Part 3 - How To Know When It's Time: Starting a Small Business

Now that all the registration is done, the hoops are all successfully cleared, what I face next seems a less obvious challenge. I've dreamed of having a business like this for nearly twenty years and I have notebooks and a head full of ideas.  To not do them all at once like I try to sow too many seeds all at once will be challenging.  To know which ideas are going to be the best is going to take some time and I need to take the time to evaluate and test them before settling on the best ones.

The pot collection last spring

I was not very good at this early on in my experience as a gardener and was constantly bringing home plants I had no business buying because I fell in love with their pretty little faces.  These would either ended up getting crammed whatever tiny little space was left in my garden where it would fight for survival or worse yet...be left in its little pot and never planted where it could thrive.

After paring down the seed collection why do I need to buy more???

Seeds were even worse…I just swoon over the photos of lettuces and tomatoes and oh those heirloom squash…I’m pathetic!  I still buy too many seeds and yes, I've wasted a lot of time and money learning what not to do, but I can laugh now as I see that those lessons have helped me to be a wiser, more successful and more frugal gardener.  What is even more amazing to me though, is how these same lessons are now helping me take wise steps as I begin to build my business. This is a real answer to a prayer I've been praying for some time.

Seedlings sown to closely need transplanting with better spacing for best growth potential.

After suffering an injury several years ago that kept me from being able to garden much I began asking God why was it I was ever lead to get into horticulture in the first place. I had been allowed to thrive in it and garner all this knowledge and for what; so I could lay down my trowel leave the garden to take care of itself?  That didn't make sense so I never stopped asking God why but always trusted that He has something else in mind...I just didn't have a clue what that was.

Every fall its time for a look back and making notes of what worked or didn't.

After looking back over things in relation to where I am headed I can honestly say I now know, at least in part what God was doing.  God was using my experiences in gardening/horticulture as a classroom to help me gain wisdom for my future, a future I didn't even know was going to be mine.  I love it when God does things like that.

Currently life is an exercise of taking a lot of deep breaths, gathering thoughts together, writing things down, and surrendering it all to God for His will and purpose. Its my job to wait, to listen and to be obedient, putting one foot in front of the other so I don't loose my way and don't loose sight of what God is doing or where He is leading by running ahead or lagging behind.

Stepping into the future does not mean running headlong thoughtlessly.

Ten years ago used to be I was just the opposite of the person I am today, but past experience been a valuable teacher and  I hope I have learned my lessons well.  I guess I'll find out as I take each step into tomorrow and whatever God has planned for me in this new season of life.

So how do you know when its time?  Myself I think its a combination of things coming together like the changing seasons in our garden.  If you are not anxious and paying attention you will know when its time, if you have learned your lessons well you will know when its time.  When you feel the warm blessings of God smiling on you as He opens that door for you...you will know its time.  At least that is how I knew...may God bless you likewise.

How To Know When It's Time: Starting a Small Business Part 2 - Facing Fear

Being thrust into having to start a business is nerve wracking and can be an emotional roller-coaster.  One moment I find I'm fighting paralyzing fear because I don't know what will happen...the fear of failing, and suddenly I'm so over the moon about my future all I want to do is move forward at full steam!  It's a new and strange experience for me.  To focus on either of them is not good as I've learned in my own life experiences and the experiences of others in their in business.  Surging forward too quickly is as bad as being bound up by fear and unable to move.  It is a warning and a reminder that being taken over by either emotion may be one of the trickiest parts of this whole venture.  In this post its all about facing fear and what failure really is.

Me at the site of one of my biggest failures and greatest lessons...it is now an alter of remembrance and turning point in my life. It is the place I need to remember...to know that because I failed here does not mean I won't succeed tomorrow.  It is only a spot in the road of life.

We all fear the future in some measure because we don't know what it will be for us...success or failure; mostly we just fear failure.  Few people today really realize that failure is a great teacher and all because of the social stigma surrounding it.  I know I suffered under this social stigma and its short-sighted definition for years.  Even though there is a vast amount of help out there for small business start ups, I still I find I have to force myself forward and have to face those fears almost daily.  Each time I do I am discover over and over that this is really just series of steps taken one at a time, that I should not think about and consider what comes next but I must not worry about what comes next or that I might make a mistake.   This means I must not listen to the voice of worry because it binds me up with fear, tying my feet to where I stand with the chords of "what if?" so I never move forward.  However we all have to face our fears to reap our desired rewards.

We fear spiders because we think they are going to bite us...but they are only trying to survive and would rather have a nice meal of flower fly or other insect.  So is our fear justified...I think not; understanding helps to alleviate fear.

