Is it just me or is there more people cradling their ‘post-holiday financial hangover’ this year than ever?
You know…that thing people do when they tighten their purse strings following the holiday season. The magic has worn off. And, the cold realization that money doesn’t grow on trees settles in for a lot of us. Unfortunately, that includes some of our clients.
You begin to receive the classic string of post-holiday breakup texts. Lots of “it’s not you, it’s me” and the irritating “I love you, I’m just not in love with your price point” messages sneak into your inbox. It’s annoying as hell. The worst part is no amount of chocolate can cure the aching hole in your booking schedule.
So, what should you do when clients start dropping off like flies?
Do you shrug your shoulders and give up?
Or, do you say F YOU and get on with your life? (By F YOU, I mean F as in failure…just FYI)
When this time of year rolls around, and clients don’t want to spend their money on your services anymore, it’s easy to slip into a negative mindset. Maybe you’ve gone an entire day or a whole week without a single client. And, now you can’t help but feel like you’ve failed.
I’ve got some news for you – the whole ‘failure’ thing is a load of nonsense (to put it nicely). If you’ve felt like you’ve failed at some point in your life or business over the last 12 months, this episode was made for you. I share some self-talk and guidance on why it’s time we all gave up on failure.
{If you want to listen to the podcast episode on this topic, click on the player at the top of the post. Alternatively you can watch the video below, or read on…}
1. What is failure?
Have you ever stopped to think…what is failure?
If you asked 100 different people to answer that question, you’d get 100 different answers. Failure isn’t something you can touch. You can’t see it. You can’t hear it creeping in the shadows. It’s not REAL.
Your idea of failure is something you’ve made up in your head.
In reality, it’s nothing more than a false perception. Our definition of failure is a negative interpretation of something. Maybe when you first set out to run your own lash business, you said to yourself “I need to make at least $2,000 a month to make this work”. But, when you didn’t meet that mark and hit $1,000 instead, you assumed you must have failed. You didn’t complete your goal, and therefore it’s a big, fat failure. Right?
WRONG!
Think about it. If you created your definition of what failure means to you, can’t you also change its meaning?
Instead of saying that making anything less than $2,000 a month is a failure, couldn’t you say that making $1,000 doing something you love is something to be proud of? You’re not where you want to be yet. But, that doesn’t mean you failed. It just means you didn’t meet your expectations in the timeframe that you decided was a good time frame.
2. Is failure even possible?
So what if you “fail” by your own definition of “failure”?
Does that mean you suck? Should you give up and hide in a hole?
Does that mean you’re unlovable, incapable of success, or even worse… unworthy of living a life you love?
Of course not. You defined what failure would mean to your life. So, change the meaning!
Failure is only an option if you let it be. Imagine if you took failure off the table. If you don’t have to worry about failing anymore, you can be fearless. You can take bold steps in your business that actually move it forward because you’ve stopped worrying about failing.
Once you take failure off the table and out of your vocabulary, you’ll feel empowered to change and heck, you might even exceed your expectations in the future. Eventually, failure will be nothing more than somebody you used to know.
3. Perfectionism is a LIE
Failure stems from perfectionism. As for lash artists, we tend to be perfectionists. We have expectations of what the perfect set looks like. We even have a style called the perfect line. Our industry thrives on perfectionism. And, failure is often measured against our own perception of what perfect is. But, did it ever occur to you that perfect doesn’t exist?
You can spend forever chasing it, but you’ll never catch it. Perfectionism is like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. You think that you’ll reach it. But once you get there, you’ll see that it’s even further away than you thought. So, you keep going and before you know it, years have passed, and you still haven’t captured perfectionism in the way you thought you would.
Perfectionism holds you back. It’s a lie you’re telling yourself. Perfectionism is a word that you assign to something to make you feel like you’re not good enough, doing enough, smart enough, strong enough, pretty enough or worthy enough.
Everyone’s definition of perfect is different. You probably have your own idea of what perfectionism is, so why not change it? If you keep chasing perfectionism, you’ll spend a lifetime feeling bad about yourself because you’re chasing a dream that doesn’t exist.
So, ask yourself this…
Do you want to waste the next 12 months feeling like you’ll never be happy, OR do you want to start living in this altered reality where perfect is actually something you can achieve?
The first step is to start focusing on progress, not perfection!
Join The Lashpreneur Society
If you’d like to be a part of a community of imperfect people who are making massive progress in their business, you’ll find no better of a group of successful, money-making failures than in the Lashpreneur Society. And, they’re led by your fearless failing leader… ME! We fail… and we fail better every single time! We are continually learning and evolving and growing and redefining our own version of success.
To enroll in the best f-ing business training this lash industry has to offer, sign-up for the waitlist here: thelashpreneur.com/society
Have a Good One!
Tara Walsh
The Lashpreneur
