Dress: The Kathleen. Shirt: J Crew Factory. (similar.) Scarf: Old Navy. Bag: Target. Boots: Steve Madden. (similar.)
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote the last few days, and how in starting this business, I not only decided to make pretty clothes, but to also look fear hard in the face every. single. day. of my life. The day we launched this clothing line publicly, (I say publicly because it was a working business for months before we ever opened our virtual doors) I was so ridiculously nervous that while writing the word anxiety on a piece of scrap paper with perhaps a little more zeal than necessary, I accidentally carved the word into our desk. I was kicking myself for awhile about that,especially given that the desk was new, but now I kind of love it and the reminder to me of exactly how far I’ve come. In the beginning everything terrified me. To say nothing about the strenuous and intimidating process of actually getting to the finished product, once we were there it was all thoughts of, “What if we get a return?” “What if someone says something mean?” “What if I send out the wrong item?” “What if a button falls off?” “What if nothing sells and we just threw away our savings?” etc. etc.
The funny thing to me now, is how much I wanted to do everything perfect. I wanted to make absolutely no mistakes. I wanted the inventory to never be off. I wanted the clothes to fit everyone, and I wanted everyone to love the clothes. But I’m not perfect and I’ve made mistakes, not an inordinate amount, but a human amount. And that thing I was so afraid of, of not being perfect, turns out it’s pretty normal, and most people are pretty great about it. And the nasty emails are few, very few and far between. And even when they do come, they don’t bother me nearly as much as they did in the beginning. (Can’t say that they don’t bother me at all yet– almost there.) And truthfully, I’ve learned from them too. So that’s something.
I feel like a few years ago I heard a quote from that great lady above about doing one thing everyday that scares you, and I took that advice, and started doing this thing that finds a new way to scare me everyday, and yet has led me into some kind of amazing adventure that I never ever dreamed possible for my life even 3 or 4 years ago. I think that’s a piece of wisdom worth sharing.
And so today, I’d like to giveaway any one of my four dresses, to one of you out there, because it’s been awhile, and I feel like sharing a bit of the fruits of conquering a fear. And truly, these clothes I design they are really pretty and fun, and creating them brings me more joy than I have words to write. And that should be shared.
So to enter:
“PIN” the dress you’d like most to win on pinterest. (you can see them here, here, here, and here.) And leave a comment letting me know which one you picked.
For BONUS ENTRIES:
“LIKE” OUR FACEBOOK PAGE.
“Tweet” about which dress you want on TWITTER. (please tag me so I can find you)
“FOLLOW” THE BLOG ON BLOGLOVIN.
Pretty please leave separate comments for each entry.
Giveaway ends tonight (2/12) at Midnight!
ps. head on over to instagram later today for another chance to win…
