Why I Started my Business
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There’s one question I’ve been asked about my business more than any other recently:
What’s your “why”? Why do you do what you do?
While I typically always have a short response (because social media, right?), I realized that I’ve never actually told the whole story about how & why I started my business, Capturing Your Confidence.
So this week I wanted to get a little more personal because I think the “why” of what we do is so important - maybe even more important than the end goal sometimes.
If you would have told me 5 years ago that I would be a business owner, I would’ve probably laughed. And not a chuckle of knowing appreciation. I mean a hearty “that would never happen” laugh. I’d never thought of owning a business, and I had no background in business, marketing, or sales. I knew the basic principles because my grandma taught business when I was young, but it wasn’t something I pursued in school.
And yet, in April 2019, everything changed. I found this 5 day course about starting a blog (or, rather, it found me on Facebook), signed up, and convinced my husband that we should invest a little money for me to start a blog.
I agonized for days over what I would call my blog. I wanted to be something witty and clever, and of course literary - assuming I could put it all together. I always intended to write about writing, and about teaching. In the early days, my main goal was to share my experiences of writing my novel, teaching, and sharing my love of writing with the world.
“I really had to consider what I wanted the blog to feel like - what I wanted my ethos to be. Who I was going to be as a blogger and a web writing personality. ”
I’m thankful that all of the clever names I initially thought of were unavailable because it made me think outside the box. I really had to consider what I wanted the blog to feel like - what I wanted my ethos to be. Who I was going to be as a blogger and a web writing personality.
It took a lot, but I finally settled on Capturing Your Confidence. I remember the moment I figured it out. I was driving home from somewhere, and it was a warm evening, so naturally the windows were down. I was thinking about confidence, and action words - yes, purposefully action words, especially ones that started with “C”. What can I say? I love alliteration.
Do other people brainstorm verbs that start with specific letters?
As my thinking evolved, I contemplated light in the darkness. What kinds of things could illuminate darkness without being overly bright like the sun? Brighter than the stars, but something tangible. Something you could capture and use to light the darkness.
Fireflies.
Fireflies light up the darkness, and many of us grew up capturing fireflies in glass jars and watching them glow. A memory of delight at the end of a summer day.
That was it - the moment I said it out loud I knew it was the perfect name for what I wanted to do: Capturing Your Confidence.
Left: Original logo; Right: 2020 Redesign; Top: Current - New Website Redesign
If you’ve been around for awhile, you might remember that my first logo actually included a jar with fireflies inside. I’ve redesigned the logo since then, but you can still see the firefly inspiration in the logo today - next time you visit the blog or see an email from me, look at the logo. I’ve never stopped trying to help you catch the confidence fireflies in your life.
After I decided on the name, I continued to read everything I could find about blogging for money (and the insane amount of income some bloggers make). The more I became convinced that not only could I do it, I would do it. I was going to be one of those bloggers who makes $30K a month for blogging.
So I learned. I blogged. I wrote and wrote... and wrote some more. And I got better. It’s funny - I have 2 degrees in writing, and I still look back at some of those first blogs and cringe a little.
“I’ve never stopped trying to help you catch the confidence fireflies in your life.”
When I first started, I thought I would be able to make money quickly. I wanted to quit the day job I was bored at and be a blogger full time. Because I’d recently started writing my novel, I’d revived my childhood dream of being a writer when I “grew up” - this seemed like a perfect direction to go in.
Alas, you don’t know what you don’t know! Starting a business is SO HARD. Like, really hard.
When you’re doing it on your own while working a day job and a part time job on the side… well, let’s just say that things didn’t move along as planned. Not even close. There have definitely been times where it’s been incredibly frustrating to put in so much work and realize I still wasn’t going to make money that month. Or that I spent what felt like all my time on social media doing networking and still I got very little traffic to see the posts I poured my heart into.
There were more than a few times I thought, “Why the hell am I still trying?”
For most people, continuous effort with seemingly no result IS frustrating and it’s probably totally reasonable to want to quit. I think this happens to everyone, no matter what kind of business they’re starting. There are always setbacks, things usually take much longer than expected, and cost way more money (sometimes that you don’t even really have to spend). Sometimes all you can do is sigh and go to bed knowing you’ll have to try again tomorrow.
As I learned more about online business, though, I realized that maybe blogging as a main income source wasn’t necessarily what I wanted. I read about coaching & online courses, and as a teacher in the classroom, both of those ideas intrigued me. And of course, freelance writing kept appearing as an inviting option, too. So I signed up for what seemed like 1,000 email lists and once again everything shifted - and not just because I was getting 5 times as many sales emails.
