Monthly Archives: January 2016

On Humility and Tenacity

Growth & Development, Hand Lettering, My Thoughts, Self-Help,

so-humble_loresHappy almost February!  I hope your new year is going well so far.

I have a lot going on on my plate right now! Registration for my Introduction to Block Printing class and my Creative Coaching service will officially open tomorrow February 1, 2016! So I’ve been working many hours to prepare.

And as I wrote last week, I’m also shifting my business goal a little bit this year to focus more on my art products. Of course, I’d made a commitment to add on all these new services (teaching, coaching etc.) before I realized I needed a better focus for my business…, and I’ve been trying to figure out ways to tie them all together so they’re all part of a cohesive brand. Which is easier said than done…!

I’m very excited for all these opportunities and at the same time feeling very humble. I’m learning and growing at a hyper speed and for sure make lots of mistakes in the process.

Making mistakes isn’t fun for anyone especially if you’re a perfectionist. Disclaimer: I actually don’t consider myself a perfectionist, per se, (my husband might disagree…). But I always want to do a good job and feel bad when I make mistakes.

Growing up, I did pretty well academically without trying very hard. I was no genius, but I didn’t struggle very much to “get” whatever we needed to get good grades. I’d study some and did good enough across the board. I was naturally a pretty good artist and did well with languages, too. I’ve never been athletically inclined, but other than that, I was pretty much able to coast from childhood to college.

As nice as it sounds, I realize now that I didn’t develop a strong tenacity as a child. I read this study once that one of the key factors for success is not necessarily your innate talent but it’s your grit: your ability to stick to it long-term even if things get hard.

I faced some road blocks and struggles when I moved to the states after high school just because it was such a big transition! Learning to navigate a totally new culture and systems in a foreign language took some time and effort. It was like I reverted back to being a small child again. Granted I was still young and didn’t have as much of a hard time adapting as my older counterparts, but still.

Once I got in to the university, I struggled to keep up with the classes. Studying college level materials in my second language (not to mention in  Women Studies, which involve a lot of very complex ideas and critical thinking…) was very difficult! I couldn’t just coast any more. I had to study very hard just to get mediocre grades.

It was a very humbling experience and helped me to develop the tenacity I was lacking growing up. Though I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I’m grateful that I didn’t end up being the big fish in a small pond forever.

I had a big transition again last year when I left my day job to pursue art full-time. It was a very exciting change but also one of the scariest. For my day job, I worked for the same organization (though in different positions) for 14+ years. I knew the people, how the organization ran, the community, and the work really well. I realized once again I’d become very comfortable in my environment and wasn’t trying very hard to challenge myself.

Even though I had been working on my art business on the side for several years up until that point, now I really had to do it. I was leaving what I knew and a huge part of my identity to figure out where I belonged in the world again. It was like my teenage flashback all over again! Ahhh!

But what was different this time around was that I’d had more life experience and knew from the get-go it wasn’t going to be easy. I expected challenges and a long road ahead of me when I took the leap of faith. Instead of being ashamed of not being able to just pick it up and be successful over night, I was ready to be patient with myself and allow grace for my growth and learning. I see my mindset shift as a sign of maturity, and it makes me hopeful that there is no limit to a person’s growth no matter how old you are!

I’d rather welcome experiences that make me humble than staying in the comfort zone and being stagnant. 

When you’re naturally good at something and not used to making mistakes, it’s discouraging when things don’t go as smoothly. It almost feels personal. It makes you vulnerable and makes you want to go back to what you know and feel safe. But when you learn to sit with your discomfort and appreciate the fact that you still have room for growth, you’ll find the courage to push forward. And the more you do whatever scares you, the easier and less scary it gets! I know and have experienced this first hand many times now 🙂

If your fear of mistakes is keeping you from following your passions, you’re saying no to so many opportunities and possibilities. You’ll experience the world much more fully when you act with bravery and courage every day.

