RE-CODING THE PESSIMIST

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work" - Thomas Edison

The moment the light bulb goes bang, it's an energy like no other, buzzing at 100 miles per hour, charged and inspired, feeling unstoppable like your new idea will change the world and it probably could if we gave ourselves half the chance.

I remember when I came up with the concept of my brand I was so nervous about what other people would think of the idea, worrying if it had the cool factor, worrying about failing, looking stupid and the pressure to exist on social media with 100000000000 followers was too much. Would anyone like me? will anyone follow me? will anyone buy from me? I'm sure we've all been there at some point even if we didn't outwardly make it known.

We tend to usually flirt with an idea then run shy mainly down to a few reasons:

Fear: the fear of the Unknown, fear of trying, fear of hard work, the fear of rejection, fear of failing. Fear is the biggest vibe killer for any idea.

Doubt: We are already guilty of self doubt and putting up barriers and obstacles of our own but to add more salt to the wounds, there's always that one friend or family member who you are so excited to share your new idea with but before you can even get to the grand finale of your story, they one bomb you in the face with an extra layer of doubt AND just in case you didn't have enough already, they will sure enough give you an extra dose of "what's the point in that", "oh sounds a bit difficult to me", "Everyone's doing that", "get yourself a real job" OR they will come up with some weird conspiracy theory of a 100 reasons why you shouldn't do it ...I think you get my drift.

Then you have this one (to no fault of your own)

Robots: Yes robots! I've always felt this way since my first job at 17, I felt like a robot, programmed to do as I was told, with stupid rules, regimented structure, uninspiring, unable to speak up because I was bought up on the culture of 'respect your elders'. There was no forward thinking or any aspirations to challenge the status quo.

As John Williams explains 'The education system trains us to be passive: sit still, wait for instructions, seek approval from others and ask for permission before doing anything. This is good training for an employee, terrible for making your dreams happen. The similarity between school and employment is no coincidence - school was designed during the Industrial Revolution to produce compliant workers for the factory'.   

We have been BRAINWASHED to be come 'Workerbots'. 'Looking for instructions, trying to fit into opportunities offered to us, rather than create our own'.

And before you know it that little glimmer of the light bulb moment quickly snuffs out!

RE-CODING THE PESSIMIST

If you feel you can relate to any of the above, listen carefully! If i had listened to every person that crossed my path who had an opinion on my idea of starting a business I wouldn't have one FULL STOP! Your family members are usually your main worriers, mainly because they care and they don't want to see you get hurt, they worry that your business won't financially support you and that you will end up homeless and starved on the streets, extinct somewhere.

Friends, they worry that you are getting ahead of them and they will be left behind while you swan off into the sunset with your gigantic idea that's going to change the world. They may even try to put a little bit of doubt in you "are you sure you are doing the right thing".

Paulo Coelho explains it the best for me (found in his notes in The Alchemist.)

From a young age we already know our personal calling in life, it's that something that fills us with enthusiasm but we don't always have the courage to confront our dreams because of 4 obstacles.

1.We are told from childhood onwards that everything we want to do is IMPOSSIBLE and with that the layers of prejudice, fear and guilt accumulate. 

2. Once we get past that we have the second obstacle, LOVE. It’s the fear of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dreams. 

3.  Third obstacle, the fear of DEFEATS that we will meet on our path. We who fight for our dreams suffer far more when it doesn't work out because we cannot fall back on the old excuse of "oh well I didn't want it anyway" 

And that's a lie. You do want it, you have to realise a few trips and falls doesn't equal to failure.

 4. The fourth is the REALISATION of the dream we have been fighting for all our lives. Oscar Wilde said  "Each man kills the thing he loves". The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel we do not deserve to get what we want either despite of all the obstacles and suffering we have over come.

No matter which direction I have taken, my soul mission has always remained the same, reminding myself of my higher "Purpose". What's yours? Write this down, focus on that. I had a lots of different people telling me how difficult it would be to start a fashion brand and how much hard work was involved, almost assuming it was outside of my capabilities. Thankfully I was built with the mind set of 'I don't take no for an answer'.

I simply looked at those around me and thought "if they can do it, I can do it". I came up with an brand name, registered a domain, signed up to all the relevant social media pages, then kept them on the low till I was ready. What this did it gave me a starting point, a place to build from, i created a vision board on how I wanted it to all look, with all the things that inspired and interested me, now the next time someone tried to tell me I couldn't do it, it felt like I had something to prove that I could. 

START!

NAME Think of a name, any name even if you decide to change it later that's o.k. but pick something for now. Sign up to all your chosen social media links (again, you can change this later) this gives you a space to work from. If you have a definite name already buy the domain ASAP, like now, right right now. I had this problem when i started my fashion brand, somebody had already bought the domain to my brand name so i had to choose another that linked to my brand in someway then made it my tag name. The following year i saw the person hadn't renewed it so i quickly bought it. Now i have both ! but to save the drama buy it immediately, as you may not be as lucky as i was!

VISION Create a vision board of some kind whether it's in words, pictures or both. A mood board helps you to communicate with others and the style of how you want to present your brand. It also helps you to map out and edit all your amazing ideas. I'm a visual person i like images to illustrate what i want. This made things so much easier for me when communicating what i wanted from a graphic designer and how i wanted my website to look. Drawing out my first design ideas, you could draw out how you would like your dream app to look, or how you would like the style of your products to be shot.

For me this was a good starting point, to get everything out of your head and onto paper.

SHARE  This is something i didn't do at the start and i hugely regret it. I think i mentioned this in my previous post about wasting time for the perfect moment, or the perfect logo or the perfect font colour before letting anyone in the world know about your amazing idea. 

Honestly, all this is doing is stunting your growth. By sharing, we learn and the more we learn the more it helps the growth and the direction of where to take our idea. Document your journey whether it's on an Instagram page, a blog or in a series of Tweets. It puts you in good practice, the more content you put out, the more practice you have in writing, you become inspired, you start to pick up speed, your brain doesn't have to work as hard because it's trained to think exactly how you want it to. Practice your Instagram imagery, it takes a while to develop a style, start NOW not with your first perfect image. TRUST ME the sooner you start, the better you will get.

I didn't do any of this, so by the time i was ready to launch my perfect logo, my perfect image along with my little perfect product, GUESS WHAT? I had no one to talk to! I had no followers, no engagement because i was too busy creating something perfect. What i should have been doing was creating my "perfect" whilst building my followers and practicing my social skills and getting people ready for my big reveal !

Tip* Could your Vision board be a series of content for Instagram? Do you have a title or a quote or a cool fact that could start an interest? Have a play experiment, don't worry too much about external factors.

CONNECT Now it's time to connect, start following all the people you aspire, admire to be like, start engaging with what they are doing, how they are doing it, re-post what they doing? Have an opinion on what they doing? Think how you would do it different? Go to events, go to a business talks, get your face out there, let people know who you are. LEARN LEARN LEARN. I cannot tell you how many events, business talks and networking groups i went to

1. To build my confidence 

2. To listen and get ideas. Two heads are better than one but imagine a room full of people who have the same burst of energy and fire as you because they simply have an idea that they want to change the world with! It really is good to talk, helps you to dissect your thinking and catapult you into being a master of your field !

SO ! these are my 4 places to start from and if you are still finding it difficult to find a point, remind yourself of this,

In order to eliminate, there has to be something to begin with. -Sarah Moon 

What are you waiting for?