What I learned in 2019
2019 was my best year in business to date. Like most people who own their own business or have a side hustle you can and will learn a lot about your business in one year. A year of insights, struggles, finances, personal growth and achievements. This is what I reflect on each year. After 4 years of business I finally feel like I have figured out what works for me and my business. 2019 was great, but I learned that I made too many goals that I ended up failing at. I realized that saying no to jobs was not the end of the world and most importantly made my health the number one priority.
So let’s talk about the goals I set for 2019 and how I failed at hitting a lot of them. For one, I said I was going to blog more and didn’t post one blog in 2019! #fail. I had such ambition last January to be good at this and just did not give it the time and energy it takes to sit down, collect my thoughts and just write. I realized now that it takes a lot more than just a quick hour to write a blog. Who knew?!! Those bloggers make it seem so easy. It’s not…well at least not for me. I am not a writer, so sitting here and typing out my thoughts and feelings is intimidating. I think that is why I didn’t blog in 2019 as I was more scared of it then I realized. What I did learn while not blogging is that there is so much more to share about my story, share tips, showcase jobs and really just talk. It’s hard to put it all out there on social media, so I know understand why people blog or vlog. I learned making goals doesn’t really work for me. I wrote down all these things/items that I wanted to get done in 2019 and seriously did not even cross off half of them. Writing more blogs, designs more prints, getting my products in mom & pop shops are just some that were on this list. I honestly set myself up for failure because my list was too long. I know I’m not the only one out there that did this, right? So in 2020 I decided to not even make goals. I’m just going to DO IT! How many of you say you are going to start something and just FAIL? As you can see from me admitting that I sucked at blogging, there is always time to start fresh & just do it. I’m not mad at myself for not hitting those goals, maybe a little disappointed, but I didn’t let my own failures stop me. It’s about learning what works for you.
While I did say that 2019 was my best year in business, ironically I said no to more jobs. Weird! I did some pretty epic large jobs that I am proud of, and said no to things that would just send my stress level over the top. I have always struggled with saying no to jobs in fear that it would mean the end of my business, but clearly that was not the case. I remember thinking at the beginning of last year, I can say no and it will be OKAY… turns out it was. From years past I always took on more than I could handle. I remember doing up to 8 weddings in one weekend on top of large business/corporate jobs during the summer weeks. I was not sleeping, eating horrible & my stress level was beyond what I could handle. It was exciting to have all these jobs, but I was so cranky. I didn’t even have a minute to pee let alone have any time for myself or with my husband. I worked around the clock and cranked out one board after the next. I would take the weekends off but really come Monday I was already behind. It was crazy! My business was growing and it was exciting, but at the same time I was overworking myself & starting to hate this job I had created. So that when I made a promise to myself last year that I would just have to say no sometimes. This was the best thing I could do for Chalk Boss in 2019. Learned that saying no to something doesn’t always have to be bad. It means you know your limits and that’s okay.
Speaking of limits… I pushed my health in 2019. After 4 years in business and saying no to more jobs to try and keep my stress level “normal”, I was still so tired! WHY??? I knew something inside my body was not right, but just kept thinking I will feel better tomorrow. But tomorrow came & I felt worse, or just blah. I was eating healthy, working out regularly, trying to gets as much sleep as I could. So it all didn’t make sense. In the spring of 2019 I finally decided that I need to find a doctor to help me out. So very long story short is I had WAY to much yeast growing inside my body that was causing all these symptoms. I, like you are probably thinking… what! That is so weird! Who has that? Turns out me. It was good to have somewhat of an answer, but it’s still not 100% figured out. In no way do I have any major health issues (thank the universe) but I did learn that stress was NOT helping any of my symptoms. So I put my health first and focused on getting better. This also is part of the reason why I said no to jobs. My body was telling me that I had pushed too hard and it needed more time to recover. I find myself waking up earlier to get those extra hour or two in the morning just for myself. It’s something that I think more of us should be doing in order to reconnect and find what’s important to you. Our bodies can only handle so much before they tell you to stop & breath that can be scary. My personal health in 2019 was a journey that I didn’t see coming and one that I learned a lot about myself and what I can handle for the next year.
I really could go on and on about all the mistakes, changes, accomplishments & missed goals of 2019 but these three things were what stuck out from the year. In my business and personal life I realize that it’s not about being perfect, it’s about speaking your truth and what works for you. I noticed that people want to learn from me, be inspired and hopefully it will give them the courage to just do it! “IT” being whatever! My hope is that you learn from me in this first blog post of 2020 that you can still come back and write that post, start that side hustle, only take on what you can handle, and take care of yourself first!
I leave you with this quote that I stumbled across at the beginning of January and it holds so much truth!
"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something."
Xoxo,
Katie