BECOMING A WINNER: And learning to let others help. By Annie Morgan

I tried for so long to be the perfect Mother, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect daughter.. So, naturally, I wanted to also be the perfect business owner. It took me about a whole two months in business to realize that it was an unreachable aspiration. I was overworked, tired, unorganized, stressed... Basically, I was a mess. It would come and go in phases. We would hit our busy weeks and I would go for nights on end without sleeping, then spend two days recuperating from the madness of being my only employee. It didn't help that I also learned I'm a major procrastinator. I have too much faith in myself, so I thought if I put things off I could get them done quickly in a condensed amount of time.. that only works for so long. Eventually you become so busy that there's no such thing as catching up. You just get stuck in a cycle of constant business that never goes away. This is where my burnout happened. The mountain was just simply too high. My short periods of procrastination paired with life happening had put me so far behind there was no way of pulling myself out of it to catch a break. 

Growing up, I always heard the saying, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself". I had pretty much adapted that way of living in every aspect of my life, including my business. I was doing everything from the ordering to the photo shoots (of myself) to the shipping and beyond. I was even doing my own business taxes to save money, something I don't recommend now looking back. I had this serious control complex - "No one could do my business the way I can". But the truth was, I was running my business into the ground on my own. I knew I needed help. My Mom decided to start coming into the shop once a week to help pack orders, much to my concern. Of course, having family work for you isn't something I recommend either after experiencing it. It might work great for some companies but for us it just caused confusion, frustration and ultimately put a strain on our family dynamic. It wasn't working. To save what was left of my sanity, I began hiring different girls to come in weekly and keep me organized. It worked for a while! Ultimately, hiring employees to keep ME organized wasn't the way to go either. I needed to get MYSELF organized first. I had to be a leader. You CANNOT hire someone to fix you. The YOU problems are the problems YOU have to fix all on your own. I was relying on others to keep me on track, keep me organized... I was basically trying to hire an eighteen year old boss when I should've been being the boss. It was another big self discovery moment for me! I sure have learned a lot about myself since starting this business...

I ended up going solo again, taking a step back and completely rebranding after months of destashing old inventory that never sold. I decided to start this website and destash group on Facebook to give other business owners an opportunity to have what I never did. SUPPORT. So many of us are doing this to put food on the table, have a side income or maybe it's your 40 hour a week gig. Regardless, you can't do it on your own. Sometimes you have to let go to grow. You can't "do it all yourself to make sure it gets done right". There are people who can help, I've decided to dedicate a lot of my time helping other struggling business owners so they don't have to go through what I did. I can't even begin to tell you how rewarding it is! 

I'm thankful every day for this beautiful business I've created and all the women who have come to me for advise. Success is happiness and being a winner isn't always coming in first. Being a winner is living the BEST version of yourself. Wherever you are in life, enjoy the "getting there" because it will make the reward so much sweeter.