Lessons I Learned in 2019
Everyone is talking about their year in review right now.
This is something that happens every year but for some reason this time it feels different. I’m not sure if I am becoming more self aware, or if it’s just because my life is so drastically different this New Year in comparison to all the ones before it. However, I wanted to talk about some of the things I learned in 2019.
The biggest lesson for me in 2019 was patience. Now I know that this is an ongoing lesson and it is repeated often. But if you don’t already know this, I had my daughter the day before Christmas 2018, so 2019 was my first year as a biological mom (I have a wonderful step-son already). As I’m sure you can imagine, having a child requires a whole new level of patience! Lucky for me I am the LEAST patient person in the whole entire world. So needless to say, I struggled severely!
Not only did I learn patience in my personal life through my daughter, but also in my business. Maybe you own a business or maybe you don’t but I’ll tell you one thing, business requires patience in every sense of the word. There is an Image I came across a while back that shows a graph of entrepreneurship and the graph is all over the place. When I first saw it I giggled, because it is honestly the most accurate representation of what being a business owner feels like. One minute you are at the top of the world and in the next you are questioning everything.
Learning that business and success take time was incredibly challenging for me. But coming into 2020 I have noticed that I am less worried about my next client, or people getting back to me, or even “keeping up with the Jones’”. It’s a relief! Don’t get me wrong, there is still room for improvement, but I am so far past where I was it seems like it’s miles away.
The next lesson I learned was to give myself grace. As a mother and business owner, there is SIGNIFICANT room for error! This can present itself in many ways but for me it always presents as a little voice telling me “you aren’t doing enough”. Anytime I stop moving, pushing, or working this little voice starts telling me that I can’t rest because I haven’t done enough. Obviously this is not true but it took me a long time to recognize it and actively dismantle it. Again there is still room for improvement, but I’m learning to be kind to myself and think it’s important to remind ourselves of that.
I am the worst at asking for help, honestly. But being a parent is not a road I have really gone down before, and neither is being a business owner. This means I had to learn very quickly that asking for help does not equal weakness. It truly does take a village, and I have come to accept that this saying applies to many things in life! While I am still working on my pride and humility balance, I’m happy to say I am better at this balance now than I was a year ago.
Finally, in 2019 I learned to trust myself and just take the leap. Because in the words of Marie Forleo, “everything is figureoutable”! So no matter what is happening in life, trust your instincts and just know that no matter what happens you can always figure it out. Taking the leap to become a parent and subsequently start my business where two of the best things I ever did. But I never would have done them if I didn’t trust my instincts and trust that I would figure it out.
Thank you 2019 for being a teacher, and also a pain in the ass! Here’s to some crazy growth in 2020. Cheers!
