Welcoming 2012


I’ve been thinking about what my word for 2012 will be.  In order to figure out where I want to go this year, I stopped and took a look back at the last two years to see where I’ve been.

2010

2010 was the year I came to terms with my failed business partnership and dealt with the emotional aftermath of that “divorce”.

  • It was a year of healing. I had lost my way. I had lost my drive. I was depressed. I had completely lost myself. Who the hell was this person? It certainly wasn’t me. I had been hurt so deeply and my recovery process was painfully slow.
  • It was a year of reflection. How had I gotten to this point? What part did I play in all of it? Could I have prevented it? Why did it happen in the first place? Could I have chosen better path for myself?
  • It was a year of decision making. What did I really want to do? What would make me happy?
  • It was a year of rebuilding. Where did I want to go from here? How was I going to get there?
  • It was a year of rediscovery. Where was the “professional” I used to be? Did I still have any design talent? Was I even any good anymore? I had so much to re-learn.

2010 was a very hard year for me.

2011

2011 was my year of moving forward.

At times it doesn’t feel like much happened in 2011.  But looking back I found that I really did accomplish a lot of great things last year. More than I thought I did.

  • I designed. A LOT. I got back into designing on a regular schedule. I found some mojo along the way. I designed more in 2011 then I have in all my other years in the digital scrapbook industry combined – going all the way back to 2005. That’s how design intensive 2011 was for me.
  • I paid off old business debt. I found a design home with a top digital scrapbook company and as a result have been able to pay off some serious business debt that I accrued trying to get my failed business partnership off the ground.
  • I scrapped. I scrapped over 100 layouts last year including printing and putting them into a 12×12 keepsake binder. This was a wonderful accomplishment for me.
  • I cleaned. I got my house under control. I did some major house clean-up in 2011 and put myself on a regular maintenance cleaning schedule every Monday. I felt good because my house felt good.
  • I exercised. In July, I started working out regularly again. I set a goal of losing 30 lbs by my birthday (Jan 7th). During this time I started running again. I certainly didn’t set any barn burner run times. But I was out there doing it. Regularly. Running. ME!
  • I lost weight.  While I didn’t reach my weight loss goal of 30lbs, I did lose 17 lbs.

Even with all that, I’d have to say the biggest accomplishment of the year was that I moved forward and stopped looking back.

2012

2012 will be my year of letting go and start saying “good enough” more.

  • I will stop holding myself to unrealistic goals and standards.
  • I will let go of my perfectionist nature.
  • I will stop over analyzing everything before I do it.
  • I will try more things.
  • I will create more for myself than for a paycheck.
  • I will keep “good enough” control over my designing.  My collections can get out of control quickly and often I find I can’t stop designing.  “Oh it needs this one more thing” and before you know it a collection that should have 40-50 embellishments in it has 75-90 embellishments in it. Basically TWO collections in one. Overkill.
  • I will take more photos (and be IN more photos).
  • I will learn more about photography.
  • I will scrap more “everyday” stories of my family.
  • I will let go of my personal web store.

That last one was a very hard decision for me. I started thinking about letting my personal store go back in November. Maintaining both a personal store and my ScrapGirls store was not working. Over half of the products in my ScrapGirls store never made it to my personal store. It was just too time-consuming for the little it was generating even with having help (thanks Nikki!).

The reality is I have more exposure and financial potential with my store at ScrapGirls and need to be focusing all my design effort stocking and promoting my products there. When I joined the design team back in April, I wasn’t mentally ready to take the leap of faith and give up what I perceived as control. But almost a year later, I’m now ready.  It is simply a better use of my time and money.

As part of letting my personal store go, I have also switched over my design blog to JenReed.com. During the next year, my goal is to blog more in general including sharing more photos of my family. I’m starting everything over. Fresh new blog. Fresh new start. Feels good.

“Good Enough” in 2012

My 2012 “good enough” journey begins today. I’m turning this blog on live even though I haven’t added all my collections to it yet and I only have one post on it. I’ve spend the last week or so working on getting the basic look how I wanted along with getting the blog to showcase my products in an easy to maintain way. So I feel the blog is “good enough” to go live. So I’m jumping in.

This journey won’t be easy for me.  There will be times I will fail as I am too much a control freak and perfectionist. I will definitely have to keep reminding myself.

  • “Good enough” does not mean half ass.
  • “Good enough” does not mean unprofessional.
  • “Good enough” does not mean being sloppy.
  • “Good enough” does not mean not striving for excellence.
  • “Good enough” does not mean excuses.
  • “Good enough” does not mean giving up.
  • “Good enough” does not mean failure.

Good enough simply means that I will not torture myself by setting ridiculous expectations. I will be kinder to myself. I can be a high achiever and not an unrealistic perfectionist.

  • So what if it takes me longer to run a mile?
  • So what if it takes me longer to produce new products? (I will not be working myself like a dog this year.)
  • So what if it takes me a little longer to lose the weight I want to lose?
  • So what if it takes me longer to do <whatever>?

So what?

I’m moving forward and that’s all that really needs to happen.  It’s going to be good enough.