We need to talk about SUCCESS

First than anything I want to thank you for all your support with the free email course Become a Profitable Fashion Creative and the paid course Thriving as Fashion Creative, your great emails, and your awesome questions!

Really, it means the world to me that you’re following along the lessons, doing the homework, and letting me know your doubts. And I love the interaction and meaningful conversations we’re having over email.

Well, today I wanted to bring some of those doubts and questions to the light since a lot of you are having the same doubts + questions + fears. And I believe it’s important to address them because they could be holding you back too.

The most common questions are these (with the quick version of my response to them):

What if I’m self-taught? Is there something wrong with being that passionate enough about fashion illustration that you’re willing to spend time + effort + money to teach it yourself? I bet there’s nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes we feel (I’ve felt it too) that people perceive us as less competent or less capable to do our work if we didn’t go to school to learn it, but most of the times that’s quite the opposite.You’re actually demonstrating you’re resourceful + capable + competent.

You’re proving that nothing gets in your way to accomplish what you want. And that builds trust in clients because it makes them know + feel that you won’t stop until you get their work done.

What if I’m too old? It’ll never be too late for you, no matter your age because it’s always better to know that you had the courage to follow your dreams + learn along the way + become better than conforming with a life that you don’t like (completely).

What if I can’t be a big fashion illustrator? We’ll expand on this in just a second, but in the meantime think about what you really want to accomplish as a fashion illustrator? Maybe going beyond fame + fortune.

What if I live in a place where fashion illustration is not taken as a real career? Now that’s not an issue at all – yay! You have the internet at your fingertips; that means you have the whole world at your disposal.

So, it doesn’t matter if you live in a little town, or in a Country where fashion illustration seems to be nothing more than a lucky strike or a joke. You can have your headquarters anywhere in the world, as long as you have an online presence + strong systems + an effective strategy.

What if I don’t know enough or have enough information? The information is something you can acquire pretty easily, sometimes you’d have to spend time + effort to get it like maybe searching for it on the internet or library, or experiencing it. And sometimes you’d also need money in addition to the time and effort you put like purchasing books, enrolling in courses, or attending to school. But that concern is something that you can get out of your mind because the access to information is easy, nowadays it’s way easier than ten years ago.

What if I don’t know how to run a business? You can learn it. There’s nothing in this world that you can’t learn. Fear not + learn + take action, you can do this! 🙂

 

The fun thing is that all these doubts + fears are related to one thing: SUCCESS.

Each doubt is subtly questioning ‘will I be successful?’

In one of the lessons of the free email course, and on one of my previous posts I told you that to bring in consistent revenue as a fashion illustrator, you need three things:

• Skills. If you have been learning or if you already feel confident about your skills I have to congratulate you because most people isn’t willing to take action.
• Style. Your authentic style is something you work on intentionally, but it’s also that evolves with time, so the more you work and create, the clearer it’ll be for you.
• Showing Up. For this, you’ll need to learn how business works for a fashion illustrator, and then you’ll need to show up and put yourself and your work in front of your ideal clients and customers.

But first, it’s quite important to define what success means to you.

 

So, what does success mean to you?

Sometimes it’s quite easy to confuse success with fame and tons of money, but success actually goes further than that, and it is relative. It is different for each person, so it’ll mean something different to you than what it means to me.

Success is what you want it to be:

• More than enough money to live and go wherever you want, to support your and your family’s dreams?
• A certain amount of money per month, maybe?
• More than enough time to enjoy life and make beautiful memories with your loved ones?
• Being able to do beautiful + fulfilling + meaningful work that feeds your soul and your bank account?
• Appearing in each and every single fashion magazine as one of the top illustrators?
• Traveling around the world from one fashion runway to another?
• Living in a beautiful place and be able to take care of your family while you make a living doing what you want?
• Being able to run a business that is fulfilling + pays the bills on your own terms?

Whatever success is for you, you must define it so that you stop pursuing someone else’s definition of success. This way, your vision, your goals, and the steps you should take will be clear as water, and it’ll be so much easier for you to keep taking action and stop worrying if you’ll be able to be successful or not 😉

Because becoming famous sounds great and everything, but really what’s more important to you? Being the equivalent of the next Kim Kardashian, or putting food on the table (and more than food!), turning this passion into something more than just a hubby, making your family, hubby, kiddos, and YOURSELF feel proud of you.

I’m not telling you that appearing in magazines, becoming well-known (or famous if you will), and being Insta-it is not possible, nor I’m telling you that’s dumb. Of course, that’s possible! You just need to adjust your action steps, and it is not dumb at all, if that’s what you really want.

But, I’m telling you that if those things aren’t important to you, then you can remove them from your bucket list. You can cross them off because they won’t make you feel successful anyway, they’d just add clutter to your life. And most than anything you can get rid of them, so they stop taking space in your mind and sneaking in your day-to-day as fears telling you ‘maybe you won’t make it as a fashion illustrator.’ That way, now you can use that space in your head + energy to accomplish the things that you really care about and want.

Ask yourself: what does success mean to you?

What makes your heart beat x1000 times faster?

What keeps you up late at night?

How would your life look like if you achieved success, how would you feel, what would you be doing, where would you go?

 

Take Action

1. Create your own definition of success. Use the questions above, and determine what’s imperative for you, and how you would feel complete + fulfilled + successful.
2. Outline a step-by-step plan to get there. Once your goal is clear, go backwards, and trace a map of all the things you have to do.
3. Give your best along the way. Start with the very first thing in your plan, and always do your best – this way, you won’t be able to recriminate or feel guilty about anything 😉

To Finish…

My hope for this post is that you can pursue + fight for the things that are worth pursuing + fighting for you. I hope this post serves + encourages + inspires you to follow your dreams no matter your situation. And I hope you can kick those fears + doubts in the butt because there’s nothing that can get in your way, seriously!

One more thing, before I go.

 

This blog post is part of a series I’ve created to present you the first launch of Thriving as Fashion Creative, an 8-week step-by-step program that’s here to help you turn your passion for fashion illustration into a CRAZY profitable business.

A business that allows you to work and pay the bills doing what you love. You’ll learn how to create your own irresistible business from scratch, how to build your online presence, how to put strong systems in place, and how to create an effective strategy that brings dream clients + turns fans into customers.

Spots are limited, it starts in September 2016, and no other group will open until next year – find out more this way.

Sending you a BIG DIGI HUG!

P.S: Are you ready to build success on your own terms?