Ep 33. Energy-led marketing for introverts: 5 things to stop doing in 2026

Hello and a very more welcome to Quiet Confidence with myself, Anita Popat.

If you’re listening to this in real time, I’m guessing you’ve had a bit of a break and maybe done some reflection, and now you’re easing yourself back into work mode.

I wanted to kick off 2026 with something that feels lighter than a big planning session, because, let’s be honest, the last thing you need on your proper first feedback is me throwing a massive strategy at you.

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you know I’m all about marketing that works with your energy as an introvert, not against it, and I genuinely want you to adopt this approach for yourself this year if you haven’t done so already.

Think of this as your permission slip episode and take what you need. 

So what are the five things? 

Number one is to stop forcing yourself to be on all the time.

I know that sounds obvious, but how many of you’re forcing yourself to be available, responsive, engaged, cheerful, happy, every single moment of every day.

If you’re anything like I was when I first started, you’re probably replying to dms while you’re having dinner or checking notifications while you’re supposed to be resting, and that puts you in a constant state of, I should probably post something or I should probably engage with someone’s content.

That’s mentally exhausting. So what I wanna say is that it’s okay to have some days off, and it’s okay not to feel like showing up. That’s just being human.

Your audience will understand. They’re not looking for a perfect version of you. They just need the real version. And sometimes that real version needs a duvet day.

If you’re a woman…hormones! So give yourself permission to have days when you’re just not on.

If you do wanna look like you’re on, then batch your content when you’re in flow and schedule it in so that you can have those days off guilt free.

I’ve said this before, but when you show up, when you’ve got the energy for it, not only does it flow better, but you can feel it in your content, which means that your content lands better and that probably leads to you getting more engagement from your audience as well.

Number two is to stop treating rest, like is optional.

I don’t think we talk about it enough in the context of your marketing, because what I see most people doing is that they’ll take a day off, feel guilty about it, and then spend the next three days overcompensating by trying to do twice as much, which defeats the whole point of rest in the first place.

Now, rest isn’t something that you do when you’ve earned it. It’s something that you should build into your schedule as a non-negotiable.

So you know the recharge questions I talk about (the buffer time before and after client calls and events) they’re not just a nice to have. They’re what keeps me sustainable and energized and giving my best to whatever it is that I’m delivering on that day.

For example, if I go to big conferences like Atomicon on last year. I made sure I had nothing booked the day after, and that’s not because I’m lazy, it’s because I know I needed that recovery time and I was actually able to enjoy the event without worrying about how I’d function the next day.

So this year I want you to start treating rest as part of your marketing strategy, treat it as something that you schedule in alongside the rest of your deliverables.

Number three, this one’s huge, is to stop apologizing for not replying instantly.

I’m gonna put my hands up. I’m guilty for this. Saying things like, sorry for the delayed response, apologies for not getting back to you sooner or so, sorry it’s taken me long.

Why are we apologizing for having boundaries? We don’t owe anyone instant access to us.

You’re allowed to have office hours and to stick to them, and you’re allowed to batch your DM responses and take 24 hours to reply to an email, but for some reason we feel like we can’t do that, and honestly, the people worth working with will respect those boundaries.

So don’t feel like you need to be glued to your phone in case you need to reply to something. And I get it. It was so easy to do this when I was in my nine to five, when it’s your own thing, it’s hard to not do that. But I think we need to keep in mind that when we protect our energy by not being constantly available, we can actually be more present when we are engaging with people. So stop apologizing for having boundaries and let’s start owning them.

Number four is to stop measuring your success by extroverted standards.

By this I mean looking at follower counts, engagement rates, how many people you talk to at a networking event, how many DM conversations you had.

These aren’t bad metrics, but they’re not the only metrics.

And for us introverts we’re judging ourselves against numbers that were designed for extroverted marketing strategies. I talked about depth being one of the trends for this year. So what if success looked like having three really deep client conversations instead of 20 surface level ones, or having 500 engaged followers instead of 5,000 random ones?

Or it could be going to one strategic event where loads of your ideal clients hang out instead of going to networking every week. I’d much rather have a smaller audience who really gets what I’m about than a massive following where no one’s actually paying attention.

Because at the end of the day, the things that matter the most to me (and I hope they do to you as well) is:

Are you getting clients that you love working with?

Does your business feel sustainable?

And does your marketing feel good?

If you can answer yes to all of them, then you’re winning in my eyes.

Then finally number five is to stop saying yes.

When your body is saying no. Let’s stop overriding our gut.

You know that feeling when someone asks you to do something and your stomach just drops, or you get that heavy sinking feeling – that’s your body telling you no before your brain’s even thought about it.

How many times have you ignored that and said yes anyway, because you think you should or because you don’t wanna let anyone down or you’re worried about missing an opportunity, and then I bet you’ll spend the next week or month regretting it your body and your nervous system know.

In 2026, I want you to start trusting that. If an opportunity or a collaboration doesn’t feel like a full body yes, then it’s a no. And if you’re forcing yourself to do something because you think you should, then that’s probably a no as well.

This is what energy led marketing is really about. It’s about tuning into your body and making decisions from what feels good for you.

So those were your five permission slips for 2026.

If this way of working resonates with you and you’re thinking, yes, I want marketing that actually works with my energy. That’s exactly what I help with inside my signature marketing program, Silent Storm.

It’s where we work together for three months so you can create a marketing rhythm that really suits your energy and dare I say, get the permission to let go of all the shoulds that you’ve gathered from doing all the courses which have fried your nervous system instead of giving it gentle cuddle.

I genuinely love holding the space to take you back to your marketing foundations and really think about what showing up as you looks like.

If you like the sound of that, you can send me a DM on Instagram or apply here.

Just letting go of these five things is gonna make your 2026 feel so much more aligned.

So here’s to a year where you market in a way that feels like you, where you build a business around your energy, not against it, and where you embrace your quiet confidence so that you can make that loud impact in the world.