HOW TO BE AUTHENTIC, PART 3
In wrapping up my first blog series “How to Be Authentic”... I want to share my story of becoming an entrepreneur. The 3rd part in being authentic for me is about not being afraid to be yourself, and getting rid of the self doubt and negative self talk that so many of us experience. I think I can best illustrate this message with a story about how I learned this lesson.
When I started out as a designer I held on to a lot of doubt in my abilities. I don’t really remember feeling like a “designer” in the beginning, early in my career. I felt like a task girl who followed directions from my boss and executed them. But along the way, my skill set was developing and becoming stronger and stronger.
I worked in corporate for 12 years, and while I gained confidence in my abilities and was given more and more responsibilities over the years, I still felt like I wasn’t really a good designer. I knew I was good at my job and very valuable to my superiors, but I didn’t really believe in myself. I think I mostly thought that everything I was doing was only good because of my team or only polished enough because of the changes my creative director requested I make. I stayed at my first design job for 10 years, and after I told the Creative Director (my boss) that I was leaving, she told our team “we tried to clip Christine’s wings as long as we could, but we just can’t keep her down anymore.” Her words stayed with me. I had never thought about it that way. Of course I didn’t feel like I was good enough, some corporate environments intend to spread that message to people.
I took a position as a Creative Director at another company where I thought I could really spread my wings and see what I was capable of. But I quickly learned that once I decided to see what I could do...I was definitely not interested in keeping my feet on the ground in the same place for another 10 years. And after 2 years of learning what I was capable of in design and branding, I wanted to do more, and to do it on my own terms.
So I set off on this journey to become an entrepreneur. I left corporate life with a pretty vague plan for a business but a VERY clear plan for what I would become: a successful entrepreneur who would serve others doing what I LOVED. I wanted to help other people do what I set off to do: work for themselves, do more of what they loved, serve a greater purpose in their life, and have freedom to design their own day. Somehow, I was going to take what I knew about graphic design and branding and find a way to serve them!
When I started my journey, back in August 2020, I talked about it a LOT with friends and family, getting everyone’s opinions and advice on how I would structure my business and what services I would offer. I looked around everywhere at what other designers were doing, what other design businesses looked like. Could I ever be successful doing this? Did I know enough? What if a client needed something that I didn’t know how to do? What if they didn’t like my designs? You can see how the negative self talk snuck in here… It would have taken over and I would not be here doing this right now if it hadn’t been for mindfulness.
Transforming my mind, paying attention to what I was telling myself, working tirelessly to change my thinking and creating positive beliefs about myself through mantras, meditation and prayer, I began to see how this plan would work. I started to believe that I could do things differently, that my business didn’t have to be like what other designers were doing. I felt like I had a different method of helping people discover their branding and designs that suited them in a specific way. And I though...huh, I wonder if I structured my business like a coaching business, then that would be something I would REALLY enjoy doing everyday!
It’s so interesting how this understanding slowly came into formation, throughout 3 months of personal and business development and programs, I was able to design my 6-week Brand Discovery One-on-One Coaching Program that I launched in December! I have had the great pleasure of working with 3 wonderful and amazing business owners to guide them on this path of discovery and development of their brand. And we have created some beautiful work together! I’ve been so inspired and excited in working with them, I feel like my purpose is real now, I’m finally doing the work I’ve dreamed of doing on my terms, in a way I desire to do it. And one of the best discoveries along the way is that this is also just what my clients desired and wanted.
Isn’t that AMAZING?! I put my idea, my way of doing something out there in the world, and it was a vibrational match for others! God and universe brought it all together, not just for me, but for my clients too! So I leave you with this message…
Share who YOU are, let others be who they are.. Realize that there are so many options in this world because there are so many ways of doing things. And YOUR way might not be the right way for everyone, but it is for SOMEONE - and they may be looking for someone just like YOU.
Download the free guide I’ve created for you, the Branding Cheat Sheet.
