Following Your Dreams Without Fear

I’m one of those people who experiences something and then immediately wants to be a part of it. I can completely lose myself in wanting to add another “skill” to my belt. I’ve had many dreams that I’ve wanted to follow, but have only had the courage to follow a few. There have been successes, such as the time I completed culinary school and landed a completely amazing dream job.  There have also been failures, like the time I tried out for a job as a cycle instructor last year. They even gave me a couple extra tries to show my potential, but I just wasn’t cutting it. The failures always bring on this fear. The fear of starting something when there’s a high risk that it won’t turn out how we want. We worry about what people might think of us if we fail at something new.

How many opportunities has that thought process kept us from experiencing? Could we be giving up on something that may potentially change our lives just because we are so scared of failing? I think if we begin to master our fear, there could be so much more to be excited for. We can try to be more positive about our failures if we know we did out our best. Heck...I don’t even consider it a failure if I tried!

My most recent dream was to be an event planner. I put A TON of work into my company. I completed tons of research and spent many sleepless nights figuring out how to get my start. I found the easiest thing to plan was weddings. This was easy in the sense that planning is easy for me. One of the harder parts for me was money. First,  I had to figure out how much money my time was worth as an amateur. I then had to make sure my clients had the money to actually pay their vendors. This task was a little stickier. Now, you can tell them, remind them, and remind them again, but you can’t put that cash in the vendor's hand yourself. I got into a super awkward situation that left me  -THE DAY OF THE WEDDING- at a cookie vendors house awaiting a Paypal payment. The bride, of course, was busy getting ready for the big day. Luckily I got in touch with the father and he was able to pay. I could’ve fronted this money and hoped to be reimbursed, but I knew that wasn’t in my best interest. Although I was a complete amateur, I helped with several other weddings after that. These events went so well and I made friendships that I will cherish forever. I took a break from planning to start my family and I can’t seem to get out of the funk to start again. I have a million business cards sitting under my bed, but I can’t find the desire to dig out them out and restart this journey. Will I ever start again? Eh. Does that mean I failed at becoming an event planner? Nope! It would be amazing to be able to do that as my full-time career, but I’m in a different place right now. AND THAT’S OK :) There’s no failing here!

How you handle your failures will help you prosper in your successes. Just because I won’t be a full-time event planner doesn’t mean my excitement and time with clients goes away. Relish in the good that came from it. If you feel like nothing good came from what you started, then you don’t need that in your life anyway. The most important part is that you tried. Getcha goals and stay positive!

- Keeley S.