What is starting small to you guys?
Today I saw a print that made me think 'it's okay to start small. It's okay to just be where I am and not feel like I have to be ten steps higher. It's okay to allow myself to experience right here and grow. It's okay for me to allow myself experience all the steps of growth.'
When I first published this website, I thought it would be magic. I had finally created what I wanted for so long and at first the joy and shock of that was enough. Viewers, members, people interested in the works and forums or maybe the blog or the projects - I thought people would flock in. I thought that once you had the website you had the magic. Same with the shop. I thought once I put it up and set up everything, things would just flow. What I failed to realize is that sometimes things take time and that is okay. Even writing that sentence made a part of me cringe, because I'm not really a huge fan of it.
My website isn't flourishing as I expected it to and at first it was really demoralizing. I had a conversation with my cousin where he told me "the website was good, but it needed more work." Like it was a sketch. I was heartbroken by his comment, at first I felt like I had put so much time and effort into creating this website, yet it wasn't good enough. For a week, I couldn't look at the website and for weeks I just left it as it was. I was done creating it and thus that was it.
However, when I saw the print today, I thought 'it's okay for me to start small.' It's okay for my website not to be perfect yet, it's okay for it to still need some work. It's okay for my shop to not be flourishing yet, it's okay for me to still need to do some work. It's okay for me to build my website. It's okay for me to grow it and watch it grow. It doesn't have to be a banger earning me a million in the first month (even if I won't mind if the universe wants to give me a million this month) and that's okay. Starting off something may not be as you imagined, but it's okay for it to take time, it's okay for you to need time.
I don't have to be ready to leave school right now, I can give myself time. My website doesn't have to be perfect right now, I can give myself time to grow it and space and freedom to enjoy the process of growing it. There is beauty in starting small. There is beauty in the small steps we take and it's okay if things don't always immediately turn out as we thought. We can always be gentle with ourselves through the process.
If you guys have any stories you want to share on this I would love to hear it! Or if 'starting small' means something to you then please share in the comments.
Lots of love,
Adaee.