Trust In Yourself

About 10 months ago, I was getting ready to sign the lease to my studio. I didn’t have a business plan, a long list of clients or much of a financial safety net to support the studio I was about to open. I was full of fear. I didn’t have any idea of how I was going to generate enough income to cover the lease, which to my family, was another mortgage and something my husband’s salary couldn’t support. But the one thing I did have was trust in myself. I didn’t have any doubt. Something in me knew this was meant to be. It was crystal clear to me that this was part of my path and I completely trusted myself. I let go of the “how” and stuck to my “why.” I trusted my gut, my intuition, and walked towards where it led me.

My husband keeps referring to my studio as my “Field of Dreams”—you know, the Kevin Costner movie about a man who razes his corn field and builds a baseball stadium even though he doesn’t know why. He instead has a deep sense that it’s what he’s supposed to do. He hears a voice that keeps telling him, “build it and they will come” and he listens, despite it making absolutely no sense and people thinking he was crazy. At the emotional conclusion of the movie, he realizes that the stadium gives him the chance to reconnect with his dead father, the man he never really knew or understood.

In the 10 months since I signed the lease to my space, I still do things the same way I did when I started this journey. I let go of the “how” and stick to my “why.” I plan my business month to month, sometimes week to week and I don’t know what’s in store for me the following month. For me, the “hard” work isn’t the hustle or “busy” mindset, which I don’t buy into. The “hard” work is doing the things that scare me and make me uncomfortable, which I continue to push myself to do. It’s interesting reflecting back on this time. Whenever I would get comfortable, my business would plateau so I would figure out what was scaring me and step into it. Then things would pick up again. The important lesson that I’ve learned from this journey is that at the end of the day, it’s not what happens that matters. It’s the trust in myself, the trust that whatever happens I will survive and grow and get to where I need to go next that does. But I’ve come to realize that trust only comes when you do scary things. You have to do the scary things to learn that you can survive and eventually thrive. So do it. Do the things that scare you. It’s how you will learn to trust yourself and in the end, that’s what matters the most. “Build it and they will come,” my husband jokes to me often after witnessing my journey. And he’s right. My business is my field of dreams. I don’t know, ultimately, where it will lead me but I know it’s what I’m meant to do. Trust and keep moving forward, I remind myself.

Photo Credit: Todd Trapani from pexel.com