Story Time
Let me start this post off with a little context. For most of my life, I was only winning. I know this sounds very conceited and a bit self-centered, but it's true. Finding success in a lot of different things as a child gave me a huge boost of self-confidence, but also set me up for failure. Am I starting to sound more relatable now? I graduated high school early, captain of the cheerleading team, an AP scholar, and on my way to college with a full scholarship. At 21, I graduated college early. I received a degree in Human Development and Family Studies, was dating my now-husband, and entering the job field with tons of internship and professional experience. In my head I just knew what my next 5 years would look like: I would get a job right out of college, marry my boyfriend, buy a home, have a child, get my masters degree in sociology, and have another child. Yes, I do have a Type A personality in case you were wondering. So my college graduation came and went and I started looking for work and while I got a lot of interviews, I was never selected to move forward. This went on for over a year. During this time, Erik and I also briefly broke up. So far I was 0 for 2 on the five-year plan. After about 8 months of looking, I took a job at the local frozen yogurt shop. I thought to myself, this is only temporary, I’ll keep interviewing and something will work out. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. While Erik and I rekindled our relationship, I was still jobless. We got married about 4 months later and I had to ask my frozen yogurt manager for time-off so I could attend my wedding and honeymoon. Something needed to change. I was so unhappy and stuck in the midst of my failure. While on our honeymoon, Erik and I talked about what I was going to do. I had always dreamed about starting my own preschool business but thought it was just that, a dream. But after talking with Erik and hearing his support, I decided to go for it. I emailed my frozen yogurt manager from Hawaii and quit right then and there. When we came from our trip, the real adventure began. And that’s the condensed story of how I go to where I am. Starting my own business was a teacher in its own right. I don’t think I’ve learned more anything else than I did in my journey of founding Imagination Childcare and Preschool. Here are 5 key lessons that I have carried through all aspects of my life. 1. Discipline is More Important than Motivation Motivation is a funny thing. It can be extremely powerful and extremely fleeting. I want to preface this by saying that motivation is not meaningless, it can be an important driver in pushing yourself to do better. But not all people wake up each morning motivated to do something. In fact, I’d venture to say that the majority of people don’t wake up with motivation, especially when they surpass the “honeymoon” phase of running a business. That’s where discipline comes in. Discipline is the ability to force yourself to abide by a certain code of living or working every day even if you don’t want to. Discipline is waking up at 6 am the morning after you went to bed at 3 am because you know you need to get stuff done. Motivation is often influenced by outside factors that won’t always be there. Discipline, on the other hand, comes from within and I think that’s the most important part. You may not always have those outside forces motivating you, but you’ll always have yourself. So be disciplined. 2. Consistency is Key Along the same vein as being disciplined, you need to be consistent as well. Author and speaker John Maxwell once said, “Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time”. Consistency helps build the routines you need to be successful. It sets the foundation for momentum. You know how they say “slow and steady wins the race”, well they weren’t kidding. Practicing consistency will help you form habits that can greatly benefit your life and your business. As humans, we are habitual people. Our entire physiology thieves on routine. That’s why we feel so much better when we have a consistent sleep schedule. Businesses are the same way, they function best when there are set routines and processes. These would only exist with the practice of consistency. 3. Failure is Your Friend As you can imagine, this is one that I keep close to my heart. Failure is one of the most important things to ever happen in my life. I know this one sounds particularly cliché, but I just cannot stress how important it is to accept failure. As you may have gathered from my introduction story, failure hit me like a train. It sucked. I couldn’t understand why things kept falling through until about 3 years down the line when I stopped to look at what I had built. Also, those unsuccessful interviews and job rejections left a door open that I would’ve never had the courage to walk through had everything worked out. I truly believe that I would have never dared to start my own business without hitting my sort of “rock bottom”. So that’s my spiel on failure. When it inevitably comes your way, embrace it. 4. Success Comes To Those Who Work Hard(ish) This is another one of those, not exactly “revolutionary” thoughts. But I feel like it is so important that it has to be included. I know literally everyone and their mother says you have to work hard, but I think the distinction to be made is what exactly is working hard. Working hard is rather relative in my opinion. It’s difficult to gauge how your work matches up to others in the industry. There are a certain set of metrics that measure success to a certain extent, but that doesn’t necessarily translate the effort. In a perfect world, the two would have a very linear correlation but that’s not the way it is. There are those who work very hard and don’t really see success, and there are those who don’t and still win. My point here is that you need to work hard to see success, but you also shouldn’t work yourself to death. In my opinion, no amount of success is worth losing friendships, relationships, sanity, or joy. Don’t get me wrong, there will be really tough times that you need to work through, but there is a limit to everything. So push yourself, work hard(ish), but most of all, enjoy your process and your journey. 5. Efficiency Is More Important Than Effectiveness and Vice Versa You’re probably reading the title of this one and thinking that I’m going insane. Efficiency and effectiveness are two different but important things. Efficiency is about doing tasks in an optimized way whereas effectiveness is about doing the right tasks no matter the time commitment. The key here is that there are certain times that one will take precedence over the other, meaning you should never favor one as the end all be all. There will be moments where you need to get a lot of little things done in the least amount of time, and that is where you will favor efficiency. There would be no point in spending an excessive amount of time on these smaller things. There is also no shame in prioritizing efficiency when it is necessary. You’ll go insane if you don’t! Then there will be moments where you need to do the right thing and you need to do it well, regardless of how much time it’ll take. This is where you want to favor effectiveness. In theory, if you were efficient where you needed to be, then you’ll have the time to allocate to the more effective-based tasks. There is no holy grail in business where one method is better than the other. The truth is all the processes that exist, exist for a reason and apply to different situations. So don’t be afraid to take advantage of all of them. Good Luck! I hope you enjoyed this piece on my history, how I got to where I am, and the lessons I learned along the way. I think it is important that the way someone looks ten years down the road is not an indication of the journey it took them to get there. If you feel like you’re the only person who is failing, chances are you’re not. I know that’s how I felt at the time, but then I talked to my mentors and people I looked up to, and I realized that we’ve all been there. So if you’re thinking of starting your own business or making a risky career move, I say go for it! And if you need tips on how to craft the perfect “I’m quitting” email to your frozen yogurt boss, just message me ;)
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AuthorHi there, I'm Molly! I am a business owner and devoted mother to two boys, Lukas and Henry, and wife to my husband, Erik. ArchivesCategories |