let’s talk about change, baby. let’s talk about you & me.
I started by business to be a work at home mom. You know, the kind that goes to play group, teaches their 18 month old to read, and then works for an hour or two in the afternoon while the little one naps.
Bliss.
But I changed my mind. I got a taste for entrepreneurship, passion-filled work, and truly stepping into my potential and I changed my mind. Suddenly, when posed with a choice between full-time motherhood and full-time mother-of-business-hood. I chose to mother my business.
It was a big change, done gradually. Yet the transformation as I see it today is startling.
I often catch my breath realizing just how different things are – how little I see my little girl, how routines have evolved, how my husband has changed.
When I started my business, nearly 2 and a half years ago, I set out blogging about craft culture in Pennsylvania. I wrote & created for other blogs. Then I learned as much about web design as I could. I bought a business and changed my focus again. I changed and evolved. Changed and evolved.
I’ve changed my editorial style at Scoutie Girl more times than I can count.
I’ve changed how frequently and about what I blog here.
I’ve changed my job title so many times that I have about a thousand unusable business cards in my office.
My only constant is that a new change is right around the corner.
I’m unapologetic about the number of times I’ve changed course in the last 5 years. Let alone the last 28.
The first paradox is that growing up is about rejecting the past and then promptly reclaiming it.
— Courtney Martin, TED talk
We are always rejecting & reclaiming, in what is often both a beautiful & ugly cycle. We resist change and then embrace it. We are open to possibility and then make up our minds.
Change is inevitable.
But how do you know when to change?
You don’t and you do.
A change is always a gamble. It can go right and it can go wrong. But you don’t know until you pull the lever.
A change will always feel like an abandonment and a warm embrace. You will always be letting go of one thing while birthing another.
It’s time to change when what you’re doing isn’t meeting your goals, when you can envision a different path getting you closer to your destination. It’s time to change when your heart or life throws you a curve ball.
It’s time to change, well, when you want to.
Changing your [mind, business, life, circumstances] doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
It’s not a sign of personal weakness.
It takes courage to do something different. To turn the corner.
What really matters when you make a change is that you are stripping away one – tiny, even – piece of what doesn’t work for you. That’s how you know you’re making a “right” decision.
The thing about change is that you can [almost] always change back.
What have you been dying to change? What’s keeping you from doing the deed?
how to get started when you don’t know what you want to do
I got an email from Anna with a common question. Sometimes this question speaks up loud & clear, as it did to Anna. And other times it shows up as a never-ending quest of research, consulting, and false starts.
Anna wants to know what she should do if she wants to make Art her life but isn’t an Artist in the traditional sense. She says, “I am not that good at it. I do not knit that well and I certainly do not draw as an artist. I just love to do it.”
I can relate, Anna. I can relate.
People are starting businesses at an unprecedented rate. The changing economy has created an ideal environment for experimentation. The need is great.
And I applaud all those who are trying.
But I’m sick of seeing aspirational entrepreneurs waiting at the sidelines while they try out new skills, develop products, approve drafts of shiny logo images, purchase multiple domain names, and hone their brands. Now is the time to start!
If you think know you have something to offer the world, even if you have no idea what that might be, you have to put yourself out there.
You can’t further your dream in a vacuum.
You need the encouragement, support, and give-and-take of a community.
My guess is that you don’t already have this type of community. You might have some close friends & a loving family but there’s a distinct possibility that – through their love – they won’t “get” what you’re trying to do. In fact, they’ll even discourage you.
So you have to build this community.
You build it around you, your imperfections, your passions, and your big ideas. And you reserve the right to change any of those at any time! You are transparent, exploring, and growing.
People will respect your journey more than they would a misguided stab at entrepreneurial perfection.
That sounds great, Tara, how the heck do I go about doing that?
First, you realize that there are no instructions that I can give you that will make the process of experimenting & exploring easier. That’s all on you.
Next, you get yourself set up with some sort of digital publishing platform (blog) and some social media profiles. But instead of setting them up with a finished product or business in mind, you start them with the mission of learning more about what’s out there and sharing your journey with others.
Document your journey. Share your story. Don’t apologize.
The initial benefit is that you push yourself to talk to creative entrepreneurs – doing interviews, talking casually, and networking… – and learning what they do. You’ll discover opportunities you didn’t know existed! But the subsequent benefit is that you can actually build quite a following whilst exploring your options because people really identify with the unfinished story of your journey.
