3 Things to Know Before You Pursue Your Dream
I have learned A TON as I've pursued this dream that we call Hustle Sanely over the last 2 years.
In today’s post, I am sharing 3 lessons I’ve learned in hopes that you don't get stuck in the same places that I did! These are 3 things that you need to know before you pursue your dream.
FULL TRANSPARENCY: I learned these things the hard way - trial and error is what this dream of mine has been built on - well that and lots of prayer and faith, lol.
These things that I’ve learned can be applied to just about any type of dream you’re pursuing:
Want to start your own business? They’re applicable.
Want to go back to school? They’re applicable.
Want to write a book? They’re applicable.
Catch my drift? Alright, let’s get into the 3 things you need to know before you pursue your dream:
1) You don’t have to know the whole plan before you take step 1.
Most of y’all know my story - when I started Hustle Sanely, I was in grad school and it started out as an Etsy shop where I sold digital planners. That was it. I had no intention of coaching, creating courses, hosting this podcast, releasing a paper planner - when I opened my Etsy shop. What I did know, is that I wanted to help people get organized so they could reach their goals without sacrificing their mental health and relationships. I was (and am) passionate about this mission because I knew what it was like to work yourself to the bone day in and day out and wind up exhausted, burnt out, and disconnected from your life - because I’d be living that way for a few years.
Y’all here’s the thing, we think that in order to start we have to be super clear on the big end goal. That’s so not true. My dream has unfolded and become multi-faceted one day at a time. That’s because as I’ve grown, my dream has grown with me! What you do need to know in order to take step 1 is your vision - what you’re trying to do big picture. What kind of impact you’re trying to make long-term. Because knowing that is what’s going to give you the dedication and discipline to keep showing up to put that vision into practice.
There’s this thing that I shared on Instagram yesterday for the weekly #hustlesanelynugget that I’m calling a VISION PYRAMID. It’s what I use to help me make sure that my dreams align with my vision. I briefly touched on it in last week’s podcast episode, but like I said last week, I’m going to do a whole podcast episode on this pyramid in November because I think a lot of y’all would benefit from that based on the questions you ask in my DMs! The vision pyramid, to refresh, is made up of your roots, values, and experiences to help you hone in on dreams.
Maybe your roots, values, and experiences, lead you to a mission of wanting to help people transition into new seasons of life with ease so they can step into the best version of themselves. You can live that out in many different ways:
Maybe that looks like:
~ Being a nanny for a first time mom and dad who are returning to work
~ Being someone who helps people getting out of jail reintegrate into life outside of that facility
~ Being a mentor for new teachers entering the field out of college
I knew I wanted to help people get organized so they could reach their goals without sacrificing their mental health and relationships, like I said earlier, but I didn’t know that mission would take form in a podcast or courses, you know? My dreams developed as I did.
So your takeaway from this: Start where you’re at - not where you think should be. Keep your vision pyramid close to your heart and let your dreams grow as you grow.
2) You’ve got to be willing to wait it out and not expect instant success.
GAH, being patient is most definitely something I have to be vigilant about or it just does not happen in my life. I get an idea in my head and if it hasn’t come to full fruition within 2 business days I am mad, lol.
And by fruition I mean the dream has been done AND it has spread like wildfire among people - people are chomping at the bit to get their hands on whatever it is I created. Listen to me - you cannot expect people to want what you have to offer just because you know it’s a good product or service. You are not entitled to people’s attention or financial investment. DAAANG, kinda harsh, I know but this is something that I tell myself every single day.
Part of living out your dreams is serving. Serving requires the giving of your resources. I serve my online community by offering free resources, like this blog and my podcast, that help them understand the value of my mission. So I don’t want to say that you have to prove yourself, because to me, that sounds like a lot of tiring striving, but you do have to demonstrate the value people are going to get from whatever you’re trying to give them. And that takes time. It takes energy. It takes consistency. It takes showing up when you feel like nobody's watching or listening. It takes gracefully accepting constructive criticism.