You’ll probably still feel bad when you make a mistake (I do!), but don’t let that stop you from getting up and trying again. Yes, do let yourself feel whatever emotions that come up and be kind to yourself.  But instead of blaming yourself/other people/the circumstances, focus on what you can do to change the outcome in the future. It’s so empowering to put the power back in your hands.

Be brave, my friend! I know you got it.

xoxo Yuko

p.s. As I shift my business focus this year, my approach to this blog will shift a little bit too. I’ll still be providing these self-help-y contents because I like to help you! I’ll also be highlighting more of my creative processes, what I’m making/doing, and things that inspire me. I hope you’ll enjoy seeing my posts more often, and that it will continue serving as a source of creative inspiration!

yuko_flowers

I had a moment of clarity during my sabbatical week.

Growth & Development, Hand Lettering, Mini Sabbaticlas, My Thoughts, Self-Help, ,

believe_WT_loresHello!

How’re you? I’m back from my mini sabbatical week this week and have lots to share with you!

For those of you who are new to my blog, welcome! 🙂 I take every 7th week off from my regular work to step back and do things I don’t normally get to do, like learning new skills and pursue my other creative passions. (You can learn more about where the idea came from here.) I write a blog post about my sabbatical week afterwards to share what I did with you. It’s helpful for me to reflect on my sabbatical, and it also helps me to hold myself accountable to actually take the regular time off!

Since I’d just taken a few days off over the holidays, I wasn’t too much in need of relaxation/vegging out time. Instead, I focused my time and energy on learning, business planning, and organizing.

Here is a few highlights of what I’ve done!

1)  Future Planning & Refocusing My Business Goals

It’s been almost 6 months since I quit my day job (hooray!), and I’m now beginning to realize I need to tweak my strategy for my art business, Honeyberry Studios. My strategies have been to work hard, do more of what I’m good at, and put myself out there consistently and see what sticks. Yes, I’ve been getting exciting opportunities by doing these things, and my business is growing for sure. But I knew I needed a clear focus to take my business to the next level. 

I had a privilege of having a mini coaching session with Cassie from Modern Thrive (and Maker Mentors) the previous week. By the way, both organizations offer very practical professional development resources for creative people, and I’ve taken a few of their workshops before. I’m currently signed up for their One Year to Build a Better Business free training and Cassie had offered limited number of coaching sessions to the training participants. (FYI – She normally doesn’t do individual coaching, so you won’t see it offered on her sites.)

Anyway, during our coaching session, she went right in to the heart of the matter: my business lacks focus. I sell physical products. I do commission work. I write a self-help blog. And now I’m starting a coaching practice! It was definitely an elephant in the room I was trying to ignore for a while.

She suggested I pick one thing and focus on that first. And once that one thing starts to bring in enough income, then I can start to expand.

I’d heard that message over and over from different sources before, but I was so close to everything I was doing and was in denial about it until then. But as I was hearing that from Cassie, it finally clicked with me. I was in the right place to really listen and understand that I needed to niche down to be more successful. 

Of course I had a mini panic to think I had to just pick one thing and go with it. The reason why I’ve been doing many things is because I’m good at them and like doing them!

I’m sure many of you can understand the fear of just focusing on one thing as most creative people have more than one passion and talent… Am I gonna be bored? What if I choose a wrong thing to focus on? But then people won’t know I’m good at other things, too! Ahhhhh!!

Whenever I’m faced with difficult situations, I usually freak out a little bit. Then I calm down and start processing more logically about what’s going on and figure out the next steps.

For this situation, I freaked out thinking I needed to do a major course correction for my business, pre-mourning the loss of things I don’t get to pursue, and then began to feel hopeful that having a clear focus is going to help me be more successful.

Cassie asked what I wanted to focus on. I thought for a minute. If I had to choose one thing, what would it be? I answered, it’d be working on my illustrated products.

If I’m truly being honest with myself,  commission/client work is not my first choice even though it helps with the cash flow the most. There is often a lot of back and forth with the client, and it takes a lot of energy to create something that meets their goals while accomplishing my vision for the project. It can be really stressful. I think part of the problem is that I’m not charging enough… But that’s another story!