Then, when you decide to try something more professionally, you already have a waiting customer base. You also have the opportunity to explore writing & affiliate marketing along the way.
There is no need to wait until you have all your ducks in a row. Start now and see what happens. There are more options & opportunities out there than you can know. The only way you can find out about them is to try.
PS. I’ve got a new ebook available. It’s short, sweet, and power-packed. It’s called Making Motion: 7 Steps for Doing More with Your Creative Life. If the ideas make your heart beat a little faster, this book just might be the thing to get you moving.
{image credit: Alice Popkorn}
If you are waiting to start until you have the approval of others, you will be waiting forever.
This piece originally appeared as an exclusive for my subscribers… but I couldn’t bare to not share it with you as well.
There are naysayers in our lives who reinforce our own fear of action & creation.
These aren’t people who live on the periphery or hang out in the shadows; they’re our husbands, wives, sisters, friends, parents…
They mean well – they’re not trying to squash our dreams or ridicule our ideas. They just don’t want to see us get hurt, they don’t want to see us fail.
They’ve been taught over & over again that “doing something different” doesn’t get rewarded, it gets punished.
When I first started blogging, my husband didn’t get it. I told him I was building a business, that I was working, that I was trying to contribute to the family.
Each time I opened the laptop, I could feel his disapproval. It weighed on me. I felt guilty for researching artists while breastfeeding (what the heck else was I supposed to do?). I rushed through writing in the evening so that he could putz around on Facebook.
I made every accommodation I could while still working towards my goal.
Little by little, things started to change.
“Working” went from a euphemistic put down to a legitimate call to arms. Small victories brought larger ones.
I’m going to tell you that it wasn’t easy to change his mind. In fact, I never really did.
His support doesn’t come from understanding the work – it comes from seeing the results.
In fact, I asked him, “What advice would you have for someone who’s struggling with getting started or keeping momentum because of unsupportive people around her?”
He said, “Tell her to just keep going. And leave a trail.”
Wow! Sometimes I DO remember why I married him. Yes! Leave a trail of results. Leave a trail of ideas initiated. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs so your naysayers can come find you in the forest of success.
If you are waiting to start until you have the approval of others, even those closest to you, you will be waiting forever.
You need to start so that you can show results. Results matter.
It doesn’t mean you need to succeed at everything you do. In fact, I’ve failed a lot on this path. You can fail and still have results that mean something.
In fact, failing gives you an incredibly valuable result. It’s one thing you no longer have to try, one thing not weighing on your consciousness of ideas.
When I work with a client or compose an email to send you, it’s always with results in mind. It’s not enough for me to communicate a message. I need to say something that creates a result for you.
The goals I have, the blog posts I write, the projects I start – it’s all to create a result. Sometimes the results are financial. Sometimes they’re mental. Sometimes they mean my family doesn’t see me for awhile and sometimes it means they get sick of me.
The result is the key.
People – yes, even that cantankerous person you’re thinking of right now – respect results.
Even if they don’t understand how the result was achieved. Even if they disapprove of the process. Even if they can’t imagine living that way or never imagined you’d live that way.
The result is what lasts.
But you have to get started to get a result.
{image by Erin Tyner}
What do people thank you for?
People thank me for making things easy. Which is a surprisingly difficult thing to do for yourself.
It’s easy to know what you love and what you’re good at. It’s quite another to accept that the easy way really is the right way. Even more difficult to embrace it.
People thank me for dreaming the big dreams. No matter how brave we are, we have a tendency to censor our own dreams.
But when you see someone (me!) say, “I’m going to make it happen.” You feel a little better about upping your goal just one more notch, a little steadier in pushing yourself one inch farther. Permission granted.
People thank me for making them think. Is this my numbero uno goal in life? It just might be.
Dyana Valentine asked me last week, “What do you want more of in the world?” The question had stumped me previously. But I blurted out, “I want more people to think about everything.” And I want less people to take things at face value, accept what they’ve been told. Blind faith has it’s place but experience rules my roost.
Taking the easy road, dreaming big dreams, and relentlessly thinking for myself is my code of conduct. Some would find these qualities contradictory. Crazy. I find them calm & collected.
It’s my journey & I choose to take this road.
