Many of you may know me as AllyBeth Design Co, but what you might not know is that I used to run a small bookkeeping company called 3 Squares Bookkeeping & Business Solutions. While that was a fun adventure that lasted about 5 years, I quickly found myself getting burnt out, running from office to office taking care of other people’s books and working in other people’s (mostly unorganized) spaces. Handling other people’s emergencies like they were my own? Checked this box on a daily basis.
After a few (ok maybe more like 7) particularly overwhelming months in a row, I made the fairly impulsive decision to shut it all down. I was exhausted and overwhelmed, my home life was suffering, I was working almost all the time, lonely and just didn’t feel like this lifestyle was serving me anymore. So, I left that life behind me and pursued a ‘regular’ 9-5 in attempts to simplify my life, make things easier and hopefully make new friends.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Turns out, I don’t fit the 9-5 mould very well – and all of the things I was looking for are possible with self-employment, just not the way I was doing things.
What I did learn through all of this though, was that I needed to turn away from self-employment for a while to really see everything I was doing wrong. I was that hustle hustle girl. I worked all hours of the day, I jumped when an email came through (even in the middle of date night). I was so obsessed with building my business, I couldn’t see the big picture. I was definitely not working smarter – just harder AND I was also massively undercharging for my work (but that’s another story entirely).
So while I was hesitant to jump back into self-employment again, I knew deep down in my heart, that I’d learned a few things along the way. Big things that helped shift how I look at success, productivity, our purpose as business women, and how everyone is going to do this thing at their own pace. I learned you don’t have to be THE BEST to be successful at what you do, and that shouldn’t hold you back from going out there and doing it. But it’s SO hard to not get mixed up in the shoulds and the wants and the needs. Sometimes, we really need to simplify things down. Evaluate our dreams to make sure they are inspiring us not knocking us down.
For those of you who might be following along on our shop journey I officially (but quietly) switched over to AllyBeth full time in May. It’s been scary, exciting, exhausting, empowering and seriously inspiring all at the same time. To be honest, it’s something I didn’t really see coming, but boy did the universe have other plans for me (and I’m so glad it did). I’ll be talking a lot about some of the lessons that I feel helped shaped me into the business women I am today, and will be posting them here over the next few weeks. I would love to hear from any of you on your big lessons and possibly feature them here as well if you’re interested in sharing! Please reach out to allybethdesignco (at) gmail (dot) com to connect 🙂
