Fashion Business Owner Musings: When All You Want to Do is Sit and Read a Book

Business owner musings

I’m struggling, guys. I’m at that scary point when you’re under a deadline, it’s looming, you can see it on the calendar staring at you, but you just can’t seem to get your shit together enough to make things happen.

The StartUp FASHION Community will be opening again in a few days. A. Few. Days. and I can’t seem to finish the multitude of things that are still left to do. Making those Instagram post announcements, writing the “We’re Open!” email; it all feels so daunting right now. And the worst part is that I don’t know why I’m feeling like this.

I LOVE this time of year. The time when we open enrollment and a new wave of incredible designers become members of the community. I love meeting you all,  I love hearing about your businesses, I love connecting you with our other members; it’s my favorite part of of my work.

But for some reason, when I wake up every each morning, it is an absolute struggle to ignore the book I’m reading, sit down at my computer, and get actual work done.

I know you’ve all felt this. I think I’ve even written about it before. But the difference now is that I’m feeling this way at a time when I never feel this way; a time when I’m usually really focused and impressively productive.

I debated about sharing this feeling with you. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to think that I’ve lost any passion for my work. It’s not the case at all.  But I decided to share it because it’s important and I want you to know that we all struggle sometimes with getting things done, even when we really really love our work.

It’s a misconception that when you’re super passionate about your work, it never feels like work. It’s a misconception that those of us who have been in business for a few years, have everything down to a science. It’s a misconception that successful entrepreneurs have their shit together all the time.

No way.

We all feel frazzled sometimes. We all fell behind sometimes. We all lack motivation sometimes. We all worry about our own abilities sometimes.

And we all just want to curl up on the couch with a book, requesting that no one speak to us, sometimes.

It’s normal.

I think it’s easy to think that those we see online are so put together, so organized, to productive.  We see the finished product and not the process it took to get there so we don’t quite get that it’s not all easy-peasy.

So I’m telling you today, designers. It’s OK to not have it all figured out. It doesn’t mean you don’t love what you do.

Me, I’m going to learn from this experience and get better at systematizing some things in the business. That way, each time the Community enrollment opens, I can put a lot of the work on auto-pilot and instead focus on the fun stuff, like getting to know all of you!

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!