On Success…and My New Business Cards!

A few months ago, my sister and I were chatting on G-chat about my Etsy shop and graphic design aspirations. I confessed that I got a little assistance from Clash Graphics of Atlanta and started my shop on a whim, and that I was quite excited that I had actually sold things.”That’s great that you’ve been so successful,” Mel said.

I quickly corrected her: I wasn’t successful, not yet. I might have got high-quality business cards printed at www.catdi.com, but that is to only send them along the dozen of goodies I sold on Etsy and have been lucky enough to use my passion for design on a modest scale.

“I won’t be successful until…,” I stumbled. When would consider myself successful? When I’ve sold 1,000 items? When I can quit my day job? When I make more from my side “job” than my day job?

“It depends how you define success,” Mel pointed out.

This conversation resurfaced in my consciousness while reading a fabulous book this weekend. I completed an exercise on my measures of success – things like, “I’ll be able to work less than X hours a week.” and “I’ll be able to spend 75% of my work time designing.”

Five-and-a-half months after opening my little shop – and four months after “starting” my design business – I am hardly to the point where I feel successful.

So I’ve decided to come up with some different parameters for how I measure success right now:

– To generate an invoice for Selling that bag  I put my heart into.
– Creating a note card set that I love.
– Capturing that wallet just right with my little camera.
– Hearing from my dad that “it is way cool” and “shows an entrepreneurial spirit” that I sell things I make online.
– Hearing that people actually USE the things I make. And like them!
– Being asked by my current employer to submit a proposal to design a program for them after I leave.
– Being affirmed by all the wonderful people in my life and on the internet.
– Making 25% of my (albeit crappy) monthly salary in Etsy and design sales.
– Spending my time doing things that I love. Period.

This list makes me feel better about where I’ve come and where I’m going, and it’s far less daunting than aiming for numbers and statistics. I got an email from a student today that was sweet and encouraging. She ended with, “Just don’t stop looking until you find something you love doing!” Maybe that should be my definition of success: Looking forward to work every day.

Please, follow your passion. Whatever it may be.