This may be a day late again, but it’s really no big deal. As long as it’s once a week and honest, it’s all good.
This last week I made a lot of progress on the coaching course I’m currently doing – I was really cranking out the words, I think I wrote about 2000 all told, with research and citations and references and all that jazz. I also solidified the MarbleGear website, it’s in a really good place now, as well as finishing all the YouTube graphics for our various marble-related accounts – Jake can go off into the depths of YouTube and leave comments that indirectly advertise our shirt company. As well as all this, I discovered a few more avenues for products. Although I’m using Gelato for the automated t-shirt production and distribution, I have WooCommerce built into the blog behind the shop, which makes it easy to sell products from stock holdings in real life.
The next steps for me, and these are necessary to move me on to the next plateau, is opening a business as a sole trader (so when I’ve completed my coaching course I can offer online coaching), setting up a business bank account (just having a couple of transactions from different sources going in at once in my personal account was confusing – I’d love to keep the business stuff separate for my own sanity), and starting the driving lessons again (this will allow for quicker and easier transport to post offices for distributing real stock, as well as popping to the gym every morning for an hour, and it’ll just make getting places easier and more convenient).
These are big steps.
For a long time I’ve been trying to stay small and insignificant, hiding in plain sight, trying not to attract any attention to myself. But I want to make a mark on this world, I’ve realised this now. To do that, I cannot be small and insignificant. I need to attract attention. In a good way, obviously.
I have a fear of success and for a long time I couldn’t work out why. Taking into account my (as yet not professionally diagnosed) ADHD, I’ve come to realise that it’s due to my proclivity to procrastinate. I’ve talked before about my procrastination, and really, it all comes down to failure being easier than success. I feel like my procrastination is a by-product of my cluttered mind, and running a business would add to that clutter, with more vectors vying for attention. The thing is though, I know I enjoy being in a productive state. The last time I felt like this was when I used to go to college on a Friday. I’d get up at 6am, shower, get Jake up and ready, we’d have breakfast, then I’d drop him off at school and I’d get the bus to college, spend a few hours there, then come home, do a bit of writing while it was fresh in my head, then go get Jake from school, play on the Xbox with him for a bit or something, then when he’s in bed, spend a few more hours writing – it felt good to be productive! And I know it did! It’s like I didn’t have time to worry or think about thirty other things, as I had to concentrate on this one thing for a long time. The breaks where I’m sitting down and relaxing, not really doing anything but maybe playing a videogame or watching a movie are nice, but that’s when the thirty ideas are all vying for my attention, and when I feel that fear most. When I am up and doing that one essential thing, I’m focused on that, and nothing else gets a look in.
Writing this has helped me solidify my thinking.
Big steps.