Hey, I’m Katerina and here’s my story.
I spent my early 20s working in jobs that weren’t for me. I had many creative interests – dance, music, art. All I wanted to do was to run workshops to do what I loved with others. But I was scared. Scared that I didn’t know enough, that I wasn’t qualified.
But then one day, I made the leap.
I organised a dance workshop. I prepared the music, took bookings online, showed up to the event. 5 people came and I was happy – the event went so well! Many people came up to me and thanked me afterwards, and I had a great time too.
However, there was this one woman who asked me questions after the workshop that made me want to squirm. ( These questions were things that I was already insecure about ) She asked me how long I’d been doing these workshops and commented on my music choices. Embarrassed, I told her that this was my first workshop and that I picked music that I thought ‘sounded good’.
In hindsight, she didn’t say anything bad per say – she was probably just curious. But for me… this was a big deal. I started second guessing myself. I took her comments to heart. I interpreted what she said as critical feedback. I immediately started comparing myself with other people who had been running workshops for many years.
I concluded that my workshop was just ‘not good enough’: the location wasn’t the best, music choices were questionable, and after all, was there any guarantee that anyone at all would come to the next workshop?! I said to myself,
what’s the point?! If this woman didn’t like it when I put in all this effort, why bother continuing. She seems like she knew what she was taking about. Why bother trying.
The torrent of negative self-talk was outrageous and seemingly unstoppable.
After this workshop, I ran another one that was already pre-booked, but after that, I didn’t schedule any other workshops. The pesky self-talk got the best of me and I decided to put a pause on my workshops until… a) I had more people coming, b) I had a better location, and c) until my music choices were better. Of course, none of this could happen if I wasn’t running any workshops. These were all excuses in my mind to stop the workshop because I was feeling uncomfortable and scared. And so my first workshop fizzled out.
It was very sad that it stopped without properly getting started, but at the time, I didn’t give it much thought. Only after a few years had passed, I realised that I stopped the workshops not because they actually weren’t good enough, but because my brain told me they weren’t.
I became stuck because of the ideas that were in my head.
In the few years following this first dance workshop, I had many other workshop ideas. But now, they came with thoughts… such as:
- I need to know more, so I can be better qualified to run these workshops
- I need to know about business, so that I can promote the workshops better, so that more people come, so that I don’t waste time teaching a handful of people where it could be 50 people at a time.
- As well as other ‘random thoughts’: is this the right colour for the workshop flyer, or is this shade better? Which font should I select for the promotional material? How should I best word this Facebook post? second guessing to the max.
Needless to say, I wasted a lot of time pouring over design details, that really didn’t matter. On top of that, to tackle my ‘incompetence’ and ‘lack of business skills’, I enrolled myself into a business school and was exploring various intuitive art courses – all while working a full time job.
Very soon I found myself chasing my tail. I tried my best to focus on my business studies, but I really struggled to implement what I learnt because I didn’t have time, didn’t have the money – but ultimately because I was still scared. I kept saying to myself, ‘What’s wrong with me?!’ I kept pushing harder, studying longer, going to bed later, waking up earlier. I was doing everything I thought I was meant to be doing. I was trying to fit all the health habits into my day as well. I would exercise, eat vegetables, drink water, go for walks.
The only problem was: my goal of actually running the workshop was running further and further away from me, as I was trying to study away my anxiety about actually running it. I was also becoming more and more stressed. I became snappy at my partner. I stopped having any time with friends. I declined social invites…because ‘I needed to study and work on the business’ – which became another way to say ‘procrastinate’. I isolated myself from things that used to make me feel like a living, whole person.
I became hyper-focused, obsessed with this idea of running the workshop. Perfecting the social media posts, the promo materials, moving through my business course… I was beginning to lose touch with my original why. It all became part of the daily grind and all joy seemed to have disappeared.
This went on for several years.
Then one day in my business studies, I came across a phrase that changed everything for me.
If you’re not okay, your business is not okay.
Every time I pushed through past the point of exhaustion, I either ended up procrastinating or making work that I deleted only minutes later.
What’s worse, this phrase brought to mind all the health challenges and lack of sleep that happened as I pushed myself past my limits.
I decided to take this seriously. I decided to take care of myself, like it was my business. Because it was.
In reality it meant: studying less, going to the beach more, sitting down to eat, rather than getting bites on the go.
To an outsider, it looked like I was taking a break – and I was – from my annoying thought-imposed-prison. I seemed to be taking a step back – I was producing less, engaging less on social media. I spent less time behind the laptop and more time in the real world. Drinking coffee and eating croissants on weekend mornings, going on beach walks, catching up with long lost friends, re-discovering old hobbies.
After several weeks of this, I was rejuvenated. I could feel life and joy coming back to my body. I could almost feel myself glowing from the inside out. I had so much energy now. The full time job I had seemed so easy. It wasn’t an energy drain anymore. I had so much time left over after I came back from work and before work. All the pressure had dropped.
Naturally, lightly, I picked up my business project – I had lots of energy.
I started working on it, developing it – bit by bit – without the constant self-imposed pressure to perform and to have it all done perfectly.
My workshop came together. I promoted it. I ran it. 3 of my friends came. I loved it. They loved it. It was great.
It sounds like a small success, but for me it was a breakthrough.
Now I knew without a doubt that I can run a workshop, without running myself into the ground.
This one success gave me the confidence I needed to move forward with my other business idea.
Now I had a caring-for-me system that rejuvenated me, helped me process challenging emotions and inspired me to create what I most want, without any extra pressure or stress.
I felt confident that with my caring-for-me system, I can take on pretty much any goal that’s important to me and complete it, with ease.
I want this for you too.
I want to help you develop your own caring-for-you system that’s going to support you grow the business you dream about.
