I've come to realize that only the thought of not getting “it” right is enough to make people deter from their initial plan. Questions like “what if something goes wrong?” Or “what if I do not get it right?” usually come up.
Embracing the unknown can be very terrifying because there is always something to lose and many people do not like the idea of having to lose one thing in order to get something else but in cases like this, an individual usually has two options; give up the idea or try, fail and learn from your mistakes.
For so long, the fear of the unknown kept me from monetizing my crochet crafts. Initially, I gave the excuse that I didn't want to send out half-wit crafts to people but along the line, I made peace with the fact that I was just so terrified of the unknown. Not only was I not ready for the task of having to seek for clients, I wasn't ready to deal with the clients either. I say this because I reached out to a fellow crochet artist and she told me about her experience in general. Of course she had good and bad days but my mind just decided to dwell on the bad days.
As such, only the people very close to me or those who I shared some images of my crafts with actually knew I was(and still am) a crochet artist. Through the connection of one such person, I recently got my very first official crochet client who instantly requested a three piece beach wear.
Initially, the urge to say “no” to this client crossed my mind but then again, I thought; “what could possibly go wrong?” A lot did go wrong.
A week after the order was placed, I took the pieces for fitting and the first two pieces fit perfectly but the last piece, not so much. At the moment, I thought the fault was explicitly from me but the client later told me that she expected to put on some weight before I was done with the pieces; that is why she gave me the wrong measurement.
As her plan to put on some weight didn't work, I had to loosen almost half of the entire crochet dress just to reduce the size. This was obviously not an easy task, coupled with the fact that I had other pressing things to do but I did it anyway.
The good news however is that all of the three pieces fit the client perfectly once I was done with the adjustment and her happiness knew no bounds. She was extremely excited and this alone fueled my soul.
Meanwhile, I took out one very important lesson from this experience and that is “do it and give it your all”. Do it with uncertainty but with all amount of love and patience.
We do not always have the means to control certain things so why not just go with the tides and see where they lead? The simple truth is that there would be setbacks and challenges along the line but our ability to face these challenges head-on defines us and our level of determination.
Would you rather face your fears or shy away from such fears and wallow in regrets instead? A wise man once reminded me that we all have different paths to thread in life and as such, we should focus on our own paths.
One cheat code I use while tackling the unknown is by looking at it as something very beautiful waiting to manifest instead of an inevitable disaster. I replace the amassing fear with so much positive energy and this enables me to tackle the unknown with confidence.
The images are mine.
Liebe🤍