I am a small business owner. I also have two part-time jobs. One giving me 30 hours and the other 10-15 hours a week. A total of sometimes 45-50 hours working per week. I run a household with a total of 3 perfect rescue animals.
I love to cook and I consider cleaning a great stress reliever.
I spend hours posting on social media, emailing back quotes and trying endlessly to promote my side hustle.
I have numerous competitors, most of who have been open for years. I have to keep up with the social media generation while still remembering their are numerous generations around me and let’s face it, everyone needs, wants, have sent or have been sent flowers.
I stress over numerous thoughts- am I promoting enough? Am I putting enough in? What is my breaking point? Where is that point?
I have numerous aspirations- Writing and Law but those are slowly coming together. My side hustle and my jobs are to keep me afloat and get me to my love of writing and my thirst for lawful justice.
I work, I struggle and then I get to a point where my constant working doesn’t seem to pay off or advance me. Yet it still exhausts me emotionally, physically and mentally.
Those are the moments my darkness creeps me- my lack of confidence leads to self doubt which then leads down the lonely path of comparing success, defining success and depression. I am almost hesitant to say that word because it comes down to the self doubt that leads to that sadness. Then after some darkness I see this…
One word: It’s normal! This is normal. This isn’t a scarlet letter. This is life. Life ins’t roses and rainbows every day. It’s tough. It’s time consuming and its extremely mind f*cking. Having a small business doesn’t guarantee a pay check every time you need to pay a bill. Opening a Small business doesn’t guarantee success. It doesn’t guarantee anything but a constant tired ‘look’ and a constant doubt.
Success is also not a one diminutional word. Success is defined differently by every person. For me success is “loving what I do and doing what I love”. It also helps if what i’m doing allows me time to spend with my family and friends. Of course I want a good car, nice home and some side money to travel and see the world. Everything I just listed can be achieved with time-the only reason why we feel we must have it right at this moment is because we feel rushed to ‘grow-up’. Whether it’s the growing conflict in the uncertainty of economics or simply the deserve to be seen as ‘adult-like with all included adult responsibility, we always seem to be rushing into adult hood without enjoying the simple taste of young adulthood.
We place expectations on ourselves without realizing that at any given moment life can throw us a conflict that could derail us from our goals for months, sometimes years. We don't consider all the factors- we don’t see other peoples’s truth. We don’t know that for example one business owner was given her highly successful company to her by her father, or that one business owner inherited a large amount of money from family, or that our competitor studied and has known her craft due to generational commitment. We don’t know the background because sometimes it’s easier to judge someone, put someone down or compare yourself to someone, then it is to face the facts: we don’t know other people’s facts. We only know what they tell us. Some days I don’t know my own facts. Stop comparing yourself to other’s when you don’t know what their story is.
The life lessons here are few; find what you love, love what you do, make time, work hard, take breaks, take time, don’t compare, be proud ALWAYS and never let someone else’s story outshine the story you haven’t told yet.
Kinga, Ela’s Fleur