Growing With Your Business
Once upon a time not too long ago, my husband and I decided to start a food blog. It’s interesting how people react when I talk about “food blog” or food photography. I’m not “jealous much?” but they don’t oooh and aaah like that when I talk about Online Business Management! Aaannnyyywaaay, after several months, we finally got our new food blog out the proverbial door! I cannot begin to tell you how excited we were to launch that baby! Here is what we learnt about what it looks like when you grow with your business.
Growing Pains
Even though we had both started and run our own businesses for quite some time by that point, all the emotions and sticking points of starting something new came flooding!
👉 Impostor syndrome – aka self doubt.
👉 Overwhelm – because of all the seemingly simple tasks that take 100,000 hours to actually get working … you know what I’m talking about 😉
👉 Procrastination – getting foundational systems and processes in place is a daunting and soul sucking thing for a business owner.
👉 Fear of putting ourselves out there – even though as online entrepreneurs we’re already out there 😏.
👉 Fatigue – because we were crazy and went at this during the summer while the kids were home for summer break.
Acknowledging what’s also true
At the same time, it turned out that these things were also true:
✔️ It was meant to be – the beautiful collision of Kanyi’s food and photography skills and my then Virtual Assistant skills was undeniable.
✔️ We were not newbies – that impostor syndrome thing was completely unfounded. All our skills over the last couple of years had led us to that moment.
✔️ We were not going at it alone – by sharing the burden with each other, we were able to drastically reduce the overwhelm. I don’t know how people do this alone. Teamwork really does make the dream work!
✔️ We had a community that was excited to support us – we were totally floored by all the people who cheered us on and subscribed to join us in this adventure.
✔️ As for the fatigue, all the kids are now in school! And my goodness, the amount of time and level of focus it’s opened is uh-mazing!
My encouragement to you
It’s hard to believe how much time has already passed since we launched Comfort Food and Drinks. Consistency has been the hardest part but we’re still going at it, confident of the value we offer families around the world! If you’re thinking of starting something new or expanding into new territory, I’d like to encourage you. Take stock of your abilities, resourcefulness and grit! You’ve got what it takes to make your dreams a reality and you have people around you who want to see you win!
