My Creative Story Part 11: New Oppurtunities

Read Why I Am Telling My Creative Story and see each part of the story here. We are getting close to the end of My Creative Story. Well, not really the end, but the current state and well that's where the story is actually happening each day in real-time. A year ago exactly, was when Get Messy launched and I had a chat with Tiffany that helped aligned my brand and business. So, this is the part of the story where I tell you what happened in this past year.As part of The 100 Rejection Letters class, I wrote on a sticky note and posted above my desk a list of things that I wanted to do in my business. One was to teach online classes, specifically through Big Picture Classes. Well, this is the only time I will tell you that wishful thinking worked because, not long after, they approached Caylee and I about teaching an art journaling class for them. I about fell onto the floor when Caylee texted me casually about it, like no big deal. BIG FREAKING DEAL. We jumped right in and began the crazy work of preparing the Art Journaling 101 course. This process gave me amazing insight on how a well polished course should look, how to do that and really raised the bar for my content quality.As soon as we finished this course, Caylee and I began brainstorming new classes we could teach on our own. I was about to go on my spring break trip and was planning to make a mini album that was part travel journal, part art journal and part scrapbook with the goal to have it 95% finished when the plane landed and I was home. I pitched the idea, they loved it and I began working like a mad woman. This course literally rolled off my finger tips. I knew this content. It was my expertise. I finished it faster than I have ever finished any other project, especially such a big one. And I was proud of the work I had done. All by myself. Working on this course showed me how competent I am and reinforced my niche as a crafter, adventurer and storyteller.Teaching these courses and seeing how much I loved teaching, how proud I was of the content, how profitable the income was and how much I still have left to share was a huge red arrow pointing me towards the future of my business. Solidifying that online classes were going to be my best bet at making this online business a real one.I began drafting new ideas and planning for new courses. I travelled over the summer and came back to work this school year with the task of starting a brand new counseling program for the Elementary School. I quickly realized how overwhelmed I was and needed to make adjustments in every area of my life. I wanted to be able to give 100% to each thing I loved: work and work (school and the blog) but I needed to redefine what 100% was. This has taken me since August (it's now February) to truly find the right balance for me and I'm fully aware that it will change again.This past winter, as Get Messy was growing and growing, more and more, we realized that we had an opportunity to take it a step further and develop it into THE art journaling platform for the online word. But we knew we need to change our pricing to reflect and support this, find a better way to actually handle the work load and create a new website for a better user experience for our members. This is how Get Messy 3.0 was born. My personal projects got moved to the back burner to focus fully on this new project, again finding balance and, for me, balance is one big project at a time and I felt that Get Messy was important and needed to be nurtured. So I did.But what I ended up doing was spending all of my, very limited, free time working on Get Messy. Doing admin, writing prompts, responding to customer service emails, planning and dreaming and WERKING with Caylee on the new site and program. I fell into bed exhausted every night. I was spouting the benefits of art journaling and reaping none. Caylee and I had a chat, that we felt similar, that we had let the running of Get Messy replace the actual getting messy. Thus, I set my intention to art journal every day in 2016. I cannot tell you enough how much this has already impacted me after only a month. (But of course I will, just make sure you're signed up through the newsletter to read about it soon)Throughout the past year, I have been participating in a weekly/monthly mastermind and accountability group via Facebook and google hangouts with other awesome small creative business owners and this has truly pushed me to stay on track, learn more, hone my skills and goals and to produce, produce, produce. This past year I have been hustling and dreaming, dreaming and hustling. I've been assessing exactly what I want for my business and how to get there by evaluating all of the lessons learned throughout the entirety of my creative journey and especially this past year. Next week, in my very last installment of My Creative Story, I'll share a little of what the future holds for Lauren Likes Blog!Read Why I Am Telling My Creative Story and see each part of the story here.