BE BRAVE + BE PATIENT + BE FLEXIBLE

If I’ve learned one thing on this art making / small business / entrepreneurship excursion, it’s that the journey can’t be planned. Sure, we can make our lists, and dream our dreams, and plan our plans, but even in doing all of that (which I think we should do), the path that each of us is walking on is going to take us to unexpected places with unexpected twists, turns, and stops along the way. The timing isn’t going to be what we expected and the destination isn’t going to be what we had assumed. The point is to keep moving forward. Keep taking steps. Allow each step and misstep to lead you to places you never could have dreamed of or planned for. We should absolutely have hopes, plans, and dreams, but if we can hold all of those things with an open hand instead of a tight grip, we allow ourselves to grow and change in ways that are both unexpected and necessary. I know that sometimes it’s hard - actually - a lot of times it’s hard to move forward into the unknown, but there are a few principles that I’ve found to be helpful in releasing that control. 

BE BRAVE

When you are working to build a successful product based business, you will fail. Sometimes you fail little, and sometimes you fail big. Each failure that I’ve earned has hurt in the moment, but has later acted as a stepping stone. A lesson learned. If we change our mindsets to see failures as necessary steps towards our future success, we change our reaction to those failures. I know that it’s so easy to step into feeling doubt or shame when something doesn’t work like you thought it would. It feels like wasted time and money and energy that could have been used for more useful things. I get it. I really really do. Shortly after making the switch from watercolor painting to printmaking, I felt all of this pressure to come out with new products. As a painter, I only cared about creating art prints, and that was my sole focus. Printmaking opened up an unexpected door into stationery that I had never planned on walking through, but was suddenly very excited about. In fumbling through figuring out what new products I wanted to make, I had the idea to make hand stamped wrapping paper. It was just before the holidays, and I loved the idea of making beautiful paper to wrap gifts in. I bought the paper, carved the stamps, purchased the packaging and designed the labels, and it was such a huge flop. The end product was really pretty, and I was honestly happy with how everything turned out, but by the time I factored in the cost of materials and how long each sheet took for me to hand stamp, the cost was just too high for wrapping paper. Looking back, I absolutely should have calculated that before I ordered all of the materials and invested in packaging. But also looking back, I learned a valuable lesson about making sure a new item is profitable and sustainable before I make the leap into producing it. 

Missteps happen to everyone. Even the most type-A planner gets things wrong occasionally. But after time to process the flop and head space to see what you did wrong, if nothing else, you learned something! You learned what not to do. You learned how to easily avoid that same mistake again. You learned what changes need to be made to improve. You learned. That’s something to celebrate and embrace. 

So what does that mean? Take risks! Be brave. Choose to be courageous in choosing to be vulnerable. Playing it safe all of the time isn’t going to make the same impact on your business or on your life as taking risks will. 

BE PATIENT

Why is this so hard? Because we want to see the results of our hard work based on our timeline and our expectations, but it doesn’t always happen that way. Many times, especially when we’re first getting started, we expect to see the reward immediately. We have bills to pay and mouths to feed and supplies to buy. Here’s the thing, when the reward doesn’t immediately come in, we have reached a very important, very crucial moment in this whole business thing. Are you going to persist, or are you going to give up? Your business needs time. Time to be refined. Time to gain experience. Time to mature. Time to learn. Time, time, time. Time is essential to building something lasting. Slow growth creates fertile soil for building something sustainable. It creates a safe space for learning and ironing out all of the wrinkles before things start to really take off. We must trust that everything will happen in its time, and we must persist. 

BE FLEXIBLE

I’ve been involved in one way or another with The DIME Store in Denton for many years now. The DIME Store is a locally owned art and gift shop that primarily focuses its product buying around makers in or connected to Denton. It’s a really special store because many of the makers are able to build relationships with each other and with the owner. Being exposed to the retail environment on a regular basis has opened my eyes to a perspective that I don’t know I would have seen on my own, but I am forever grateful I was able to learn: Change is essential. I think a small part of me felt that any sort of change in course was admittance to failure. Like, “Whoops! That didn’t work out, so I guess I’ll try this direction.” WRONG. That is wrong. Change is essential. It’s essential to staying fresh, desirable, and relevant. It’s essential for your creativity and ability to be inspired. It’s essential for growth. There is no way around that. Take your wonderful fresh idea and run with it, and after you’ve spent some time with it, step back. Step back and look at it and think to yourself, “Is this the best it could be? Could it be better? Does this inspire me to make something new? What about the packaging or the display? How has it been received by my peers and customers?” 

What you made may be gloriously perfect, but chances are, it could either be improved, or it inspired a completely new something that you feel better about. And that new something inspires another new something, and so on.

The idea that we are going to be perfect right out of the gate is crippling. Many people won’t get out of the gate at all for fear of not having everything just so. Many people quit before they have ever really even gotten started, but you can make a choice not to do that. You can choose to get started, knowing that you will need to tweak things and change things and evolve along the way. That’s honestly become part of the fun. I’m shocked when I look back and see where I started and where I am now. I never would have planned this for my own life, but it’s better. But it’s also taken a long time, and a lot of failures, and a lot of self-doubt, and a lot of questioning things, but I kept taking those little steps even when I was scared.

Keep taking those steps, no matter how small they are.

Do not give up.