Welcome to the new year!
1. In the first week of January, I got to go visit family in California. The trip was a whirlwind of fun times, and it gave me a chance to take a step back from my business and reflect on how it has grown and how I want to proceed.
For the past ten months, I would say I have been working at least 40 hours a week on my business. More and more, I have found myself feeling burnt out and stressed, even though the only real deadlines I have in my business are sending the newsletter out once a month and occasional commission or client work. And yet, I feel rushed, stuck in what Mike Michalowicz calls the Survival Trap: responding to whatever is “urgent” rather than what is important, to get the satisfaction of having finished a task.
I have to remind myself that I have time, that slow growth is good growth, and that this journey will take time. I have to be patient with it and not hustle so hard that I can’t any more, because I want to be able to keep going sustainably.
2. After I wrote the last blog post, I was thinking about all the goals I had set and I realized that I don’t really have control over some of them. For example, I wanted to reach 2k followers on Instagram by 2025. But weather or not someone follows me is out of my hands. So I asked myself, what can I control to improve my chances of getting to that amount of followers? My updated resolution is to find an number of posts per week that is sustainable for me, then sticking to it, because the way to get good results is to be consistent.
Whew! Ok, I’m done with my brain dump now!
3. I have been reading Agatha Christie’s The Body in the Library and have found it quite witty and fun to read. I love how her characters refer to her as if they’ve read her work!
4. My original paintings are now for sale! Lots of people have told me that they wish I would start selling my originals, so here I am. Right now I have been into watercolor/mixed media abstracts, but I would love to do more florals, too. Tell me in the comments: what kind of paintings would you love to see in my shop?
5. Do you have a standing desk? I want one. I designed a custom one for my space and so far, cutting the plywood surface is as far as I’ve gotten (I need to paint it but the freezing temps have stopped me so far). I am also thinking about getting a treadmill pad for underneath it. Have you tried one of those things? What do you think? I want any and all tips about standing desks!
6. Spoonflower has made wonderful updates to their system and it is now waaaaay cheaper to proof my designs! So I will be adding lots of new designs soon, especially now that I am getting close to being done with my new collection. It is at the stage where I am letting it rest for a few weeks, then I will revisit it with fresh eyes to make final tweaks. I can’t wait!
7. Recent lifestyle experiments: Building a capsule wardrobe (I love it) and trying to be vegan for a week.
8. I discovered Matt D’Avella’s YouTube channel after Erin Kendal mentioned him in her newsletter. He recently made a video about how and why he decided to go back to being a solopreneur, after having employees for four years. In the video I finally found some validation for an idea I had in the back of my head: What if I don’t want to hire anyone? What if I just want to be able to get up in the morning, excited for all the things I could create that day? In my business, I am pursuing building a sustainable, calm business that provides enough income for my needs, rather than one that is a six-figure empire.
I am also a self-help nerd, so watching his videos on things like organization and a cold shower challenge were fun to watch.
9. 5 books I want to read this year:
– Atomic Habits by James Clear
– How to be Alive by Colin Beavan
– Salt: a world history by Mark Kurlansky
– The Short Story of Women Artists by Susie Hodge
– Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder by Jim Clifton
We’ll see how far I get . . .
10. Some stats:
– Favorite style: abstract
– Favorite material: White gel pen on watercolor
– New experience: Visiting tide pools at the Pacific ocean and picking mandarins right off the tree!
– Most listened to: GIMS
– Favorite project: New pattern collection (stay tuned!)
– Lesson learned: Set goals that reflect what you can control, not what you can’t.
Thanks for reading!
Noemi
