So..... as y'all probably already know, 'cause you're here reading this blog post, I went and started a business.
Should I have?
That is the question I continue to ask myself on a regular basis. It's not for the faint of heart, let me tell you that right now. So if you're like me and you throw in the towel easily, buckle down butter cup, it's time to get real with yourself. You're gonna wanna quit. You're going to want to quit. One more time for good measure, YOU WILL AT SOME POINT THINK ABOUT QUITTING.
Don't.
You hear about peoples business ideas in casual conversation all the time but rarely do you hear that someone turned that talk into affirmative action. I think one of my patrons, at my day job, told me the other day that it's somewhere like 4% of the 98% of people who have an idea, actually go through with it. Of that 4%, only less than 1% actually become successful. So yeah those are the odds I'm looking at, how hard can it be. (inserting palm to face now)
A good portion of people give up within the 1st few months and the rest usually fail to never try again within the first year or two.
So ya, it sounds super promising.
Nope, it's not been easy, I'm a one woman show at the moment and it's a lot to deal with. I've got marketing people blowing up my inboxes. 100 spam calls a day. Unsolicited advice from every angle, and some planting their little doubt seeds in my brain. "Do this, don't do that", "you can't be successful if you don't do X,Y,Z".
I am always tired and I think I am working somewhere around 70 hours a week, plus motherly and wifely duties. I yawn all the time my customers at work are always saying in their grumpy old man voices "You're too young to be tired" ( I'm talking about you Jim) and my husband is constantly telling me to sit down or relax.
My response: "Relax? What is this foreign concept you speak of, I say, I must research this topic asap!" lbvs.
So you might be asking yourself " Well if it's so exhausting, and your tired all the time why do you do it?"
The answer is simple, because I love it, and this business is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I love art, I love bringing awareness and positivity to mental health issues through apparel, and quite frankly this business checks off like 3 of my major aspirations as a child. Damn it I can't let 9 year old Ariel down, no can I ?
I have always since I can remember wanted to be an artist, a designer, and a writer. Well now if I am being really honest with you all, and myself, I was supposed to be much more than that. What I really wanted to be, but I let young Ariel down, was ( clears throat to announce) a singer song writer, who sold her art, designed clothes, helped the needy, traveled the world and brought about world peace. Yup I had HUGE aspirations.
Now I didn't ever expect I'd actually become all of that but the world peace part would have been dope. I'm just sayin' ANNNYYYWAYYY moving on.
Art is my go to for release, for mental clarity, and for inner peace and I just always thought if I could do something with it then I should.
So here I am. Doing it. Tired as #%$^, but loving every minute of it, because I am proud, and that, at the end of the day, is your reward.
You get to be proud of the things you've done, even if you failed. Heck, those things you thought you could never do, you did em.
You get to go on a journey of self development and find out what you are really made of. You get to see your hard work build something for you instead of for someone else. You get to look back at that 8 year old version of yourself and say "hey kid, we made it."or at the very lest " We tried."
So please don't give up on yourself so easily( iI don't know if I'm talking to you or me at this point). I know it's harder said than done, but just don't ok? Be the .03% success story you know you can be. You can.
Hell, if you have a job, you show up every single day and help make sure someone else's business runs smoothly, why not do it for yourself? You make mistakes at that job, do you quit there? Nope, you keep going, so put that effort into yourself. You've got this, and so do I.
Don't let that negative self talk, the fear, or even other people keep you from doing the things your heart says you should. Go make your inner child proud of the adult you've become. Show them all that dreaming panned out, and for all you on the fencers, don't quite your daydream.
Until next time.
XoXo
Ariel