Do What Makes You Come Alive

I have been in a bit of a slump with my etsy business recently.  So when reading some past blogs, I came upon this one and it did the trick.  I hope it helps you with any slumps you might have.

 

When I began doing research to open my etsy shop, I got a lot of advice about what to sell, what to do and how to do it.   But the best advice I ever got actually came in a quote.  Howard Thurman (a minister known to have influenced Martin Luther King Jr) said.  “Don’t worry about what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive and do that.  Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”  That quote made me come alive.  If I was going to open an online shop, I probably should open one that excites me; that gives me pleasure; that makes me come alive.

 

If you are going to do something creative whether it is starting a business or a piece of art, do something that makes you come alive.   In business it is good to follow the trends.  Trends tend to show what people are interested in buying.  But you can also have too much of one trend.  If you have one shop that specializes in tote bags because bags are the ‘in’ thing, that shop will make money.  But if you have 2 or 3 shops selling bags, the sales are going to be less for each individual shop.

 

And what if some of those shop owners don’t really like selling tote bags, they are just following the trend of tote bags. That shop owner is not really going to be excited about his or her inventory. And customers tend to sense that.   The same is true in anything we do.  Are we doing it because it is the ‘in’ thing or are we doing it because we can’t stop thinking about whatever ‘it’ is? 

 

It is OK to do trendy things but don’t keep doing it if it isn’t giving you pleasure. What is the point in that?  A couple of years ago I tried improvisational quilting (in this case sewing random pieces of fabric together without really knowing what the end product will look like.  One style of improv is the traditional crazy quilt block.). Now I often make things up as I create so I thought this would be the best class for me.  Oh was I wrong.  I like to have an idea of what things will look like in the end.    And at least the way this improv quilting was being taught didn’t do that.

 

So even though a lot of quilters in my guild were interested in it and talked a lot about improv quilting, I didn’t stick with it.  I didn’t even finish the project I started in the class.  It didn’t make me come alive.  It actually gave me a headache (haha). 

 

If you are going to spend your time doing something for business or creatively, do something that has you smiling all the time. Do something you can’t stop thinking about or keeps you up at night with ideas swirling in your head (I say that only because I was up early this morning writing ideas down for this blog.)

 

If you are doing what makes you come alive, you are then a role model for others to do what makes them come alive.  And then they in turn might influence others.   And as Rev. Thurman said “what the world needs are people who have come alive.”   So start giving the world what it needs and do something that makes you come alive.  

 

 

©2019, 2021-Cheryl Fillion