Don’t get me wrong, I love every minute of it however everyday is like an emotional rollercoaster and I have found myself reinventing the way I have worked for the last 20 years in business. It’s fabulous.
I spent a weekend recently with my best friend and mentor eating Indian food and writing my business plan while she gently prompted me to focus and refocus my goals and I learned a very fine lesson from her. FAIL FAST. At the time I have to be honest, that weekend there were a lot of things passing between us that as wisdom and laughter, I shelved as genuine nuggets as my always needed quality time with her and didn’t realize how important this one was until it actually started to happen.
This is not really something I had in mind when I envisioned the romantic view of working for myself.
Back in the trenches, planning for a business operation happens so quickly sometimes you don’t notice the passage of time. In one day I was meeting with 3 or 4 artists, a bank, my landlord, setting lesson plans for courses and trying desperately to figure out social media programs. I had changed the name of my studio 3 or 4 times in a week and the feedback was not what I had expected. My ego was bruised and my procrastination levels had hit a high. In a week the number of things that I did were becoming overwhelming and while it seemed that all things were positive, all of a sudden- they hit a wall. Whether it was my energy, momentum or just the way of things, no more calls came in, the meetings stopped and no one wanted to do classes at the studio. I was in a rut, so discouraged and feeling like it wasn’t going to work out.
I called my friend.
She reminded me- this is excellent news. You have hit a roadblock- a small failure and you have done it early so now all you need to do is refocus and decide how it can work for you rather than let it take you over. Get over it and figure out what to do with what you’ve got.
It sounded so simple to hear it come from her mouth and so simple to hear it now but it was just the kick in the pants I needed. I just wish that I had someone like her back in highschool to push me in the right direction, and to help me deal with failure quickly! Maybe I would have started a business a long time ago! Maybe then pigs would fly 🙂
A
