An Update of Sorts

7 March 2023

I’ve disappeared and reappeared yet again. I’ve been taking more time for myself recently, exploring new ideas and trying to develop old ones. During this time I’ve been finding the fun in what I do again, trying to build up the passion and love I have for creating.

When you take a hobby and monetize it, you tend to lose some of the excitement or passion that first drove you to do what you do, and I’m currently trying to unlearn that part. In recent months, I’ve stepped back from all the pop-ups and markets I was doing and found time to refocus and take some of the pressure off myself. Slowly but surely I’ve been enjoying my hobby once again and finding the drive I had lost.

Doing fewer pop-ups, I’ve had the time to mess around with my art more and be more playful with it. I’ve also been able to focus on the pop-ups and markets I most enjoy doing. Basically, I haven’t been spreading my self thin and have been finding more time to do what I love purely because I love and enjoy it.

During this time of development and revisioning, I’ve learned to not stretch my focus in too many places at once. Sometimes you get so excited and a head full of ideas that you start to want to do it all, but you can’t. I tend to overwhelm myself with too many ideas, new things I want try and finding myself scrambling to do it all right then and there, I think you’d call this impatience and I guess you can say I’ve been finding my patience. When I get excited about a new endeavor, I try and take it head on and all at once which can send me into a spiral.

I’ve realized you can take it easy and one step at a time, it’s not meant to be perfect or complete right off the bat. Good things take time, effort and lots of patience, if you have your focus strung out in a million directions you can’t expect perfection in all areas. With this realization, I came to the conclusion that my attention needs to be geared on one thing at a time. I need to take all my ideas one by one and find the patience to examine and perfect them individually, no matter how long it takes. I would rather have one completed project rather than ten half done ones.

With a new perspective on my hobbies and creative endeavors, I plan on taking the time to really build one and take everything day by day and one at a time. I won’t be overwhelming myself and I’ll be continuing my practice of patience as I move forward. Right now, my main focus is to hone in on what I want my business to be and how I can build it into the model I have in mind.

On another note, I also got to experience my first out of state pop-up last month! I got to spend a weekend out in Portland with my best bud and do a pop-up with her support. It was a good experience and little trip that sparked some inspiration and motivation that I much needed. During the pop-up, I got to meet new creators and connect with a new community which was very inspiring. This little weekend trip definitely opened my eyes and showed me I can branch out of my comfort zone.

With this experience, I was also able to take a step back and reflect on how far I have made it as a creator and small business owner. It solidifies that good things take time and effort, and you must have patience. From here on out I want to continue practicing my patience, developing one idea at a time and stop spreading myself too thin.

I know this blog post was kind of all over the place and was more of me venting and reflecting, but I hope that it may speak to some of you. Maybe this post even helped you reflect a bit and helped you sort your thoughts and ideas out, just as it has helped me sort through mine.

Here’s to another blog post and more to come!

Kabenzie :)

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A Screen Printing Experience

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Hello December