I launched my online boutique in August 2019, with the mission to support local artisans, in my native country of Colombia, by giving them a platform and a voice here in the United States. I had envisioned traveling to Colombia, purchasing unique, handcrafted accessories, and photographing them for the website. The idea was to generate more exposure for the artisans and designers while providing unique accessories to millennial women.
Throughout that time, I was finishing my graduate degree in public relations and planning a wedding. I envisioned traveling, shopping, and having fun, with the hopes of one day becoming a distributor. As the months went by, I would receive so much verbal support, but it was not reflecting on my sales or social media growth. I would be getting three to five leads per month, with many people interested in buying but not following through. The business kept adding more and more weight on my shoulders, causing lack of motivation to post, share, comment, or invite people to visit the website. Everything I did was surrounded by tense energy. Little did I know that the business and I were not in alignment.
At the beginning of this summer, my mom had asked me what I wanted to do with the business. It took me two months to utter the words, “I am closing the business” because I kept seeing myself and the company as a failure. At that time failure to me was disempowering, having lost money, a small number of followers, and having merchandise left from my previous purchasing trip. The moment those five words came out of my mouth, I felt the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. I decided to take a break from anything entrepreneurial and start sharing more about my passion for topics relating to holistic wellness and mindset development in my social media feeds. It has been something I have been researching, experimenting, and learning about outside of academia and during my spare time for the last three years. I love conversing with people about health and wellness, from essential oils to our subconscious power. Conversation flow easily and freely, and I begin to feel in alignment.
Closing the business has helped me realize that being in alignment with myself is truly what matters. If I had not started the business last year and closed it last month, I may not have had this life lesson or it may have taken me longer to learn. It was not a failure; rather, a learning opportunity. It has been challenging to reframe the meaning of failure, but I can say that now failure simply means the chance to try again and doing it at least 1% better. I am beyond happy to have closed that chapter in my life and taken the lessons with me to this new chapter of being and feeling like a mindset coach. I am taking more time to build my business rather than focus so much on the smaller details by connecting with people and companies and serving people first and foremost. Today, I am happier and have started to serve clients through workshops about productivity and the power of the mind and body. All it takes is being in alignment with your true self to tap into happiness.