Fashion Business Owner Musings: Being Dramatic Won’t Help

If I can be honest for a moment, I’d like to tell you that, while I wish it weren’t so, I was (and occasionally still am) someone who easily overreacts. That’s to say, I would tend to make even the smallest of occurrence into a dramatic issue that needed immediate and drastic attention or else everything could come crumbling down.

Over the top, right?

At first, it seems harmless enough. What does it matter if we’re dramatic? Who cares if we overreact?

The thing is, it’s not actually all that harmless. When we overreact, it impacts our fashion business more than we may realize.

We make poor decisions that can have lasting impact.

We say things we don’t mean and potentially damage relationships.

We add stress to our day which many of us know is never a good thing.

We lose time overthinking everything.

The thing is, in business there will always be stressful situations. There will always be occurrences that need our attention, problems to solve, and situations to mitigate. But if we allow ourselves to make each and every one of those things a “business-changing” potential disaster, then our day-to-day feels a lot more difficult than it needs to.

Learning to keep a level head is probably one of the more impactful skills I forced myself to learn on my journey as an entrepreneur. It hasn’t been easy but I have made the effort because I was sick of feeling like I was on the brink of a major disaster every time we got an email from an unhappy customer, had a tech functionality go wacky, or got behind on a deadline.

If you’re one of those cucumber people (as in, cool as a) I envy you that. But if you’re like me, and find it difficult to calmly approach situations that arise in your business on a daily basis, try reminding yourself that this is the journey and that nothing is ever as disastrous as it seems.

Give yourself some time to assess the situation and think clearly about the next steps.

Tell yourself that you are capable of fixing things without losing your cool (or your business).

And watch how your confidence in business evolves from doing so.

Lots of love and encouragement,

 

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!