As I reached the top of a hill and enjoyed the view during my running training, I realized how similar it felt to starting my own website design business.

I’m a classic Enneagram Type 3 (the Achiever). I’m always looking for what my next achievement should be, no mountain is high enough, and it’s hard for me to admit that I don’t know the answer to something. That being said, that mindset can be crippling for a business owner, or as someone who’s pivoting their career path. I go for runs to clear my mind because for me, that’s what works the best so I can show up authentically for my clients, for my work, and for my personal life. I have had some of my best business ideas on a run and I’ve definitely texted more than one client that I was thinking about their color palette, copy, or layout on my run, so I race home to make the idea a reality.

This morning, I had 6 x :10 hills to accomplish - after a 2 mile run. Six times I had to sprint up the hill and six times I walked back down to my starting point. After the second sprint, I was exhausted but walked back down to the starting point and tried to look for anything to get me through the next four sprints. All of a sudden as I looked around, I realized how beautiful the weather was, how lucky I was to be able to move my body in such a beautiful area. I found my motivation. I couldn’t stop thinking about the hills we have to climb as business owners, and how important it is to find the beauty in the mundane or the hard.

View from the bottom of the literal hill I had to tackle this morning.

One thing about Florida? There will be palm trees.

Business is personal…but shouldn’t it be?

The best part about building your own brand is figuring out what works for you. I’ve realized how truly personal that is. It was easy for me to lose myself in Corporate America, become a 9-5 robot, keep putting everything into my work, only to be rewarded with more work. But it was even easier for my company to eliminate my job when times got tough. I went through the grieving process after getting laid off, but very quickly realized a weight had been removed from my chest. I needed to leave that job that was draining me, but needed the push to do it. I made a list of things I loved and things I was good at, number one on that list being “I want to be creative at work again.”

There’s a million people on the internet who will say “if you follow these exact steps, you’ll be successful” and oftentimes, they’re right. But what if during the process you realize you hate every second of it and what worked for them doesn’t necessarily check your important boxes? What if you could become even more successful because you’ve found a rhythm that works for you and you wake up loving what you do every day?

Throughout this process of starting my business and working on some wonderful projects, I’ve gone through a lot of trials and a lot of errors. The most exciting is going through a trial and stumbling upon something that works for you. For example: I would not classify myself as a morning person, but my husband has to get up for work at 04:30 (like Lorelai Gilmore, I was shocked to find out they also have one of those in the morning). Instead of going back to sleep one morning, I decided to get up at the same time as he did and…I completely surprised myself by loving it. The achiever in me loves checking things off my list early in the day. That’s become one of my new staples, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you that waking up at 04:30 will change your life.

If that doesn’t work for you? Don’t do it. Find out what does work and do that instead.

Especially in today’s instant gratification world, I know a lot of people who absolutely hate spending more than 30 seconds looking for the information they need. I get it, I also love a condensed video about a topic I’m interested in, but I’m a researcher at heart. I love to learn everything I can find about a given topic on any given day. My family and friends have a running joke that I should be an FBI agent because I find information that “can’t be found.”

I’ve made my research abilities a core part of my business, primarily because I love collecting data and making informed decisions based on that data. I go above and beyond to find information that will be valuable to you and your website. I love that type of work, and I find it integral to my process as a website designer, specifically when it comes to learning about your brand’s specific competition and what you provide that they don’t. If you hate research, you’ve met your girl. No one can have every single answer to the universe, but I promise that if you ask a question that I don’t know the answer, I will find the answer. Which brings me to my next point…

I care deeply about people and am fascinated by who you are and how you present yourself to the world.

Your brand and business are both absolutely important to me, and I want to know about how you got to where you are today. Behind the brand. I know firsthand how personal small businesses are, how adaptable business owners (no matter where you are in your journey) have to be. I’m not telling you that you have to share your entire life story from birth to now on the internet. Some people do and that works for them, but that idea is scary to most of us. In that case, we just have to find parts of our story that we are willing to share online, the ones that make us unique.

Maybe the Godfather was wrong on this one.

I know what Al Pacino meant when he said “It's not personal, it's strictly business” and that line has become deeply engrained in our society. But I’ll die on the hill that your business can and will be personal. There are times for strictly business and there are times to pour your heart and soul into your business, as I know many of you are doing.

Starting your own business can be exhausting. It can feel like you’re constantly running up a hill as fast as you can. There will always be hills, there will always be hurdles, but this is your friendly reminder that there is beauty in the discomfort. Look for the sunshine and the view at the top of the hill, no matter how small the hill and no matter how much further up you have to go. Part of that mindset shift is figuring out (or even redefining) what success means to you. It’s figuring out what your niche in the world is. I will continue to share what works for me, but the empowering part is how you are on your own journey and get to define what works best for you.

And sometimes? (Shameless plug alert) It’s letting a website designer take one thing off your very full plate. Contact me today!

Your Business Is Personal…And It SHOULD Be.

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