Fear and insecurities are something we battle throughout our lives and each of us has our own way of dealing with them.  Nearly every gardening class I’ve taught and every meeting I’ve attended I’ve met someone who will confess to me me that they are scared to death to start a garden. Being the oh-so-confident and fearless gardener I am, my response to them is simply this; "Ya gotta start somewhere, so why not here and why not now?", followed up with some simple instructional tips to help get them going.  Sometimes they need to hear that everyone fails and yes they will fail, they will kill plants or plants will just die...but that's ok, that's life in the garden.  That they should not fear these seeming failures but to grab onto them and learn from them as opportunities to learn what really happened to cause it or to look at it as an opportunity try something new instead.  Isn't trying a new business just like that?  I think it is a lot like that.

As I write this it amazes me how many lessons I am able to glean from my past career which speaks to me of how our lives are an ongoing journey filled with lessons and applications that are meant to translate to these new pathways, meant to help us become wiser, meant to teach us and meant to be shared with others to help them along their way too.  We tend to forget this truth in transition times when we start fearing the unknown, when  we begin to walk down that new path we have never been on before.

Its funny how I'm finding myself needing to take my own advise these days and it makes me pause to wonder at how long I've been being taught through my past circumstances, those lessons preparing me this season in my life.  I know its been at least for the past eighteen years and I'm guessing for my whole life; and I’ll be darned if it didn’t happen without my I even realizing what was going on.

Every new day is born full of new opportunity and the lessons that will accompany them if we take hold of them and step out into our future.

For me as a Christian I don't face my future alone but with God as my guide which is a great comfort and help when I am tempted to fear.  This truth was made plain to me years ago in a rather unusual way when I opened the first copy of Reader's Digest my father had sent me as a gift and on the first page I turned to, the very first thing I read was this quote:

"I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
“Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown”,
and he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God,  That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”  Louise M. Haskin 

Whether you are a long time business owner, just setting up a new business like myself, or someone who is just walking along a new path in your life that you find challenging, I hope this has been of some encouragement to you.


Copyright © 2011 by Patty Hicks
All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.

How To Know When It's Time: Starting a Small Business: Part 1 Circumstances and Timing

This is the number one biggest topic in gardening...How do I know its time...time to sow seeds, when is it time to harvest or time to prune the roses or the fruit trees, or cut back the perennials?  How do I know when its time?  I got a fresh reminder of this question when I went out to check my bird feeders and found the black oil sunflower seed sprouting after a week of unseasonably warm and damp weather.

It was in the 50s all week last week...warm enough to sprout seeds

For one second I thought, "Gee, I should sow some sunflower seeds today."  It made things worse when I noticed the tall flower buds on my Hellebore and then the crocus shooting up out of the ground.

Yellow Cloak Crocus in mid January

Then it hit me...its only January!!! I think I'll wait a little before I give that desire any more thought.  Everything in its season for a reason.  I'm experiencing some parallels in my own life like this right now too.

Things still freeze solid in January

I just became a business owner for the first time a couple weeks ago.  This was not something I planned for, just like I didn't plan for those sprouting seeds, but is something that I needed to do after suddenly landing a contracted freelance writing job, my first job ever in this field. (I'm still pinching myself.)  It was so surreal  after years of only being able to dream of owning a business where I could work doing what I love to do, where my creativity could flourish.  Before now I was never able to get the legs underneath the hope I had for one reason or another and the dream of running my own business and creating the many things I wanted to make kept needing to be put off.  My story is a good example of how quickly things can change and how timing is sometimes everything.

I'm finding that creating a plan for my business has been very parallel to planning a garden for the first time, including having to wait until the brush gets cleared away before it can be built.

An congested corner in my garden needing a new look.

Circumstances and timing came together to suddenly push me out onto my future. Here I am trying to figure out what products to make like I used to have to choose what plants to grow.  I'm needing to find a workshop to work in which is not unlike evaluating a landscape and deciding where to place a garden.  Location is an important factor to the success of both and a hastily made decision can bring frustration and or failure in both worlds.

Hellebore seed pod ripening

Pretty soon I will be looking for seed money to feed my new little business and help further establish its foundation and future growth just like I've shopped for soil amendments that will help improve the soil in my garden giving the plants a healthy foundation to grow in.

Finally I am seeking the wise counsel of those who have traveled this path before because know I don't know what the heck I am doing and have a ton of questions about what comes next.  When I was in junior high school a teacher of mine told our class that the only stupid question is one that never gets asked. I am working hard to be fearless about asking any question I have no matter how silly the question may sound to me.  When I don't ask questions I find I am always wishing I would have and wondering if I got things right.

If only I had asked the question I wouldn't be stuck here!

If it had happened any other way I'm certain I would have second guessed the timing, fought with my own insecurities and probably never even have started a business at all .  Because of how things have come together I know the timing is right and it makes it a lot easier to forge ahead in the process so my patience is paying off.  If things aren't coming together for you I recommend you take a step back, maybe it isn't time yet.  But if it is, jump on that pony, hang on tight and ride!

I know this is somewhat of an unconventional look at starting a small business but we are each individuals in individual circumstances so take it for what its worth and I hope you have been inspired.



Copyright © 2011 by Patty Hicks
All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All reviews must include author's name and a link back to this blog.