Going back to my preference to focus on products – although it’ll take longer to make a profit from selling products compared to doing commission work, and there is a lot of work involved in having a successful product based business, I’d much rather be directing my own creative vision and how my voice and values are reflected on what I provide for my customers.

Just to clarify, and I was happy to hear this from Cassie, too, it doesn’t mean that I’ll quit everything else I’m doing now (i.g. blog, teaching, coaching etc).  I’ll still keep my other ventures going on the side to continue to build a community and to bring in supplemental income. I just need to put most of my time and resources into building a successful product business this year. And when I say product business, I’m talking about growing my Etsy shop (e.g. greeting cards, art prints, and stationery), mostly!

I’ll also be shifting the focus of this blog a little bit. I’ve been focused so much on providing contents to help other artists  with creativity and motivation this past year. AND I’ll definitely continue to provide the same, helpful contents because that’s my passion, and I won’t be fulfilled if I let that go completely.

The future of my blog is actually very exciting! I’m envisioning my blog to become a channel to bring you even more creative inspirations in the coming year! You’ll definitely be seeing my posts more often, and I’ll be sharing more behind the scenes creative process, new products and services to inspire a creative lifestyle, and things I learn along the way!

Though unknowns are always a bit uncomfortable, I’m feeling grateful to have a clearer direction for my creative business. I hope you’ll enjoy learning different aspects of my creative life on my future blog! 🙂

2)  Learning Opportunities

Another thing I did during my sabbatical week is to learn! I participated in a few really great learning opportunities.

  • I participated in the Money Management for Creative Types webinar with Melanie Lockert of Dear Debt. I’m not bad with money and am generally frugal, but I’m not super comfortable with money, either. Numbers just don’t excite me. But this is one of the things I needed to have a better grasp on in order for me to grow my business, and the workshop was awesome! Melanie shared a ton of practical tips and tools on how to manage your finances and increase your income. I feel more confident about my money management skills now!
  • As I mentioned earlier, I’d signed up for the Building a Better Business free one-year training with Maker Mentors. We receive one email every week for a year with assignments and challenges to help our creative business grow. I worked on the challenge from the first week, which was to create a business plan! The timing was perfect as I was recalibrating my business focus, so I spent quite a bit of time working on that. I still need to refine it, but it gave me a good place to start.
  • OK, the universe does send you messages and nudge you in the right direction, doesn’t she? As soon as I had my conversation with Cassie about shifting my focus to product-based business, I saw a Facebook ad about this free video training about how to build a successful handmade business with Renae Christine. I immediately signed up and devoured her contents as I received her videos in 3 parts. The videos were short and sweet and packed full of helpful information!! I took a bunch of notes but need to go back many times for sure.

I always feel energized and pumped after great trainings and webinars. Now off to put into practice what I’ve learned!!

3)  Office Purge

I confess. I’m not a very organized person.  My physical space that is. Like crunching numbers, I’m just not excited about organizing stuff. I organize my working space every once in a while but it doesn’t stay clean for very long. I like to have things around where I can see, and it gets cluttered pretty quickly.

I’m often envious of other people’s beautiful minimalist studio spaces I see on the internet. I kinda like having a little bit of clutter though (I get inspired by the little things I have!) and don’t think I’ll ever have a super clean studio. But my space had become less functional over time, and I recruited my husband Dave to help me with an office purge. Dave, unlike me, grew up in a very OCD household and gets energized about organizing things! Talk about a perfect match 🙂 So we scheduled a purge date during my sabbatical week and got to work.

My ultimate goal was to organize my “art shelf” that is right by my desk in our shared home office. It was so packed, and things were kept in random places, and I often couldn’t find what I needed. We had stuff piled in front of the shelf, too, so it was very hard to get to things on the bottom two shelves. It was definitely not helping me to be creative!

On Monday, we spent several hours going through everything on the shelf. Dave helped me to assess what I need to have on the shelf vs. what could be stored elsewhere. We reorganized our storage room to make room for extra supplies, threw some things away, and took the rest to Goodwill.

