Falling forward

Hello my friend! Hope you are doing well. I’ve been on earth alongside with you. Isn’t it strange we are existing during the same time on earth but we have totally different experiences? Yet we are connecting right now, My thoughts, your eyes

Another day another attempt

I’ve been spending all my days with my itty bitty decor.to — building, painting, rebuilding, getting flowers, all to get to function. I’ve put majority of my time into refining my carpentry skills (one thing I’ve been tackling is kerf bending, which is the process of making thin slices across wood that doesn’t go all the way through, allowing the wood to be bendable) and also creating higher quality flower arrangements

I feel a bit embarrassed and frustrated that the vision I have in my head, my hand cannot yet fully translate into reality. My work is not all the way there. But the only way out of this dilemma is through it — I just have to keep producing until the quality gets there. I need to earn it.

I have enough love and trust in myself to be patient as I figure it out on my own pace, even if it takes longer than the average person. I give myself permission to attempt, to fail, to figure it all out. I give myself grace, while others may see it as delusion. Reminding myself I have the permission to fail and try again as many times as I’d like has helped curb my frustration. I’ve been telling myself, “we can always revisit this later” when I’m not happy with the outcome.

How I spent my money…

Another major lesson I’ve learned is that marketing is actually a real thing? I know that sounds silly to read but sometimes you can hear something all the time, but you don’t internalize it until it applies to your life. I’ve learned the lesson that word of mouth can only take you so far, you have to put in effort to be seen. This is where the artist in me starts to cringe, it feels a bit like selling out. but girl… get up. The effort feels un-natural but I have to reframe it. This part of business can be also an art of its own if you do it correctly.

I did some research on what I could do to improve in this area that I’m laking in, and I came to the conclusion of two things: improving my real life presence and improving the quality of my photos online. I had money saved up from some events I did in the summer and also my job (total was ~$2,000, with $1,200 being from events), so I looked into what I could do to invest with it. This is the first time I planned to use my money towards something that wasn’t directly materials. I planned a photoshoot with a photographer + venue for $700 (it was such a fail I don’t wanna talk about it)

The second thing I did was to increase my real life presence, i.e. let people in the city know I exist. I researched into this and I found out about wedding shows. It is basically a bazaar that brides go to and shop for dresses, cakes, DJs, hairstylists, and decor. The concept is nice because everyone there is a serious customer. I found one out that was happening in October so I signed up to get my own booth. The ticket was really expensive(don’t scream… it was $1,300). I was kind of worried it was going to be a scam but sometimes you have to take a risk, even if it’s just for the plot lol. I got business cards and a sign too.

The event was two days long, and I had a friend help me set up the night before. The actual days of the event I went by myself and it went well! It was hard at first to talk to people but after a few hours I had a script down. By the end I got a few bookings and made my money back! I broke even. It was nice because again, everyone there is my target audience, I gained a lot of followers. I don’t know if I would do it again though, maybe in the future if I had disposable income.

Back to reality

After those two attempts at marketing, I ran out of money lol. I went back to building: improving designs and working on the bookings that I got from the bridal show. One of them was a custom build so I had to get started early to make sure it would be done on time.

I hate hate not having my own space. I hate that I have to cut wood outside and when it rains or snows— which happens a lot in Torono. I have to pack up all my wood, heavy power tools, flowers paint to store indoors, and bring it all back out again the next day. I wish I had a space to just work. Sometimes I fantasize about having a rich parent or investor that would just look into my brown eyes and feel pity and gift me a studio lol.

One night I was scrolling through tumblr sad about this and I had reblogged this photo trying to manifest my future:

A few days later I was sitting on my bed and I was looking around my room and I thought wait a minute, and I snapped this photo. I was like huh they are kind of similar? Maybe it’s all suppose to be like this. Maybe I am going the right way.

There is no beauty without delayed gratification

I saw something that said, “Delayed gratification is resisting the urge to take the short term reward and instead wait for the greater and bigger reward in the future”

To not accept the reward means to choose to stay longer in a period of latency— which can look like failure. It is the barren land that is travelled between destinations

It’s important to remind myself thats exactly what this all is, this is just the route. And there’s a reason or vision to why I am here. When the days turn into months and all it feels so repetitive and empty, discipline has been my companion to keep me going and staying focused because sometimes reality isn’t very motivating. Sometimes you have to tell yourself that this comes with the territory of what you want. If you made it tomorrow, would it be worth it?

All in all,

This is my reality and I will find little quirks that I’ll enjoy to make it all a bit more bearable. Appreciating the small things of where you are at now doesn’t mean you’ll become complacent, rather it’s apart of acceptance. I’ve been going out, finding inspo in my city and in my community and having fun outings with the people in my life

This fall I’m fall-ing forward!