Baby steps
I continue to be awed and inspired and so very much encouraged by all the great comments I’ve been receiving about my pending business venture. Thanks and hugs o’plenty for the sentiments!
I just did a huge entry (that got lost) about Phase One, which occurred today. Let’s just say that it went fine. It unfortunately revealed another roadblock, which I will call Having to Run it Up the Flagpole. Meaning, the right person agreed, but Someone Else has to approve or it’s a bust. This has to do with securing free/cheap space in which to host said project (because you can’t meet clients in your home, not that I’d want to, for this particular project). But, just in case, there will be a backup plan.
I had the best therapy last night — I wrote a business plan. I immersed myself in it, actually. It’s not overly formal — I just laid out my goals and objectives (believe it or not, there’s a difference!), figured out what to do and when to do it, and thought about how to do it. In fact, I’ve pretty much been spending every free minute on this — it is what is really important to me right now. I love to sit and dream and plan, only now, the stakes are so much higher — I have to put this plan into motion, and that’s something new to me. I am horrible with follow-through. I don’t nomally prioritize well — usually something else unrelated comes up and my attention becomes permanently diverted. In any event, I’m not going to save the world, but I’m sure as hell going to try. 🙂
Shan and I met with a make-it-happen person today, who gave us lots of advice. And we appreciated it (really, the support behind it), but we disagreed with some of it. We want to start small and manageable, and build up as we work out the bugs and kinks and manage to free up more and more time (i.e., we can’t quit our day jobs — this is just an off-hours venture for now). He suggested the reverse — get capital (human and financial) and dream big. Do something huge and, while we’re enjoying the successs from that, start the smaller, side projects. I like that idea, but for now, we need small, measurable successes to continue encouraging us. I would hate to put in a lot of work into one big venture and watch it flop. He’s concerned, though, that a small venture may lead to a small — yet so very large — failure. He doesn’t want us to invest our hopes in this series of successes and get crushed if the house of cards falls down right away. But our small venture doesn’t require much for start-up, and therefore, if it flops (which Shan says it never will because we will refuse to accept failure as an option), we haven’t lost much.
In any event, it feels so very good to have a purpose — to channel my energies for my future. Shan and I have kind of had a “No Negativity” theme going this week — don’t allow anybody (including ourselves) to burst our bubble about anything. Even at work, we’re not complaining about it, instead just shaking our heads and reminding ourselves that the pain can’t and won’t last forever.
If I can be honest, I’m scared. But it’s a good type of scared — more like butterflies instead of rocks in my stomach. I think about this all the time now. Shan and I are huge proponents of the possibilities once we have established one project — we will make this one self-sufficient, and we will go on to create more and more. It’s a neat precipice to be standing on … and to REALIZE you’re standing on it. Because this is the time we’re going to remember when we’re looking back and smiling at how hard it was until we found a way to make things better. Things don’t have to be hard. They really don’t. Or, at least, they don’t have to be hard forever. You find ways to cope or, better yet, overcome. And then, you show others how to do it for themselves.
And that, my friends, is the plan, and I’m stickin’ to it!!! 😉