Enjoy the Journey

ProjectsCreativity

Jul 12

Written By Stacey

I love being part of the lettering community.

You may be the kind of person that jumps in, feet first, ready to run with your ideas. I admire that. You would probably be the hare to my tortoise.

After I posted my last sketch to IG, Sheena of @shemazingdesigns commented on it to ask me if I was going to put it in my shop. The funny thing was, it hadn’t dawned on me to do it! At times, I draw a title to a blog post or just something I think encompasses the whole idea behind the post…That’s what that drawing was.

We had a longer conversation behind the scenes. I told her about a side hustle that got away from me during the pandemic.

Like many others, things changed so much for me during 2020. Between my daughter’s health and teaching, it may have been the most change in one year I have ever experienced to date. I shared that as things continue to open up, I was only now beginning to get the calls that I had wanted back when I began that side hustle five years ago.

And I hustled hard, y’all! But, growth was just so slow. It felt like a splattering of success here and there. But it didn’t remain consistent (hello, freelance life). It just wouldn’t happen fast enough for me…And now…here on the other side of the pandemic, I’m having to refer out the jobs I dreamed of getting then.

And it hurts. It hurts a lot.

But, lemme tell you…hustling that hard was no way to live for it to end up being scrapped because it will not suit the recent changes in my lifestyle, nor that of my family. I spent so much time hustling, I failed to slow down enough to enjoy what I was doing on my way to reaching my goals.

I’ll say it again…that’s no way to live.

So, although my goal with lettering is to have a successful sticker shop. I’m just taking it slowly. I think taking time to court your interests while they’re young and making progress on your goals can coexist.

As I saw with my former side hustle, eventually, your work gets around and you will get to where you want to be, if you keep working at it…especially if you have folks in your corner like Sheena who will push you here and there.