Ready to quit everything and start over

[emilybon]

Sorry for long post, but there are a few questions and I really need advice:

I feel like my life has been a mess. I was born into a mess, nothing I can do about it, however, my current problems are because of my choices and I really want to fix them and continue on making the right choices.

I hate to look at my past because of all the hurt and mistakes. But at the same time, I look at it to see my journey to try to make my future decisions. I feel that I am at a crossroads right now. At my previous crossroads I have made nothing but bad choices and I am still paying for a couple of them and don’t know how to get out of them.

I am writing on this forum because I don’t want to make mistakes anymore and hope that someone more intelligent and experienced can help me avoid making more mistakes and guide me in the right direction. Unfortunately, I feel that my situation is complex as it encompasses mindset and business and personal decisions.

So I will try to make this short.

Born into a dysfunctional family who kept telling me how selfish and lazy I was. It isn’t until recently I learned that they kept saying that to only get me to do what they wanted. They were very emotionally abusive and it left me being the person with a sign on my forehead saying, “use meâ€. This has caused me to make decisions that I shouldn’t have and brings me to problems I have today and want to fix.

I married a man that I thought loved me, I still think he loves me, but I don’t think he is right for me to be successful. He is not supportive, although he says he is. I have been a work at home mom for over ten years and have made lots of money and have been able to be home for our kids, however, his father always told him that my business was not a real business and convinced my husband to tell me to get real jobs which hindered my business. My husband also loved to spend the money I made on partying often spending more money than we had.

I have closed that business and went back to school to get a master’s, which now is costing me $80,000 in student loans all so that I could get a real job like my husband and his father wanted. However, the economy crashed and there are no good jobs to get. So, I decided to start my own website business and do what I am good at which is entrepreneurism and ignore my father-in-law and my husband when it comes to my professional choices.

Because I am not selfish or lazy as my family tried to make me believe, I really did want to get more involved in the community and joined the board of our HOA and the PTA of my son’s school.

My problem and decisions to make:

I love but am not happy with my website business because it is taking too much work and time to get anywhere. I want to start something else but not sure what. I would love to go back to my passion I had as a child to become an author but I am not sure if it is possible to turn that into fastlane. What if my writing sucks? (Please, don’t judge my writing based on this forum post.) I wrote some stuff that I thinks sucks but some of my stuff I can’t even believe I wrote. But I am hearing my husband and grandmother who has said my writing sucks, but looking back, my husband hates to read and my grandmother hates my genre. What do I do??? I don’t want to make another bad choice and I do have those student loans to pay off.

Another business idea I had was inspired my Shark Tank. I am very good at marketing and got my master’s in Internet Marketing. I was thinking of asking for a percentage of the ownership of businesses for in return I help them market and grow their business. I guess this will be like working on commission, but since I can’t think of a great product of my own maybe I can leverage someone else’s. Thoughts???

I enjoy doing the PTA. My HOA really needs help, but the president is a real chauvinist A-hole. I am the only girl on the board and he is a control freak that takes over all my projects which would be fine with me but he is also a screw-up and can’t do anything right. He is also rude to me and tries to embarrass me in meetings and other women homeowners who showed interest in joining the board change their minds when they see how he is. I want to quit but no other woman will join because of him and none of the other men wants to organize the community events which have been ignored for 4 years and the homeowners want more events but the woman are scared to join the board. I really want to quit but thanks to my families conditioning I feel like if I do it is selfish because I know they need me. I hate that president, and want to quit, and don’t know what to do. Can someone help make me feel better about quitting? LOL.

Another problem I think I have is self-sabotage. I know that I can make a lot of money as I did before with my previous business. At the moment, we are good with money; we can be content and happy. However, of course I will like to be self sufficient from my husband and have more money to be financially free and secure. However, my husband loves to spend and is more driven by brands and ego. We both want to travel, but last year he has actually suggested going to Ireland with his brother and not me and his kids. Neither of us has been to Europe so why would he suggest this as his first Europe trip? He says that he can’t wait for me to make more money so that we can travel and have fun and he can buy whatever he wants without thinking about the cost. This mindset and his past money behaviors worry me. He says he won’t be like he was before but I don’t believe him because of how he still acts. We live on a budget and he gets mad at me if I give him a set amount of money to buy clothes with. He has me manage and budget the finances because he knows that if he does it the bills won’t get paid (we tried that already) but then he argues that I keep him from spending his money. I think I self-sabotage my success because I feel that he would spend all the money I make.

I feel stuck really. I love my family, husband, and kids, but I also feel like I have been doing everything in my life for everyone else and it has been holding me back. I want to move forward and do for me, but I know I have kids who depend on me. I also don’t want to be that selfish lazy person my family always accused me of being.

