Running your own business is tough. And hard. And loads of work. And sometimes I question why on earth I do it all. Why I work the hours I do. Why I pour so much of myself into the business and each and every project that I commit to. Why I try so hard to juggle everything and to remain professional and ethical and kind and considerate and as business-like as possible..
And in a creative field it's tough because you put so much of yourself out there. In public land. You pour your heart and soul into stuff and lay yourself wide open for criticism and comments. But the positive comments and the emails and the feedback and the response from 98% of the people out there is so favourable and so lovely and supportive and loyal and that keeps you going. That makes it feel worthwhile.
But some days things just feel overwhelming. And all too hard. And that's today.
I'm just a little one woman band business working from my home.. I don't have a fancy office. I don't have "staff". I don't have a flash car and a huge income. It's just me and my computer and my scrapbooking stuff. Running the business. Working on the website. Juggling everything as best I can.
I fell into this industry several years ago and loved it so much I decided to stay. I decided to quit my day job, take a risk and embrace the opportunities that presented themselves and see where it would all take me.
I never imagined it would lead me to my own website and teaching lots of other creative souls out there in scrapping land or travelling to New Zealand and around Australia to teach or co authoring a book or writing articles or designing scrapbooking product or contributing projects to magazines or to having a vision which would lead me to plan and present a scrapbook event..
I also didn't anticipate any sort of public profile. And I suddenly also became very conscious of the public arena - a very foreign area for me. And the toughest part of my job has been how to learn how to handle the public scrutiny.
Generally I keep this blog pretty light and my posts over the past 12 months have become less and less mainly due to the ribbing one of my kids gets at school about what his mum does for a living. So I am pretty careful now about what I post. i don't post overly emotional opinions or topics or stuff.
But today I received an email that has contributed to changing everything for me. It changed my perspective on things. it affected me more than I should have let it. It was critical. Unproductive. Unnecessary and written by someone who obviously has a lot of time on their hands and felt the need to go through my business with a fine tooth comb and list as many shortcomings as they could think of and let me know about it. It was also someone who isn't one of my regular customers.
I live by the law of attraction. I am a BIG believer in The Secret and I am a BIG believer in positivity and faith and good energy. I try hard to surround myself with like minded people and I am BLESSED to be surrounded by beautiful people who ARE supportive and kind and loving and loyal.
But today just plain sucked. And I AM OVER trying to maintain my composure and not allowing people to see that HELL yeah, stuff does affect me. Unproductive criticism does affect me. Life does suck. Business life IS hard. Juggling family life and work life sometimes does my head in.
And that yes, I am in business so I should toughen up and take it all on the chin. And MOST of the time I agree with that. But I am also a person. Someone trying her hardest ALL the time. Someone trying to build and grow a business by herself. And today I fell into a heap and allowed one person's unnecessary opinions affect me.
I know once my head space sorts itself out I will be fine.. I come from tough stock. And I will bounce back and feel brighter again. And I KNOW that i need to focus on the lovely customers I have who keep me going each day.
But for now I feel the need to take a step back. And reassess some things. Firstly, I'm taking a blog break. I don't know for how long. I may close this one all together. I may come on back here when I feel I am ready.
I may not.
And I'll be keeping the @Home blog going - for now.
Thank you for your support and for visiting me over the past four years. It's been an incredible journey:)
