So I woke up this morning bright and early coffee in hand pen and paper in the other ready to check my Boutique orders and get my day rolling to a great start! I opened my laptop ready to live the life of a entrepreneur and the what is it I expected unexpectedly we’re not there!…OK OK all is not lost I said to myself I said self let me go onto social media and check to see how many people liked my new blog posts !!! so I looked at my stats and although my reach and my interaction numbers are skyrocketing the number of people that actually commented or liked my content is almost a4th of that…..drats!OK so I get my little prince ready for vacation Bible school grab what was left of my coffee and head out the door . I figured I’ll just try a different approach. something must be wrong. There has to be something I’m not doing right and with in the 10 minutes it took for me to walk to the church I started to hear that small voice in the back of my head, that nagging voice that started looping …tell me once again “so yeahhhhh Sue…I don’t think this is going to work.”

But I shook it off !!! I did my time volunteering at vacation Bible school. I sang this songs ,I clapped my hands ,I did the science experiment ,I put a smile on ,but all the while I was telling myself that I was going to tackle this my way ! so as I walked home with my son on his scooter beside me , I envisioned myself …(skinny jeans ,converse on…in my head on a boom box a deep voice is reciting the Invictus poem …and kid Capri is cross fading and scratching a record in the background ) For those of you that don’t know that’s a serious old-school hip-hop reference! Power music and determination! Boom! I’ve got this !!!! But as I put the key in the door the voice over rode my whole soundtrack …because I knew as soon as I opened that laptop the orders or lack there of would still be there and the social media interaction would still be the same and I all the sudden allowed the presence of those facts to override the vision that was placed in my belly along time ago for the brand that I wanted to create. And all of this and I started to doubt everything!

“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.”

-William Shakespeare

What if all my plans ,my research, my networking my drive ,my creativity and my dreams were absolutely an exercise in futility ? what if this market and this niche has been saturated and over saturated and wrung out and re-saturated ? what was I to do? Clearly Kid capri and Invictus wasn’t working y’all ! And then as these toxic thoughts started to weigh over my entire body like a weighted shroud , I had to reject it! It felt to unnatural and too opposite of everything that I tell people every day about trusting God and believing for the great! I decided to journal (thank you apple) and to pray . so I wrote out all of my fears all of my doubts all the things that I thought could go wrong and then I decided to pray and ask God to help me ,to give me boldness and to revitalize the vision that he gave me a long time ago . I asked Him to Help me to remove every naysayer and negative influence that would speak death to the seeds that I had planted-I asked Him to reassure me that although it didn’t look like I was winning … that darn it ..I was! You see a seed never looks like an Oaktree when it’s first planted so I have to trust the process and sometimes the process is very dark and very isolated and very quiet but it doesn’t mean that nothing is happening on the inside . It doesn’t mean that nothing is happening behind the scenes or that momentum is not being built. Also in prayer I was reminded that people may not always understand what you’re doing ,they might even find it humorous. But in the days of Noah I’m sure people thought he was a lunatic building a boat the likes of something they had never seen before and I’m sure everyone had snide remark’s until the rain started to fall…

“But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…”
Knut Hamsun,

But a sister friend of mine sent me a post that said keep promoting yourself even if no one likes it and it seemed like confirmation for me that I had to believe ! that I had to believe that all of my dreams where I saw my brand involved in bigger things and affecting bigger change wasn’t a mistake.I had to believe that whatever talent God placed in my spirit wasn’t a mistake And wouldn’t go to waste. I made a choice to believe that even though the market maybe saturated that my gift will make room for me. I made a choice to believe that for every familiar voice that is indifferent and is lackluster in their response to me, there will be 10 more new people that will cheer me on in the background.I made a choice to believe in myself. Maybe I will open my laptop tomorrow and there will be no new orders ..but what won’t be there as well is that voice …that lie that tries to make me believe everything negative about myself . But what will be there tomorrow, is that God giving confidence (swag😉) that unstoppable power that comes from knowing that your creator has your back 100% .That life-giving power that allows you to conquer insurmountable odds. That wonderful assurance of knowing that everything that I know to be true about myself is so positive and so glorious ,is so creative ,is so beautiful and so powerful . Believing is a choice and the choice lies in what you choose to believe! Fight or failure ? The negativity of the committee in your head or you ? Choose you … every time !! I fired the committee , perceived and literal .. and I’m currently rebuilding a support system of love ,constructive criticism and encouragement. I’m not giving up and neither should you !! Let’s get it!!!!

-Sue