consciously create my own future. In college, along with psychology classes, I made sure I was taking business and personal finance classes too. It didn’t apply to my degree but I still wanted to build on those skills. I highly recommend taking classes that you are interested in even if it’s completely different than your major. The Lifestyle Playbook is an LLC and I do operate it like a business when working with brand collaborations.
My advice to anyone who wants to start or is in the beginning process of starting a blog stays true to YOU. Be original, everyone else is taken. People naturally gravitate to authenticity and honesty. For me, this meant to stop aimlessly scrolling on Instagram, stop reading/looking at other people’s blogs, and put my blinder’s on. Focus on what it is you want to do and DO IT.
Stop caring what other people think. You don’t want to regret years from now not starting because you cared too much about what other’s will think/say/or do. Those who mind don’t matter and those matters don’t mind.
Support, support, and support others in the community because we are stronger together. Also, don’t be stingy with information or resources that can help others grow. There’s room for everyone.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into The Lifestyle Playbook story. Tell us more about the business.
As of right now, I am working as a full-time blogger. My blog specializes in mental health, life + style, and travel. I believe using my platform to get the conversation going, educating, and advocating about mental health and mental health awareness is what sets me apart from other bloggers in my community. I saw a gap when it came to mental health bloggers and really believe that will change in the upcoming years.
What do you feel are the biggest barriers today to female leadership, in your industry or generally?
I believe barriers to female leadership start with structural barriers in society and in the workplace. Equal pay should be required by law. I also believe denying the barriers of females in the workplace is what allows these barriers to continuing. EDUCATE YOURSELF. The number of people and conversations I encounter that deny the hardships and barriers that females face in the workplace and in our everyday society only motivate me to keep educating those who don’t know or don’t want to believe it. You will see a whole blog post on this topic on Thelifestyleplaybook.com soon.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thelifestyleplaybook.com
- Email: thelifestyleplaybook@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thelifestyleplaybook
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thelifestyleplaybook
- Twitter: www.youtube.com/thelifestyleplaybook
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/shop/thelifestyleplaybook
Image Credit:
@capturedbysel, @xtianlamm
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