Here is my before and after photo!

before-and-after

OK, maybe it still doesn’t look totally organized :D, but believe me, it’s 100 times more functional! I want to get nicer bins and boxes for my tools and products eventually, but for now, this will do! Things are much more organized and easy to access, and I feel spacious. Breathe.

We only tackled this one area in the office in one day and talked about scheduling a regular purge session to tackle other parts of our house. Sounds good to me! I like taking baby steps 🙂

There you have it! That’s what I did on my sabbatical week. As you can see, I did a lot of planning, learning, and organizing, which was just what I needed. Even though it may not seem like a relaxing week off, I’m really fired up and energized about the direction my business is taking this year!

Looking forward to sharing more with you as things progress! Thanks for being on this ride with me 🙂

xo Yuko

yuko_flowers

My 3 Daily Self-Care Habits

Growth & Development, Hand Lettering, Illustration, Mini Sabbaticlas, My Thoughts, Self-Help

take-care_loresHello!

How was your week? I hope your new year is off to a good start and that you’re able to get back into the groove of things after the holidays.

It’s been almost 6 months since I quit my day job! Hooray! Boy how time flies! My next 6 months are already filling up with exciting opportunities, and I’m so grateful 🙂

I’m opening up my Creative Coaching service officially in a couple of weeks, will be guest teaching for the Journey Within e-course in March, and offering in-person Block Printing workshops and Creative Coaching group sessions in Seattle in April and May. It’ll be a hectic few months, but I’m not complaining! If you build it, they’ll come, right?

By the time this blog post comes out, I’ll have taken yet another sabbatical week! I decided to take every 7th week off to step back and recharge last fall following Seanwes‘ advice, and this is my 3rd one already! Taking a regular time off makes me anxious a little bit especially when there is so much to do, but I have no doubt my mini sabbaticals are keeping me from getting burnt out. When you’re following your passion and work for yourself, it’s so easy to just work, work, work. It’s engaging, and you want to see the results fast. But you’ll eventually get burnt out if you don’t take care of yourself. And then what?

Taking regular sabbaticals works for me because I can plan things around it in advance, and once you get in a habit of it, one week off every 7 weeks isn’t that big of a deal.

But I understand that it’s not always feasible to hit the “off” switch regularly if you don’t have the flexibility to do so. Maybe you have a day job or want to align your time off with your kids’ school schedule etc. And that’s totally fine. You just need to find a self-care strategy that works for you and your unique situation.

In the last 6 months, I’ve been developing a few daily habits that help me stay well. The daily small maintenance is helping to repair any wear and tear as it happens so I still have energy to enjoy my sabbaticals when it happens. Just like your house or a car, if you treat them crappy all the time and try to fix them all at once, it’s going to be more work and is gonna cost you more. Maybe some damages will be permanent. It’s same for your self-care. If you do a little bit of maintenance every day, you won’t need to do an overhaul down the road. It’s totally OK to prioritize it 🙂

So, on my mini sabbatical post today, I wanted to share a few daily self-care habits I’ve developed:

1) Get up early and take advantage of the quiet time.

I get up at 5:30am most of the days. On my workout day, I go to the gym first thing in the morning. On my non-workout day, I grab a glass of water and start writing. It’s usually my blog posts, or sometimes it’s my newsletter or some other contents.

You might be wondering, “Well, getting up early in the morning doesn’t sound like a self-care! Isn’t sleeping-in better?” I know. I started it as a way to be more productive. But I also noticed how quiet my mind is when I begin my day early and focus on one thing. I feel more spacious and my brain is less cluttered with noise and to-do lists.

And It feels GREAT to get my writing or workout done before 7am. You have the whole day ahead of you to work on your other tasks! This could be particularly a good habit for those who have kids or live with other people. This is sometimes the only quiet time I have all day because my husband also works from home, and once he (and our noisy parakeets) gets up, our tiny apartment is no longer a quiet oasis 😀 As an introvert, I need my alone, quiet time on a regular basis, and this is a great way to ensure I get it every day.