If it wasn’t for my husband always complaining about his unhappiness of me, I would be very happy with where we are now. I define happiness as being around the ones you love and having your basic needs met, I am content. Although, I also worry about our future and want to be financially secure so that we can always have this happiness. But my husband will never be happy because he sees happiness as something different, something no one can ever achieve, an illusion. He will always want more and as quickly spend more.

Any advice?

 

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[Alana]

Okay…first, realize that anything anyone posts here is just as suggestion based off of their own interpretation of what you’ve told us. Because you have so much going on in so many facets of your life, you might seriously consider seeing a counselor/therapist.

Now that my preface is out of there way, here is my personal opinion (at that is all it is…):

Stop with the blame game. Do you realize how many times you counteracted what you said? Ex: At the last paragraph, you said “if it wasn’t for my husband always complaining about his unhappiness to me, I would be very happy with where we are now” Are you kidding me? You just wrote a painfully long post explaining the many ways you are unhappy—your marriage, your life, your family, your job, etc etc etc.

Stop blaming you husband, his dad, the president of the HOA. As far as your husband, I’m not suggesting that he is not being supportive of you. I’m not saying that he is not holding you back….but he is not the one who controls what you do and who you are. If he is someone who literally hinders you to the point where you are being either physically or mentally abused or you simply can’t live the life that you want to live with him…then LEAVE. But stop the blame game. YOU, and ONLY YOU, are the reason for you success and/or failures. Say it with me now: “My success is my own damn fault.”

You also talk about you web business, and how it’s doing well but you don’t love it and it’s “taking too much work and time to get anywhere”. Sorry, but work and time is what it takes. There is no easy pill that will have you waking up tomorrow morning with a wad of endless cash in your purse. Read any of the bios on the judges on Shark Tank----they all had to work (really hard), they all didn’t give up, and none of them became an overnight millionaire. MJ had to work hard too…(why do people not seem to want to acknowledge that part of the book?)….maybe it’s not physically hard laborious work, and maybe it seems like he only had to work a little bit before he ‘made it’….but he had to work hard nonetheless…he had to do his homework. THEY ALL DID.

Look, everyone has their story…and I’m sorry that your folk sweren’t great…but you’re an adult now….start acting like one. Someone is always going to have it worse off than you, and someone is always going to have it far better than you. You can’t let your past (and that includes everything up to the point you wrote this post) be your excuse.

Zip the lip, stop complaining, and get a life.

I hope that last sentence really made you mad. I hope the first thing that popped into your mind was “Who the hell does this chic think she is?” Good….get mad…and PROVE ME WRONG. Prove that you’re no longer going to play the nice victim. That you’ll stop living (if you want to call it that) for everyone else’s sake and start living for yourself. No. More. Excuses.

I wish you the best….

 

[emilybon]

Thank you Alana. That is what I want to do - own my life.

I do blame my choices on myself. I just wish I didn't live my life trying to make everyone else happy at the expense of my own happiness.

I guess that sentence I just typed does sound like I still blame everyone else. It is my own fault that I let everyone walk all over me. It is my own fault that I don't stand up for myself.

About my happiness, I do find times of happiness, when everyone just leaves me alone. It is when everyone starts yapping at me about what I should do with my life that I get miserable and start making bad choices that I end up regretting forever.

Therapy probably would help me rid myself of a lifetime of conditioning to do what makes everyone else happy. After reading your post Alana, I think I may have a deeper long lasting damage that may need some professional help to repair because at the moment I really don't know how to take back control. I am going to look into getting some therapy.

Moving forward, I guess I can tell everyone to mind their business when they try to tell me how to live my life. I can tell that president that he can't take over my projects (but he has done it without telling me anyways) or I can just quit, the worst that can happen is we lose more value on our property. I can keep giving my web business a try even though it is in a very competitive niche and maybe isn't the best business model for fastlane, perhaps sell it in the future. I have a couple of stories that I should at least publish to see how they do and keep writing. I already have written off my family a couple years ago that was the start of getting my life back, but I see that I still have lots more to go.

Any more advice? Any tips?

 

[Amail]

You had some success with your previous business, so you understand that particular process. I think your father in law saying you didn't have a real business is what put you off the rails. I wonder if we'd have the same opinion. Mind sharing what the business was?

