I don’t think it would be a surprise that the first word that comes to mind when thinking about starting and running my own business would be ‘challenging’. Now some people may see ‘challenging’ as negative, but I have a bit of a different view on it. In fact, growth, development and positive outcomes rarely come without being challenged along the way.
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For me personally, I know it would not have been possible without the support of my husband. This is for a number of reasons; I’m the kind of person that easily second guesses my decisions, so the last thing I need would be someone else reinforcing any doubts. Instead, I’ve had someone in my corner helping celebrate my good weeks and keeping the house running (both financially and practically with cleaning, cooking etc) in both the crazy busy and slow sales weeks. Now I know there are some incredibly gutsy boss babes out there who have and continue to dominate business without a partner at home and I’m in awe of them, but that hasn’t been my journey into business.
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I guess not fully giving up my day job as an OT could also be considered as sitting on the fence rather than jumping fully into business, but I think that’s largely my personality, plus for practical reasons (wanting to maintain my practising registration, plus property investing/ renovating is an incredibly expensive hobby).
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What I do like is having the control and flexibility around structuring my days and weeks, which is about to completely change again with the addition of a baby, but it has been nice whilst it lasted. I have been able to fit in going to the gym around my work commitments, which has meant that I am actually benefiting health wise from the balance too. When I was working full time in OT, commuting and ran HH as a side hustle, self-care was always the first to go as soon as I got busy.
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Some of the toughest parts of entering this journey for me came because I’m not really surrounded by any other people running a small business, thus I haven’t been exposed to so many important aspects. This meant a steep learning curve into finances and book keeping, but luckily, I have trust in and a good relationship with my accountant and felt comfortable asking questions, particularly to get things set up from the beginning.
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Marketing is also something I had absolutely no experience with, so this is something I’m going to continue to need to work on. Thankfully, I met the most incredible web designer and all round creative legend @thesaltwatercreative when I moved down to Vic and again she made me feel comfortable asking what were probably really silly questions.
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I’m glad I had the courage to even put myself out there by asking questions of professionals, even if to them it was very basic. I also spent a lot of time researching to learn about the legal (yawn, but very important) aspects of running a business.
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I’m still an absolute novice when it comes to owning and running a business and even from here if it all turns pear-shaped, I’ll forever be proud of what I did create and the courage it took to step out on a limb and give it a go. My hope is that it can inspire my children (especially if we have a little girl) to pursue their lofty dreams and hopefully be proud that they have a mum that is not only a mum but also a boss lady as well as having several other roles.
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A big part of the reason I wanted to work from home running my own business was to have the flexibility to live and also follow passions outside of work. This is something that I do need to remind myself of on quiet weeks, because it’s so good for my soul to be able to get stuck into a renovation project around the house, meet up with friends or to get out for a walk or to the gym. This is how I try to cope with the ups and downs.
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I hope this has given you a brief understanding of my why and an insight into some of the challenges and rewards I’ve encountered so far on this crazy journey into business life with HH.