Putting the ‘B U’ into your Business

This contributor post was written by Tiffany Moore. 

We all have an idea of how our businesses should look, what we should be doing, and what success means. At the beginning, most of these ideas come from how we’ve seen other people running their own creative businesses.

In our modern age, it is easy to see what other people are doing, how they are communicating, what their standards of running their businesses are. Fortunately, too, there are so many generous people in our creative world who are willing to share their best practices and business ideas through blogging, e-courses, and social media.

But how do you know when outside input is too much?

It’s too much when you hold off on doing the things that you want to do in favor of doing what others have already done or what you think “should” be done.

One of the greatest – and worst – things about creative businesses is that there is no exact blueprint of what to do. There are other people who have done, and keep doing, amazing things, and most of them have made up their business practices on their own. Remember: we are ALL creative people.

The trailblazers of Etsy didn’t have anyone to show them the way at first. They started doing, made mistakes, figured things out, and found what worked. They did that over and over again until they got to where they are now.

Keeping this in mind, my biggest piece of advice for people either starting out or really ready to take their business or creative lives to the next level is this: walk away from the internet.

Stop comparing yourself to what everyone else is doing.

Close off all the noise and the shoulds so that you can focus on what you want and what you know to be true.

You get to build your business your way. Ultimately, it is the only way.

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*image via le animale: Le Fabulous Unicorn Totem

Tiffany Moore is an artist, life coach, change agent and magic maker. She helps creatives live their happiest, most sparkly lives (starting NOW) and thinks that everyone in the world is beautiful, including you.