 

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[emilybon]

Hi Amail,

The business was a wedding business. I started it as wedding videograpy and grew the business to do video, photo, dj and planning. It became the biggest wedding business in my area. I was making low 3 figures yearly. The reason that I gave it up was because I wanted to have more time for my kids on the weekends to put them in sports. I could have made it so that I would be able to be with my family and have others run the business but I had a hard time finding reliable people to hire and ran out of time. While I was trying to transition the business to run without me I became bedbound in my second pregnancy and wasn't able to keep interviewing people. I practically ran the end of the business from bed. Not to mention my other reasons - tired of bridezillas and it wasn't scalable.

I am very happy to have my weekends free now after giving them up for several years. I enjoy my kids now both in baseball and we are going to place them in more sports through out the year because they want to try other sports.

My husband now regrets not letting me concentrate on that business when I had it. He sometimes says we should start it again since I know how to make it a success. However, he is being supportive with that a little too late. I am not interested in it anymore. That's me putting my foot down and saying 'no'.

I know that I can make a similar service type business using the same models a success. But I haven't figured out what I would like to do. I don't want to do a service type business again because it really needs good management to keep it successful and that take capital to hire people so that I don't end up being the manager and making it MY job.

 

[Mike39]

I was making low 3 figures yearly.

Typo?

 

[vtlambo]

Typo?

Don't think so. My cousin did the same thing as the original poster and made roughly the same amount in Canada.

 

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[emilybon]

Typo?

LOL, yes that was a typo. Add 3 zeros, it was 6 figures.

 

[Guest12120]

Sorry for long post,

Why are you sorry? There aren't any rules against long posts. At least I am not familiar with any.

 

[Mike39]

LOL, yes that was a typo. Add 3 zeros, it was 6 figures.

Oh, that's a relief! A congratulations is in order then, not many people (on here or in the real world) can say that they have accomplished that! :eusa_clap:

SPEED++

 

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[Amail]

That's me putting my foot down and saying 'no'.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face, maybe?

You started and grew the biggest business of its kind in your area. You learned a lot. If you were to start it again you'd have it up and running in 1/3 the time it took last time, I'm certain. You now know what parts of the business were efficient and which weren't, so your new startup would no only be on its feet sooner, but would be more profitable.

You know what aspects of the business you didn't like. I imagine there were parts of the business you did like. Can you start a similar business that puts the focus on the not-bridezillas? Could you develop this as B2B instead of B2C and cater to a larger audience of event planners? You've been in the trenches and can speak with authority about things a wedding planner needs to know.

Weekends with your family are important to you; that's important to me too, and I generally don't work weekends unless I need to. Weddings are typically weekend events (I assume), so I can see how this particular niche would interfere with family time. Look at this again from as many angles as possible and see how you might leverage your experience to offer value to other businesses while keeping your weekends free. Maybe not fastlane, but learning as much as you can about the different facets of business is better than punching anybody's timeclock.

 

[Ali]

B4 discussing any business or income generating idea, I would advise you to take control of your own life. You seem to be a victim of family members not trusting you to make wise decision so they keep telling you what you should do. Be in the driving seat and make decisions and make it known to others that these decisions have been tailor-made to fit your aspirations and they shouldn't be bothered about telling blaming you for not listening to them if things go wrong, simply because it's your life!!

 

[andyredsox]

Yes, take control of your own life first. That's the only time you'll fully become comfortable of yourself to decide things on your own and to start building a business again from the ground up.

 

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[psaco131]

You have an Internet Marketing degree + an interest in writing. You ever looked into writing copy?

 

[maverick]

I'll give you my 2 cents:

Whenever in life you feel like you're bored, stuck in a rut, depressed or whatever you want to call it do this:
-Make a list of things you don't like about your current situation (e.g. situation with husband, non-supportive people around you)
-Make a list of things you do like about your current situation; things that went well (e.g. you've shown you're able to build a biz)

Start eliminating items from the first list and adding items to the second list.

I live by the rule "If I wake up on Monday morning and I feel happy and moving towards my goals then I'm good.. otherwise I need change"

Needless to say.. I've changed a lot.

 

[emilybon]

Thank you all for all your great support and advice. I am glad I posted what I was feeling.

Amail - I have given what you said some thought. I don't think the wedding industry is the right place for me, at least not in the way I was before. But I am trying to come up with some other ideas like you suggested that is similar to what I learned and know from the previous business. I just can't think of any thing yet. Hopefully as I keep thinking about it I will come up with something.

Andy and Ali - Thank you for that advice. I will definitely take it.

psaco131 - I thought about that but I don't want to start hating writing because of being forced to write on deadlines and for subjects I most likely will not care about. I used to love photography, but after doing for weddings for almost 10 years I now don't ever want to pick up another camera again. I don't want that to happen to my writing.

Maverick - I love your technique. I am going to use that. It is so practical and simple.

 

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