I think I’m going to call this the year of the breakdowns. I feel like this has been a recurring theme in my life and in my writing lately — breaking down. And it’s embarrassing, really. But I have to write about it. Because I can’t write “Top 10 Ways to Fix Your Blog Posts” when I’ve just gotten down off of a two-hour crying jag.
And I am realizing that I’m not the only one. As I’m reading through all of your submissions to my question last week, I’m discovering that we all have hurts and pain in our businesses. We all have stuff that we struggle with. Maybe that’s uber-obvious to everyone, technically, but when you start reading real stories about real stuff that’s happening right now, it all becomes much more…real.
The pursuit and the prize
Starting a business — especially one that’s gorilla-glued onto your life’s passion — is a love story. In the beginning, you’re feverishly trying to catch their attention. You’re doing anything you can (and you’re doing most of it wrong). That part is painful enough in itself, but you just keep doing it, and eventually you do get some sort of attention. And maybe it works out. Maybe it’s a long-term, forever kind of thing.
Now you can go in one of many directions. You can delight in being together. Savor long dinners, bring flowers, relish the companionship. Always looking for ways to bring more joy and fullness to the relationship, but being comfortable in what it is now.
Or, you can start getting afraid of losing this great thing that you’ve got. You might start smothering your companion by being there every minute of the day, wearing yourself out in the process. Or you might start enviously checking out other, prettier people who walk in the room. You might start to try to keep up with them. Or worse, out-do them in your lover’s eyes.
Or maybe you finally got the guy or gal, which was going to fix everything, and then you realize that it absolutely doesn’t. And it was your only hope and now what?
It’s all ick. And it’s all based on fear.
The one thing I know
I’m secretly terrified that by writing posts like this, I’m going to be shouting into a cavernous, echo-y hole of “Oh crap. That sucks for you.” I’m scared that I’m going to end up branding myself as “that web person who cries all the time.” Or worse, “the whiney girl who got what she wanted and then started complaining about it on the internet.” So not professional, right?
But I believe in confession. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I do. I believe in bringing things to the light and watching magic happen. And mostly, I believe that I was meant to be here, doing this, now. Maybe not the cry-in-public part. But the passionate, love affair with my work part.
I’m going to continue accepting your confessions for another day or so — if you get this by email and you couldn’t see the form last week, you’ll have to click through. It’s all anonymous. My hope is that when I publish some of the answers, it will help give us all some perspective on the holes that maybe we can help fill.
Posted on March 24, 2010 at 1:02 am 
Categories: 
Tweet
Facebook
Stumble
You are very brave and courageous to say this publicly. It takes guts to say what you’ve said and my feeling is that people will like you all the more for it. It makes you a real person, and people want to work with real people, not robots!
I get the fear too. The fear that the thing I trained hard for, the thing I know I’m best at, the thing I would do for free if I won the lottery will fail. But I have to remind myself that because I feel the fear it means I know, I KNOW I’m doing the right thing.
My sister sent me an email saying “Oprah used to sleep in her car”. That massively cheered me up. Look where that woman is now!
Oh to live in a bloggy, blog world and wear your heart on your sleeve. I hear you sister.
The good news is–I think honesty and authenticity are so highly valued in our over publicized, slap a happy face on it world. It makes people feel real and people like supporting real people, not automated machines who don’t live a real life.
You’re cool. Crying is cool. One foot in front of the other and I’m willing to bet you in a place not so far from here you’ll look back and realize you weren’t breaking down–you were breaking THROUGH!
You go girl!
Cry it out!! Cry more – louder and messier. Write about it more. Pave the way for crying in public. I believe most of the world’s problems could be solved if we ALL sat down and had a good cry one day. Then we could make national Crying day:)
Yeah, but you know what? Even when you do these “I’m losing it for real this time” posts, you do it like a pro. They’re well written and still maintain that…I don’t know…this-is-business demeanor that you’ve got.
And it IS honest. And I dig that. The internet pretty much sucks all over the place, except where people remember they’re still people.
So, you know, thanks for being a people.
.-= Charfish Charlie´s last blog ..Free Goodies: Paint Textures =-.
Nah, no worries. You’re still cool.
Stay real, it’s your thing
Thanks for this post -…I cannot tell you how glad and thrilled I am to have someone with pure passion and authenticity at their core creating what will be my space to show just that same thing….
All good things, always
I love you. I love how transparent you are, how you want to immediately bring us the hard-earned, tear-stained wisdom you’ve earned. Big huge hugs to you, and big huge thank yous.
I feel you, and I thank you for this “hard-earned, tear-stained wisdom”.
Every year in my life so far has been “The year of the breakdown” and every year has also been “The year of amazing new stuff I hardly dared dream of…”
There is incredible power in allowing ourselves to ‘breakdown’ – to hold our seat in the company of our deepest fears rather than distract ourselves or deflect their laser-like precision. Our fears have a great way of pointing us in the direction of our truth. So I breakdown regularly, although I see them more as regular breakthroughs…
This business of building a business built on passion and love is hard work. I was unprepared for how hard it was even to act with truth, love, respect and integrity through the design of the LiteSite. Even such an apparently simple process brought me – again – face to face with my own fears about this new territory into which I am not-so-boldly venturing.
It’s hard work doing all this with heart, but I know I wouldn’t want to do it any other way. I can’t imagine you doing it any other way either.
.-= Marianne´s last blog ..I’ll have a collaboration sandwich, please =-.
We just rolled into year of the Metal Tiger! This is the year for breakdowns and breakthroughs. So, it sounds like you’re exactly in the right place, tears and all
I admire anyone who can be honest about the influence of fear. The things I most want to change in my life right now are the way they are because of fear – my own. I don’t have my own business with its own hurts to report, but that is partly due also to fear.
I suspect people who object to this kind of honesty do so partly out of a desire to avoid their fears.
So thank you. Thank you for your honesty. I hope we can all find ways to fill at least some holes from this project.
Part and parcel of the fear and pain is how much you identify with your business. So the fear isn’t just related to your work, but to your very identity. Sorry, not meaning to make the monster under the bed even scarier!
Every so often, you need to cry it out, or shout it out, or whatever it is you do to recognize that there are things you’re afraid of, that you’ve been burying your head in the sand about. Otherwise that nameless thing gets so big that it feels insurmountable. But after the tears, you’ve got to start solving it. Or at least laugh at it and say “Come on. Who’s a little fear demon?”
I’m glad I’m not the only one
I think a lot of designers and just people in general are having a rough time. The good news? We will survive. Promise<3
.-= Liz´s last blog ..Adult Chocolate Milk =-.
My friends and I call it our entrepreneurial manic depression.
It goes from the omg we are going to change the world to the waking up and wondering where the hell we are.
Yet, somehow every single part of it is beautiful.
And all those tears, many times we have no idea where they are coming from, have always turned into beautiful ideas and turning points in our businesses.
It is so hard to create a business that is based on truth, passion and integrity. Yet, it is the best self growth program that I have ever found!
Wishing you brilliance and the greater strength that comes from our oh so lovely breakdowns!
Posts like this make you genuine, and I’m glad you’re willing to write them.
[...] of being just a graphic designer, for instance, be the fun, quirky and human designer. Instead of being a marketing consultant, be the guy who helps you engineer a kick-ass product [...]