We all know, the new challenges that life can throw at us. For us, it is no different. One of the challenges that we now had to face was to overcome the fact that my partner had not felt happy in his job for a very long time. The company where he works is just a shit company. The way they treat people there, well, I can tell you a hundred thousand things about it. I have the same negative experiences at the same company. He would prefer to quit completely, but unfortunately, that is not an option. If you have this company on your resume, it is difficult to find work somewhere else. I have been experiencing that for 10 years now. So my partner has little choice in that respect, we need income after all. But the choice we have now made is that he will at least work one day less to be able to create a bit more balance. Only now you should not think that we can use that one day to relax. No, the opposite is true. That one day will have to be used by both of us to build our own business.
It may be even more stressful in the beginning. It is less income in the beginning, more uncertainty, and the mental pressure that we have to find 'an entrance' to 'the market' that we want to address with our creations.
Yesterday he finished his last full-time work week. Now it's time to start! When you have been unhappy with the way you live for such a long time, and burn-out is lurking, you start thinking about how you can create more freedom and at the same time earn your income by doing something you are passionate about. I have been painting for several years now and I discovered pyrography a year ago. My partner wants to focus on woodworking, such as woodturning, and carving, more than anything else. We have thought long and hard, is there a demand for this? And is it possible for us to sell this? We have a few ideas, but of course, it remains exciting and brings uncertainties.
It is scary to say goodbye to a fixed income, but at the same time, it feels liberating to make some room for a bit of well-being for my partner. Let's hope that the time he frees up with this opens up new creative possibilities for both of us. And that we see the way to generate more income than he had before with that extra day. Let me be clear, the bar is not even very high for that, since the company where he works does not pay anything more than the absolute minimum wage. That in itself is sad enough.
At the moment I am busy building our website, where we want to sell our art. To be honest, this is even harder for me than I thought. It's not that I don't know how to make a website, I can do that. But damn, I struggle with my perfectionism. Can you imagine how frustrating it is when you take pictures of your paintings, and then you are not satisfied with those pictures because you are TOO stuck in your idea of what a good product photo should look like?
I see hundreds of pictures of art, much worse than my pictures, also paintings that are not that beautiful in my eyes. And it just sells! And there I am, struggling with what I think are quite nice paintings, not super bad pictures ... and I am just not satisfied with the picture. Maybe not 100% about the painting because I still feel like I can do better ...
It is a combination of many things, perfectionism, insecurity, and fear ... And I know that I have to get over this. I will have to step way out of my comfort zone. The time has come that I have to, but even now I still ask myself every day ... HOW am I going to do that?
As if all this isn't enough, there's also something like SEO around the corner. Without applying this properly to my website, I'm afraid little will happen.
So you can imagine that there's a long to-do list by now. And that's causing me to get stuck. I don't have time for it anymore, it's a "Do or die" situation now. I keep saying "Do", but if I don't make progress quickly, it's more like "Die". And I want to avoid that now.
A wall of doubts seems to be in the way. I know it should be possible, why can millions of other people do it, and why can't we do it? That just doesn't make sense! So if anyone has tips for me on how to kill that perfectionism, doubts, and fears, I'd love to hear them! Or maybe I should just accept that not everything has to be perfect to be successful anyway.
For now, I try to remind myself that every step forward, no matter how small, is a step closer to our goal. We chose this adventure together because we wanted more freedom, less 'slave to your boss for a minimum wage', but also because we believe in our art and ourselves.
The coming period will therefore be all about change and growth. Financially it will take some getting used to, and we will have to be creative with our budget. But this step also offers us the opportunity to build something new, something we love. And hopefully, it will bring us much more freedom, income, and satisfaction than we can imagine now.
