I learned so much over the last few months after starting my business and I wanted to share that here. If you follow along on grace&canvas' instagram, you have probably noticed that it has been pretty quiet on that front. I found that doing what you love as a business doesn't always mean you will love what you do when you do it for work. I also became really disheartened when not a single painting sold. It is hard to push ahead with something when you feel like you have already failed before you started. I think that there are times when you need to just suck it up and keep going, because hard work can pay off in the long run if you don't give up. Actually, I think you should always do that. Except for when you shouldn't.
I spent the last of 2014 and almost all of 2015 wanting to start my own business. I thought of a hundred ideas and none of them fit. I found that I loved painting in my free time and got some good feedback on my paintings, so thought I might be able to make that work. I prayed for a name for weeks but nothing seemed right. Then, on a weekday afternoon while waiting for my girls to get off the bus, the name grace & canvas just popped in my head. I know God planted it, because my creativity wasn't coming to my rescue any of the weeks prior. I dived in and set up a (free) website and waited. And nothing happened. It has only been a few months, but with the lack of sales my drive started to lack as well. The holidays came and that sucked my time and energy. With each day that went by, I felt like I was failing my little business and so I didn't even have the heart to go post anything at all. So I just stopped. Cold turkey. I had the promise of painting reveals and give-away's, but I didn't do any of that. I asked God why He allowed me to come up with a name and an idea if it wasn't meant to be? I really wanted my own business for so long, and now that I had it, I didn't want it anymore.
A friend shared some great words of wisdom with me and instead of paraphrasing her words, I thought I would just add them here:
" I have been listening to a few podcasts lately and in one of them someone (I think it was Elizabeth Gilbert) said that it's not so much about IF we will fail (because failure is an inevitable part of a business and/or creativity) but whether something is worth doing even when we fail. That really spoke to me and I thought I'd share it in case it's helpful for you as well. I think sometimes God asks us to jump in and do something, and what we get out of it is not what we initially expect, but walking the journey with Him shapes us in ways nothing else would."
I learned that wanting to have my own business wasn't wrong, but I also learned that the timing just wasn't right for me right now. I learned that starting grace&canvas had a purpose, but it wasn't because it was my "big break". It was because God used it to teach me about patience, and how it needs to be His timing not mine. He taught me about myself and what I was capable of, and what I really want my time to consist of. He taught me that He can give me an idea whenever He wants to and that I don't need to search anymore for the right idea. It will come when it is time, so for now I really want to just sit back and let God teach me some more things. And I picked up a paint brush today for the first time, and it was really nice to do it just for me. I didn't put it in the shop (which I am leaving open for now, because, well, free.) so the only place you can see it is at the beginning of this post and where I shared it on instagram. I named the painting [f r e e d o m ] because I believe in having the freedom to create for the sake of creating, not because it needs to result in anything. I want to see where God will take me this year, and I just want to go along for the journey. I know He can open doors for me to do big and wonderful things, but for now I am ready to begin living life for what is, not what could be.
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