Fashion Business Owner Musings: It’s OK to Keep The Tasks That Bring You Joy

Biz-owner-musings

I’m in the process of learning to become better at delegation. And that’s a good thing. I know how important it is as a business owner to hand off some of the things that hold you back from real growth.

But here’s the thing, there are some things that I simply don’t want to let go of. And no one can make me!

You know how everyone is always telling us to off load everything that takes up time but that we, as the owners of the business, don’t need to be doing. Some even take it further and reference the things we shouldn’t be doing. Meaning, that not only do we not need to be doing them, we actually shouldn’t be doing them; implying that keeping these things on our task lists makes us bad business owners or something.

I get this. For the most part it makes sense. We have to delegate to grow because it’s impossible for us to do everything.

Except for one point.

There are things that I do in my business that I absolutely love to do and, while they may be things that I could (should?) be having someone else take over, I refuse.

I refuse because one of the reasons that I became an entrepreneur is so that I can spend a lot of my days doing things that I actually enjoy.

Do you have those things? For me it’s community management. I love running our Community. I love chatting with the designers in our online group I love getting to know what they’re working on, and I love offering my point of view and ideas. I don’t want someone else to be doing this. I want to do it.

Sure, it takes time. But the amount of time it takes is nothing compared to the amount of joy I get from doing it. So I’m not OK with giving that away.

Handing off everything and finding your work to be something you had not anticipated and may not even enjoy, is exactly how entrepreneurs find themselves unhappily building a company that no longer excites them.

The thing to do is to find the balance between what you love to do and what you need to do.

Make your lists, figure out which things you can’t wait to pass off, which things you’d miss but would still be OK with passing off, and which things are at the heart of why you do your work and therefore you’ll never pass off. Use that to decide what you’ll delegate, not what everyone tells you you should be doing. Because no one knows your business like you do. Trust yourself.

I think that when you take the time to figure this stuff out before it’s time to make those decisions, they become infinitely easier decisions to make. And happiness and excitement remain key emotions in your business life.

And that’s what it’s all about, right?

Lots of love and encouragement,

-Nicole
Nicole Giordano

Nicole is the founder of StartUp FASHION, an online resource and community supporting for independent designers around the world with building their businesses. A deep love for the craft of fashion paired with an adamant belief that success is defined by the individual, led her to found StartUp FASHION, where she helps independent designers and makers screw the traditional fashion business rules, create their own paths, and build businesses they truly love. More than anything else, she’s in the business of encouragement and works every day to remind makers and designers that they have something special to offer the world and that they can, in fact, do this thing!