Failure is a Myth.

Failure is a myth. To not fail you would have to be perfect. You would never make mistakes. So there’s no such thing. And making mistakes and changing along the way is a part of the process. Think about Elon Musk. You don’t think he hit some road blocks along the way in his career? And he definitely didn’t start out with the idea for SpaceX and Tesla when he was first starting out. And the bigger the ideas and dreams you have, like engineering the first ever electric car, are going to have even bigger obstacles. If you can come to accept that it’s just a part of the journey, that challenges and road blocks are going to come regardless, then you’ll be much better off. Decide to view them as learning opportunities and choose to grow from them.

They’re all just experiences and it’s what you choose to do and how you handle those experiences that is going to determine how far you go.

Are you afraid that your idea won’t work? That no one will like it? That you won’t be able to make money from it? Well there’s a way to determine all of that before you dive in head first without having those answers. Research your idea. Start small. Test your idea. Get feedback. Rinse and repeat. Starting small will allow you to pivot and change without it having to cost you a lot. When I first had the idea for The Styling Source, I started by doing research. I searched on Etsy to see if there were other stores doing the same thing. What were they selling? Were they selling a lot? What were they selling a lot of? What were their price points? The nice thing is that Etsy shares a lot of that information with you.

I saw that others had proven my idea just by seeing the stats so I started small, and not buying a lot of inventory, and listed a few items to start with. Once those started selling then I would buy more and also in different colors. Then as they were selling more and more, I would raise the price. And then slowly start adding other items. And if certain items weren’t selling well, then I wouldn’t replenish them once they sold out.

At the same time, you should be gathering feedback. It seems scary but you need to ask your customers questions. What did they think about the item or service they purchased from you? Did they think it was fairly priced? How was their experience with you? Was there anything you could have done better? And so on. Information is power. The more you can learn and pivot based on that information, the better off you’ll be. And it’s not to say that you have to follow everything you’re given as feedback. It’s your business and you get to decide what you do with the feedback you’re given.

And just remember, you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for! Think realistically: you’re not going to keep moving forward if you’re not making money, you’ll get a part time job if you need to in the beginning, there’s nothing saying you have to be a starving artist. Just be smart! You know how to do this, it’s about trusting yourself and knowing you won’t allow yourself to fail. Because after all, failure is only a myth.