My little story that goes with this one - the paper planner. Okay I have big dreams for this planner line - I want notebooks, notepads, journals, pens, stickers, different planner options, ALL THE THINGS - I see big name planner brands with options on options when it comes to what their customer can choose from. I see these brands in Target. And it’s tempting for me to think that I should already be there.
We have got to carefully monitor our consumption. Not only WHAT we’re consuming and how often we’re consuming, but also what our head and heart spaces look like when we’re consuming.
Here’s the deal: God made you YOU - okay.
I am not Erin Condren.
Or Emily Ley.
Or Whitney English.
(These are all planner designers that I’ve been following since my early 20s by the way).
No. I’m Jess Massey. So what I’m doing, even though it is in the same-ish field as the ladies above, doesn’t have to follow the same path as theirs. When I first started the paper planner journey, I was STOKED that it was happening. But then I started feeling like it wasn’t enough. One dinky planner - that’s all you’re going to offer? No different cover options? No academic dated version? No teacher planner? WELL HELLO, I just started!
I need to keep my heart on my vision pyramid. My eyes and my mind in my own lane and focus on who I’m serving, how I want to serve them, and how I’m gonna do that. I don’t figure that out by scrolling through other planner designers Instagrams and crying over what my journey looks like next to theirs. No. I do that by pouring into my community. Learning more about you so I can best serve you.
I know I kind of went off on a tangent here but take this away: You cannot bypass steps 2-49. You don’t get to go from step 1 to step 50 because what you learn during steps 2-49 prepare you for step 50, okay? BE PATIENT and know that success is not microwavable - you cannot pop it in and have it ready to go in 60 seconds. You have to put in the work because it’s how you get there.
3) When you screw up, pivot instead of dropping and running.
Girl - you’re gonna mess up. You just are. But hey, I say mistakes are proof that you’re doing the dang thing. If you make a mistake, that means you’re stepping out in boldness and faith and putting action to your dream. I want to know - why are we, and I say we because I’m the same way, but why are we so scared of making mistakes? I mean 9 times out of 10 the mistake that we make is not life threatening. When I used to do one on one coaching, I would have my clients verbalize their worst case scenario - like if you go after your dream - what is the worst thing that could happen? Most of the time, just saying it out loud made it way less scary honestly.
I think we should normalize talking about our messy action - the things that don’t go according to plan.
Okay so my mistake that I’m sharing - the paper planner cover debacle. In case you missed it, we had to change the name of the paper planner due to some unforeseen legal circumstances - except, the name of the planner was already printed on the cover of 500 of them by the time we became aware of this issue.
Not gonna lie - my initial reaction was, “Okay we are going to have to recycle these 500 planners and I’ll be out $10k that sucks a lot” BUT after talking with my husband, stepping away from the situation by going outside for some fresh air, and praying and journaling, I realized that this semi large and in charge mistake could be remedied with a little bit of grit and elbow grease.
A group of friends and I will be removing the gold foil title on the cover of all 500 planners and adding a sticker where the foil used to be. Is it an ideal situation? Absolutely not - it’s going to take a lot of time and it doesn’t look as good as the gold foil BUT I didn’t just drop my dream of getting this paper planner in your hands and run.
I owned the mistake, came up with a solution, communicated the solution, and we are moving forward. I pivoted. And my favorite part is that so many of you messaged me on Instagram and told me that you don’t care if I rip the cover off and replace it with tin foil - you are still buying one of these paper planners !I have no doubt in my mind that y’all are so supportive of this paper planner dream because I’ve made sure to take you with me through the whole process which ties back into number 2 that we talked about earlier - providing value and serving consistently instead of expecting instant success.
Okay so your takeaway from this one: Stop letting your screw ups steal your dreams. Your mistakes may seem massive in the moment but I can almost guarantee that it’s not as bad as you think and it’s not actually going to cancel out all the progress you’ve made up until this point. It’s probably very fixable and you’ve learned how to be better in the process.
If you enjoyed this post, tune into episode 052 of The Hustle Sanely Podcast to listen into this topic!
