Hello

[Audrone]

Hello,


I am 26. I am from Lithuania but for the last 2 years I’ve been living in London, UK.


For most of my life I tried to live up to other people expectations: good grades at school, being a good girl, going to university to study just because my parents wanted me to, etc.


I think after high school I couldn’t take it anymore and slowly started realizing what kind of future is waiting for me if I keep trying to please other people expectations - the Slowlane even if at that time I had no clue how to call it. But I still went with a flow but I started learning some new crafting techniques which had good opportunities to become a business. Well that’s what I believed at that time. I learned, improved my knowledge and skills, experimented and after big encouragement from my aunt I started selling my works online. I was struggling with my small Etsy business for 2 years. I made some sales. I even managed to get some gift shops buy my works wholesale and sell them. It felt like a big achievement for me. But I didn’t feel happy as it was still trading my time for money. I felt like my work, my ideas, time were undervalued, they were worth more money than I managed to show to my customers. I hardly earned any money.


Because of crafting I learned not only how to make something but also how to teach others (held Saturday workshops about felt making for about 2 years), how to create and sell tutorials (a tiny peek at the Fastlane), how to create a content which is valuable to others (created a blog about Etsy for Lithuanian crafters who want to start selling online but have no clue where to start).


I tried to focus on making my own business but after pressure from my family I started working 9-5. That was just official hours but in reality I was expected to be available 24/7. I had company mobile phone and was not allowed to switch it off even on the weekend. Even if I admit that I gained some valuable experience here but I started hating it very quickly (who would like to be woken up at 3AM on Saturday night by a client who wants to buy something which company didn’t even sell - maybe a business owner who can actually make a change). I think that work left me also some traumatic experience as I start shiver and want to disappear whenever I hear the same phone ring tone as my work mobile used to have. After 7 months I decided that I had enough slaving and decided to move to London and start everything from zero.


I had a plan that I will come here, get some job and after I will focus on my business. But I didn’t. I started overthinking and found many reasons why I cannot start my own business - I am renting a room and cannot use my home address as business address, I will need to open business bank account (it was hard to find bank which would open just simple personal account), I need to find accountant, etc. I keep telling myself that I will take a first step next month. My next month now lasts for 2 years.


I should say thanks to my current job as I am working with amazing and very supportive people. Even if they might not realize it, the books, apps, they recommended helped me to come back to my wish to have my own business which would help me to achieve my dreams.


Right now I am not sure what business I want exactly so I will take my time and use it to figure out what I could do and also to learn as much as I can on this forum.


I almost finished reading TMF and it is really amazing book which showed the mistakes I did and also that I can do it as I already knew a couple of things intuitively.

 

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