An important note for getting up early is, I don’t check my email or social media until after breakfast. I want my mind to be free of information clutter as much as possible during my morning quiet time. Delaying your email or social media response for a couple of hours shouldn’t be a huge problem. They can wait.

2) Go to bed early.

In order to get up early to enjoy a quiet start of the day, you need to go to bed early. This is somewhat of a new habit for me. I’ve never been a night owl but used to go to bed around 10:30 or 11, which made it harder for me to get up at 5:30 every morning.

Nowadays I try to go to bed at around 9:30pm. I just feel better having 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night. To facilitate a good night sleep, I was trying to have no screen time (i.e. no smartphone, browsing on my laptop, Netflix shows etc.) at least one hour before bed, but this early bedtime is making it a little harder. But I try to end my screen time by 9pm and transition into getting ready for bed then.

3) Don’t eat and work at the same time.

When I worked at my day job, I used to eat my lunch at my desk checking email or browsing the internet because that’s what you do on your breaks, right?

Now that I work for myself at home, I had to make more of an effort to separate work and breaks. So when I eat breakfast or lunch, I physically move away from my desk and don’t look at my email or social media while I eat. It usually takes less than half an hour for me to eat, but having that time away from the information noise and mental clutter and focusing on the food you eat is quite meditative.

That’s it! These are the 3 habits I keep every day to stay energized and well. Building a new habit is not easy. It takes time and repetition even if you don’t feel like doing it. But once it becomes a habit, it gets easier to stick to.

I do this because I need it. I need plenty of rest and nourishment to keep going. It’s not an option: it’s a necessity for my long-term well-being and success. I need alone time, good food, exercise, and sleep to function at the highest level.

Everyone needs different things to stay well. Your self-care starts with learning more about yourself! Make some time to do that this week 🙂

OK guys, I’ll come back next week and share what I’ve done during my sabbatical week!

Be well.

xoxo Yuko

yuko_flowers

 

 

 

Taking the long way

Growth & Development, Hand Lettering, Illustration, My Thoughts, Self-Help, ,

long-way_lores

Hey guys!

Today I wanted to reflect on taking detours in life. As you may know, I started dabbling in creative stuff a little over 5 years ago in my early 30s. I opened my first Etsy shop selling crocheted wares in 2010, but I treated it as a hobby for the first few years.

Meanwhile, I was working full-time at a non-profit social service organization as a program manager. Work was rewarding and also challenging. I had been there for almost 10 years, and although I was able to keep things fresh by moving to different positions and taking on different responsibilities, I started wondering about my future and what other career options I might have. I had worked for the same organization for all of my career and just wanted to try something different. Something less stressful and with more money would’ve been nice, I thought.

I knew what I needed was to gain practical skills that built on what I was already good at. I did some brainstorming and thought becoming a Japanese/English Interpreter/Translator might be a good fit. I have the language skill and had done informal interpretation and translation for our clients before, so why not? There was a certificate course offered at a local college near I used to work, and I had a friend who was going through the program at the time, so I talked to her about it and decided to enroll.

If you took this certificate course full-time, you would finish the required courses in a year. But Since I had a full-time job, I took one or two classes at a time. So it took me a little longer to finish. I enjoyed being back in school. There is something about having a schedule and place to be and be in the “learning” mode on a regular basis. I enjoy reading articles or taking webinars, but I find in-person hands-on learning to be the most effective format for acquiring new skills.

Anyway, the program was great, and I was learning a ton about professional practice of language interpretation and translation. I made new friends, and that was a lot of fun, too.

About midway through the program, or maybe it was more towards the end, I started having a feeling that it might not be what I wanted to do for a living. It just didn’t seem like a “fit” for me. I was doing well in class but wasn’t excited about it. I would dread and put off doing the homework until the last minute. It was painful to have to go back and edit my translation work over and over again. And the thought of becoming an interpreter and the responsibility and spontaneity of the interpretation work made me anxious. Like anything else, I’m sure things would become easier with more experience, but I’m a think-before-doing kind of person, so being in a position to think and act on your feet all the time seemed super stressful. I completed all the required courses but opted out from the second year program after that.