Of course, my particular road map is not the one everyone wants to follow. I like it that way. My street is not crowded. But I don’t walk alone.
What do people thank me for? They thank me for being me and helping them to be more of who they already are.
Thank you Danielle LaPorte, Marie Forleo, and Selling Your Soul for the prompt. You have already prompted me to do big things.
{letterpress thank you cards by Paisley Dog Press}
Rennaisance Woman: Managing Multiple Businesses Like It’s Your Job, Cause It Is
This morning, Aycee asked me, “How can I juggle 2 creative businesses?”
It’s a question I get asked a lot. We’re people of varied interests, with a slew of talents. We don’t want to get pinned down to any particular thang.
So instead of specializing, we branch out. Every new idea has a new name, a new domain, a new blog, and a new Twitter handle. And somewhere along the line, we get dazed and confused. And despite having the much-coveted “multiple streams of income,” we have no money.
My title is misleading. I’m not going to explain how to manage multiple businesses. I’m going to show you how your business is all one.
Bold statement: Your business, no matter how diverse, if run [almost] entirely by you, is one business. Not many. Solopreneurs have solo businesses.
“Now, hold on there one crazy minute,” you might say. “Tara, it sure looks like you have multiple businesses.”
Let the showing commence.
I have multiple products. I have ebooks, teaching programs, a digital zine called Scoutie Girl, a business forum in partnership with Megan Auman, and coaching services. I talk about everything from productivity to better blogging to designing a website to email marketing to being a mom to being a breadwinner.
But when it comes down to it, I sell artist-entrepreneur support programs.
I have one business, around one central character (me!), and one grounding mission:
I work with big thinking artists-of-all-sorts who struggle with how to earn a good living from their art. I riff, strategize, and conceive of fresh ways of doing business that leave my clients feeling rejuvenated, their businesses revolutionized. I arm artists with confidence & freedom while removing their fears & stagnation.
You might have a blog here, an Etsy shop there, and a service business around the corner but they are all products of your central mission. Think of them that way and your job as entrepreneur suddenly becomes clear.
And those things that just don’t fit? No matter how hard you cram them into your mission box? Maybe it’s time to reevaluate.
If you have multiple businesses, your task for today isn’t to figure out a new way to market one of them or to write a new blog post for the other, it’s to discover, deep down, what it is that ties these “businesses” together as “products.” What is your overall message & mission that allows your products to function independently?
Need a hand? Book a session with me or try Dyana Valentine’s Pitch Perfect program.
if you don’t challenge yourself, who will?
Are you up for a challenge?
Are you willing to try something that’s never been done? Are you willing to think what’s never been thought? Speak what’s never been spoken?
One of the greatest challenges of being an entrepreneur is that there is no one left telling you what to do. No one. You’ll hear whispers from clients. You’ll receive ideas from coaches. You’ll get inspired by research.
But no one will really tell you what to do.
Or dictate how you do it.
Or schedule it for you.
That part is up to you.
Indeed, it’s not even so much what you do as much as it is pushing the envelope. Are you willing to try a fresh strategy? A crazy idea?
But we end up allowing research to pass as an action item, we search for endless tutorials instead of giving it a go, we walk in others foot steps instead of forging our own trail. Entrepreneurs can’t afford (quite literally) to be followers. Sure, you can borrow from others success – but if you’re unwilling to lead with some small part of your business, it’s time to stop kidding yourself about what you’re trying to achieve.
Are you willing to challenge yourself further than you’ve ever been challenged before?
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. But you could try. I bet you’d learn something in the process.
Look at it as an opportunity to try stuff out. “Ask yourself, ‘What do I get to do?’ not ‘What do I have to do?'” Good advice for any DIY pursuit, actually.
— Mark Frauenfelder, Made by Hand (quoting Steve Gerischer)
It’s our privilege as entrepreneurs, movers & shakers, up & comers, big-thinking power people to create tasks that we don’t know how to do right now. It’s our joy to stretch our skills & ideas beyond recognition. It’s our entitlement to make mistakes while we’re learning.
We must challenge ourselves.
If you don’t challenge yourself, who will?
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Find me elsewhere:
- Underselling: Why Discomfort is a Terrible Pricing Strategy on Oh My Handmade!
- Follow Friday interview at Deva Coaching
- Virtual Panel Discussion on Mindfulness & Social Media with 4 extraordinary women (event is over but you can grab the recording)