The Drive: What challenges have you overcome?
The fear of being seen was a huge influence on my first year in business. Not only because I still had a day job that I didn’t want to know I was working on my business, but it was so tempting to hide away where it’s safe! Only when I took the challenge to make myself visible, and realized just how much I was letting visibility hold me back did things change.
Only when I took the challenge to make myself visible, and realized just how much I was letting visibility hold me back did things change.
Starting my own business also drew out perfectionist tendencies that I never knew I had! I’ve drawn a lot on Brené Brown’s wise words – perfect is the enemy of done, and practiced really just putting things out there and not getting too caught up in making it perfect.
Technology was one of my challenges, but has been one of the most unexpectedly enjoyable parts of my business. I now love the design aspects, and allowing my creative juices to flow with ideas and content creation.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
Pros – Being able to choose what I want to do and when. And having the freedom and flexibility that working my own hours gives me. I love that I have a much more relaxed life these days, and although I still have times of stress, they’re things that I choose to stress about, and not the imposed stress of a boss telling me what to do!
Cons – I’m still working to get to a point where my business income is regular and reliable, so planning things like holidays means taking time out from the business. The other big con is that everything is on me – whether I succeed or fail, how well I plan, how well I go on a day to day basis. Not having a team to support me, or to fall back on is hard, but something I’m planning for as I begin to grow and identify how I can build that team.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
I’ve got lots of big dreams for both Employment Avenues and Your Business Wife. I’d love to move into offering more face to face and online training, helping to open their eyes to the world of career and business possibilities that appear when they work in their zone of genius.
I also want to do a lot more writing to help people to connect to what they want outside of what is “expected” of them, outside the “shoulds” and “social limitations” and to help people move past the fear of creating something outside the box – to give them the structure that supports their vision.
Ready to kick-start your career? To find out more, visit Employment Avenues.
Looking for help to get your business moving forward? Visit Your Business Wife.
