Two weeks into the New Year and I’m finally getting around to writing my first post. For someone who was writing for an hour a day on a daily basis, this is so disappointing to me. As my fellow bloggers are writing about their focus words for the new year, I was sitting and reading in an almost catatonic state frozen by stress, anxiety, and all the overwhelming feelings that accompany those things.
Farewell to 2016
Last year was an incredible year. I don’t mean that in the “OMG EVERYTHING WAS SO AWESOME!!!” type of incredible. I mean that in the my eyes have never been more open to life and I’ve received so many lessons type of incredible. I celebrated being an entrepreneur for one year exactly and our bank accounts hit rock bottom in the most literal sense. But it was also in that moment that I remembered a pep talk that my best friend Terrence gave me when I was single and pregnant. He reminded me of the legacy of women that came before me in my family and that with this lineage success was my only option. My brother shared with me the tough lesson that successful entrepreneurs aren’t successful because they don’t fail, rather, they fail harder and faster than anyone else. But they make the necessary adjustments and keep moving.
And that was my 2016 in a nutshell. I failed a lot. I learned a lot. I made a lot of adjustments.
Adjusting For Success
I’m an entrepreneur, wife and mother so there were adjustments that had to be made to be more successful in all these areas.
As A Wife
I’m blessed that my husband and I were able to make our marriage stronger as we dealt with financial struggles but that’s not something that we wanted to continue with. We made the decision to uproot our family and move somewhere that would save us way more money monthly. No one wants to be stretching checks so we’ve stopped that.
As A Mother
My kids weren’t flourishing in their schools so now I’m homeschooling both of them. Yes, both. Crazy, right? But since abc has been home with me, her vocabulary has drastically improved, she’s learned her colors, and her shapes. She’s been with me for a month. And mini has matured so much that she’s taking a lot of her learning into her own hands. But we’re also closer to the city and closer to more culture so we’ve been experiencing a lot more as well.
Mini’s first 5k!
As An Entrepreneur
When I worked in banking one of my clients told me that the key to wealth is having multiple streams of income. Some will always be active and some will be passive but having more than one is key. When I left corporate, I wanted my site to be my main stream of income and my store to be just some additional money. When that’s not how my money was made, I was discouraged but had to understand that business is also cyclic in nature. In 2015, my store made me the most money but there were some things I didn’t like. I thought my sewing technique needed to be fine tuned. In 2016, I put my store on vacay and have been working diligently on my sewing skills. Which means that the bulk of my income was my site. And Amazon. I started to work from home for Amazon which was pretty cool–except that I became stressed out.
As Myself
This is the area that I paid no attention to in 2016 which is why by the time the end of the year came, I was a mess. No self-care rituals. All work. No dates. No fun. Nothing. This is my major shift for 2017.
Being Epic In 2017
I had these HUGE plans for taking 2017 by storm. My editorial calendar for the YEAR was completed. Yes, year! I determined that my theme was going to be “Do Epic Shit”–no half-assing around these parts. But guys, I have been epic at resting and that’s about it. I want to beat myself up and yell harsh words at myself but I can’t. I needed a break. In the last month of 2016, I was working 80+ hours/week while looking for a place to live, traveling for work, figuring out our new life in our new area, unpacking, and trying to shake the unshakeable fatigue that had fallen over me.
I’m not going to say that’s over now and I’m back to being a workhorse because I may need more rest and I may not but either way, I’m still committed to being epic–even if that means being an epic napper! But seriously, this year I’m focusing on being the best version of myself, giving myself more grace, and focusing on my happy. I really want to take this year and focus on living an epic life.
I’m excited for this year and implementing the lessons I gained from last year.
