My Business’ Pandemic
5/1/2020
As you can see, I haven’t been able to keep up with my goal of blogging once a month. It’s been a difficult year. Well, I suppose it goes so much further and deeper, because it hasn’t been just a difficult year for me, but for everyone around the world. When breaking it down, truly the only words that come to mind are ‘life changing’. This year will affect us ALL in ways unanticipated and I’m sure that when it comes to small businesses, like mine, we’re trying to figure out what to do next. All while putting as much energy as possible into holding back the word that tries to makes to our lips of, “IF”. If our business will make it past this.
Everyone has been advising me that I need to focus all of my energy on building my social media presence right now. I can only speak for myself when I say that I consider social media to not only be a chore, but difficult to grasp, not because of limitations with understanding technology, but because I am a private person. I’ve spent time creating a long list of ideas, concepts and things to blog or share on my business pages, but am having serious trouble finding what the boundary lines are or should be? My biggest challenge on sharing work or blogs is based on whether what I’m sharing is too personal. I know I’m not alone on this, since in the past I have heard other business owners mention this.
For my social media masters… how do you know if what you’re sharing is too much? I’ve sat on this question for months. Every month allowing my website to grow further and further quiet, not knowing if what I have to say is not only relevant and important enough to share but is too intimate to expect another person to invest their time in reading. And then… what if what I’m sharing isn’t even relatable let alone too personal?
1/13/2021
TMI?
I’ve read and reread what I’ve written above for a few weeks now. Trying to make some sense of that nervous energy I managed to get down to start this post. Hoping to discover a way to place my anxious words into some semblance of coherent thought. I can’t. My words, my thoughts, my business are frozen in time.
All my life, my biggest fear has been failing. This fear has caused me sleepless nights, extensive panic attacks, and periods of complete and utter numbness.
Since February of last year my business has endured sessions cancel, weddings get pushed back with no date in mind (my heart goes out to my couples, but I’ll see you soon!), and business contracts have been placed on indefinite hold. My small business is currently at a standstill. I have found myself having to choose between the health of those I love most and the business I have fought so hard to have.
I feel lost, uninspired, unmotivated, hopeless and scared.
What if…
2/04/2022
I know that many of my colleagues tend to have blog posts that are far more uplifting than this post may be, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve prided myself on being as sincere as possible.
I know that we’re all onboard the “2020 was a dumpster fire and 2021 was riding it’s coattails” train. We saw, experienced, shared, empathized with, and handled some crappy situations and sometimes people. Whether it was dealing with clients for your own business’ or someone else’s, we faced challenges and found ourselves saying things that, I’m sure, we never thought we’d have to.
Yet, we’re here, at the dawn of a new year, not quite having let go of all that chaos 2020 and 2021 built up but feeling just a little bit lighter than December 31st. Recalling the morning of January 1st, there was this quiet that seemed to settle over everyone. It had me initially feeling that it was the silence of everyone holding their breath, waiting to see what might erupt that day. Then, it came to me, that it wasn’t us holding our breath, it was the fact that we all seemed to be taking a breath together, preparing to take the year on. The subtle hopefulness I heard in each of my friends voices as we called each other to wish ourselves a happy new year, began to soften the sharp edges we seemed to developed around ourselves. The walls we had built in an attempt to protect ourselves from things greater than COVID.
As December rolled around, much like most years, I became further introverted. It’s always been a month of reflection and inwardness to me. It seems that as nature goes dormant, so do I. Most years, it causes me to fall into one of my episodes of depression. While it was a very difficult month, a lot of tears, a lot of stress, as usual, it forced me to get a lot of the anxiety I had collected throughout the years, out of my system. A sort of purging and forced emotional processing. It is usually during this time that this reflection, or internal “dialogue” (although more like a screaming) plays out in which it dawned on me, that I didn’t know what I was going to do with my company. I was considering calling it quits, actually, I planned to do so. I was so tired of fighting to have this business. I was just TIRED. I still AM tired. Sometimes it’s hard to stay hopeful, and yet I can’t help but be.
2/22/23
We made it. A lot of hard decisions were made. One of which was to take 2022 as a recovery year. A year to decide if it would be worth it… worth starting over. So much goes into starting a business; but to start again, sometimes feels impossible. So, I’m doing it. As you read previously, I have a horrible fear of failure and giving up, just feels like failing.
So I’m going to do my best to share things with you that might help you with your event or projects. I’m going to do my best to share what I’m working on and keep you posted on specials I’m running, or new projects I plan to work on. Maybe you’d like to take part and help me in a few conceptual photos I want to create. If you’re up for modeling in exchange for a copy of the final portrait send me a quick note! I’ll do my best to communicate and share and keep moving forward. I’ll do my best to keep encouraging you to do the same.
I’m just going to do my best.
With Appreciation Always,
Ivy