While I was having doubts about my future as a language interpreter/translator, I started looking into other career opportunities. Around that time, I was becoming more serious about pursuing my creative interests. I was getting a little tired of crocheting products then and was rediscovering my childhood love of drawing. Drawing and illustration seemed to have more potential for business growth, or at least it seemed more straight forward to me than having a handmade product-based business.

But how could I become a full-time artist? I didn’t have a degree or formal training in art. I thought being a successful artist was reserved for only the most talented and the privileged.

After having another brainstorm session (yes, I like to brainstorm :)), I thought, I could be a Graphic Designer! Graphic design seemed like a good, employable skill to have, and you also use your creativity in design process. What a perfect combination! Excited, I enrolled myself in the Graphic Design Certificate course at the same college I was working on the Interpretation/Translation Certificate. I overlapped being in two programs until I finished the first year courses for the language program.

Again, I totally enjoyed being in classes and learning new skills. All of the instructors were working professionals, and I loved hearing their real life stories.

And then, the little voice in my head started talking to me again. “This might help you get out of your current situation, but is this going to make you happy?”

I was creating a bunch of new illustration work for my design assignments, and that was the fun part. When we present our work to the class, I knew mine looked different than most other students’. When it came to doing the actual design work (i.e. “making something look good and functional” in a nut shell.), my heart wasn’t really in it. I just wanted to be drawing more.

I still finished the program after a few years, and on my very last portfolio review class, my instructor recognized my passion for illustration and suggested I pursue what I truly loved rather than graphic design. I felt so free. Finally, I knew, like I really knew, that I didn’t want to compromise any more and decided to give my 100% to pursuing art.

When I share this story with people, some people are surprised and tell me “It took you that long to figure it out??” I understand where they’re coming from, I guess. Yes I invested a lot of time and money into getting the education and training in the fields I chose not to pursue. It might seem wasteful to others. What if I’d started pursuing art more seriously 5 years ago? Maybe I would be further ahead in the game by now. I get it. But I don’t think it was a waste at all! In fact, I gained SO MUCH from it!

First of all, it fulfilled my needs to learn new things and grow. Much of what I learned is totally relevant to what I do today.

For instance, the interpretation/translation program challenged me to think differently about communication. A lot of people think, if you speak multiple languages, you have the natural ability to interpret or translate effortlessly, but it’s SO false! Taking in sometimes very complex information in one language and putting it out accurately and in a culturally relevant way in another language is no easy feat. It goes way beyond just knowing the languages literally and takes deep understanding and appreciation for cultures and history. Do you ever use online translation tools, like Google translate? Maybe it kinda works sometimes for some languages, but it usually returns very confusing and often hilarious results. As a relationship-driven person, I appreciate knowing how artful and thoughtful language communication really is.

Many things I learned through the Graphic Design program are obviously super relevant to my art career today. Knowing the design principles is very helpful in putting together effective and aesthetically pleasing visual materials. And of course, knowing how to use a software, like Photoshop and Illustrator, is critical in my day-to-day work.

I also want to mention that I made a conscious decision to choose options that wouldn’t require me to get a loan and go in to debt. So when it was all said and done, I was not in the red. And my busy schedule forced me to be more efficient, and I learned to juggle school work and full-time job for a few years. In my “detours,” I made new friends and developed relationships with mentors. You really can’t put a price on relationships that add so much to life!

I have absolutely no regrets about taking the long way to figure out what I wanted to do. I’m actually happy that I took some detours. Making the choice to pursue my passion after having some life experience and trying out different options helped to confirm that I’m on the right path. Choosing your passion and switching a career later in life takes a lot of courage.  Maybe 10 years from now, I might have a totally different path again! You never know 🙂

If you took many detours in life, or if you don’t know what your path is yet, don’t worry – nothing in life is wasted. What you do today still counts 🙂

xoxo Yuko

yuko_flowers

 

 

A pair of purple gloves that changed everything

Growth & Development, Hand Lettering, Illustration, My Thoughts, Self-Help,

dream_loresHello, hello! Happy New Year to you! Did you have good holidays??