“My business changed when I realized that what I wanted to do was write. ”
My business changed when I realized that what I wanted to do was write. And I wanted to help other people write. I could do that with blogging, but the bits about covering events and doing paid social media posting like many bloggers and influencers do just weren’t as exciting as the idea of someone wanting me to write words for them.
Nothing was quite as exciting as working with people 1:1 to build up their confidence the way I’d built up my own after the dreaded incident when I stopped writing for all those years.
From the moment I started teaching, it’s broken my heart to hear students come to me and say or write “I’m just not that good at writing” or “I’ve never been good at writing.” It’s always been my primary goal as a teacher to build student confidence, and that trickled into the workplace, too. It’s sad to me when professionals who are very good communicators - really sharp & smart people - feel poorly about their writing. Especially when it’s not bad!
So I decided that, rather than being a full time blogger, I was going to be a writer instead, and a writing coach. The day I decided, I knew it was the best decision I could make for my business. I’ve never looked back, and I’ve never had any doubts that this is 100% the path that I’m supposed to be on. I don’t think I’ve ever had a stronger gut instinct in my entire life, honestly.
Have you ever had that feeling? Where you just know something is right?
I’ll say this: it was a scary freaking decision.
The dialogue around freelance writing is evolving, but for people outside the online business industry, there’s still very much a feeling and assumption that writers barely scrape by and there’s not a lot of common knowledge about coaching - at least not in any of the circles I was in. So how the heck was I supposed to make money at this? Let alone enough to pay bills and do more than just survive?!
Here’s the thing: writing is a highly valuable & valued skill. Almost anyone can write, but it doesn’t mean they like it and it doesn’t mean it’s effective. I’m all about learning and teaching writing as a skill that can be developed. Totally there for it. BUT, that doesn’t mean that everyone is willing to put in the work it takes to be good at it.
I’ve never been averse to hard work (in fact, I kind of suck at taking breaks and often overwork myself - not an advocate for that either), so I knew if there was a way, I could figure it out.
What I’ve realized the most throughout the whole journey is that your mindset will make or break you. You either believe you will succeed, and therefore act accordingly, or you let doubt crowd out the excitement and it holds you back from making bold new decisions that will allow you to grow. It doesn’t work both ways. Starting a business is a leap of faith.
“You either believe you will succeed, and therefore act accordingly, or you let doubt crowd out the excitement and it holds you back from making bold new decisions that will allow you to grow. It doesn’t work both ways.”
I’m happily at the point where I do, in fact, make money from writing, and from writing coaching. And the people who haven’t always been quite on board with my big dreams are coming right along behind me. People used to talk about my blog, myself included, now talk about my business. They may not understand exactly how it all works, but they know it’s working.
As for my “why,” I probably could have just made it short and sweet at the beginning:
I want people to be confident in their writing. I want to be the person who builds up other creatives and holds their hand while they climb the slippery slope of writing confidence. I want to be the person I needed when I stopped writing. I want to help professionals be confident in the workplace, maybe even confident enough to leave a crappy workplace and pursue their passion of writing, if that’s what they want.
Most of all, I want to help people. Out of all the things I’ve wanted to “do” in my life, that’s been the one constant that’s never changed. I want to make a positive impact on the world and my business is the way that I can best do that.
But saying those things on their own - that’s not me. I don’t feel like you get the whole picture if you don’t know about the journey I took to figure it out.
In the hustle and bustle of daily lives, especially during the turmoil of a global pandemic, our reason for doing what we do becomes even more important.
Knowing it. Feeling it. Living It. Believing it.
It keeps us sane in times where we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. We know what small actions we can take, and we know that small actions can lead to big results. We know that if there’s even a little hope, as humans, we can use that to light our way through the dark.
That’s what I’m doing here at Capturing Your Confidence - providing a little light & assistance so you can help yourself out of the darkness of doubt and start really living the creative life you want and crave. You’re unstoppable - I’m just here to help you see that for yourself.
“You’re unstoppable - I’m just here to help you see that for yourself. ”
Want me to write awesome stuff for you? Check out more here.
Or maybe you want to be the confident writer you feel like…before you stare at the blank page for an hour. I can help, and I’d love to work with you! Read more here.
As always, if you have a question, want to read something you haven’t seen, or just want to chat, email me at rachel@capturingyourconfidence.com or find me on social media.