I always feel so renewed on New Year’s Day. It’s probably because I grew up in Japan, where New Year’s Day is the biggest holiday of the year (kinda like how Christmas is here), and everything slows way down for a few days to celebrate and set intentions for the new year.

I remember the cold crisp air walking down on a frosted road to the local shrine with my family to pray for health and prosperity on New Year’s Day. I took it for granted back then, but what a wonderful ritual to start off the new year sending well wishes for others! Anyway, I don’t go to the shrine on New Year’s any more, but I always feel sacred around the New Year’s.

2016 is the Year of the Monkey!
2016 is the Year of the Monkey!

To start off the new year, I wanted to share a story about how my creative endeavor all started about 5 years ago. It all started with my purple fingerless gloves, and it was completely unexpected.

the purple gloves
yup, these are the ones…

I crocheted these about 5 years ago. I wear them all the time. They are so soft (I think it’s lambswool?) and warm. They’re fingerless, so I can type, text, and play Jenga with them on if I ever wanted to.

You’ve probably noticed the right thumb has a different yarn. That’s because I mended it last year when it finally started to come apart. I actually made a new pair then but somehow couldn’t bear to part with this one. I didn’t want to let them go because I made them, and they’re perfectly functional with a little repair.

I made these to replace my purple ones but ended up giving them away as a gift :)
I made these to replace my purple ones but ended up giving them away as a gift 🙂

But that’s not the only reason, and I never really thought about it until recently.

A little over a month ago, I was walking around my neighborhood and ran into a friend. We chatted a little bit, and she complimented me on my purple gloves. I said thank you and told her I made them a long time ago.

And then it occurred to me that these gloves are what got me started on my creative endeavor 5 years ago.

I had been crocheting for a few years at that time and posted a picture of these on Facebook. A friend commented and said I should sell them on Etsy. At that time, I didn’t know much about Etsy and was skeptical if anyone would want to buy what I made. I spoke to a couple of friends who had Etsy shop, and they told me it was no big deal, and I should just try. I was still unsure about the whole thing but got curious and decided to open my first Etsy store anyway. After all, I didn’t have much to lose!

So, I crocheted a few other pairs, took pictures and listed them on my brand new Etsy store on December 18, 2010! I went to bed that night feeling a little scared. What’s going to happen? Would people like them or think it’s stupid?? Would anyone buy them?

Next morning, I got up and anxiously opened my browser to check and found I had just made my first sales! A very nice woman from Memphis bought my gloves and later ordered another pair for her daughter. In our correspondence, she was so kind and sweet and even invited me to visit her in Memphis if I was ever in the area (which I haven’t done to this date yet). That very first experience got me totally hooked (pun not intended!) on the joy of making stuff for other people and being appreciated for it. It was kind of gratification I’d never felt before.

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My creative focus has gradually shifted since then to art and printmaking (crochet is strictly a hobby now). And my little purple gloves remind me of how my casual attempt to try something new 5 years ago has set me on a course for my creative journey now.

I had never dreamed of becoming a full-time artist back then. It was not something I even thought of as an option. So much has changed in the last 5 years, and who knows what’ll happen in the next 5 years?? You might be planting seeds for your big dream right now and might not even know it.

Life can be so unpredictable. I use to feel uncomfortable with the change and uncertainty and am still not 100% comfortable with not knowing what’s going to happen next.

But I’ve learned to keep doing what makes me happy anyway.

When you push yourself to go outside of your comfort zone, and if you do it often enough, it becomes less scary. And then you realize that big scary thing you were afraid of isn’t actually that scary. What’s more important: when you do something that scares you, life brings you more opportunities. Go on and take chances! You would’ve never gotten this advice from me 5 years ago 🙂

May the new year bring us lots of opportunities and the courage to go after them!!

xoxo Yuko

p.s. I’m starting a free 4-week challenge starting tomorrow January 4! If you’re creative but can’t seem to find the time to practice or have too many ideas and don’t know where to start, sign up here. I’d love to help you!

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