Free to Bugger It Up

Today was officially the last day of my second job...a second job which I've had in one form or another since I started the biz 3 years ago (but not the same job, all sorts of them.) As of next week, for the first time in any meaningful way, my ONLY job will be to concentrate on (and make happen) the growth of my business.

You would think this is terrifying, right? Sitting here writing this, I have no earthly idea how I am going to replace the income the second job provides and which we sorely need. Actually, that's not fair - because I know that income will be replaced with income from the biz, but I don't really know at this point how feasible that will be in the immediate short term. So it could be a year - maybe more - before I can actually replace the income from the second job. And I make no secret about the fact that as a family, we are BROKE. Flat broke, AND in debt (and that's not exactly something to brag about.) So effectively I am choosing to cut off a major income stream for my family at a time when we need it most - and those who know read this blog by now know that I am two things: 1) Totally crazy about money issues, and 2) Totally protective of my family.

I must be mad. Utterly mad.

You would think that letting go of this job - and the security it provides - would be totally, horribly, paralyzingly frightening. In fact I find it completely exhilarating. I feel somehow ...free. Free to finally spend the time on the pursuit which NEEDS my time. Free to devote time to ME - the personal me, the work me, the me who just needs room to breathe once in a while. And I also feel free ... to bugger it up entirely. I don't PLAN to bugger it up, but I've given myself permission to bugger it up. This is huge, my friends. HUGE. I am not one for buggering things up, and more importantly I am one who believes that it is NEVER okay to bugger things up. As a result I put myself under an enormous amount of pressure to get things right all of the time - I often say (and would STILL say) that FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.

Because for me, it really isn't. An option, that is. Biz Guy (hereafter on this blog known as BG) would say that of *course* it's an option...but this is where he and I have to respectfully agree to disagree. Because for me, the very idea of failure is just... well... that. An abstract idea, not an actual thing which could happen to me. Of course reality dictates that it's possible that I would fail at something and then live to tell the tale, but ...no. Sorry, but no. So to be able to give up my second job AND accept that failure is in fact even an allowable outcome ...well... that's just big for me.

I should say that I have no intention of buggering this up. What I DO have, though, is the intent to give this business thirty billion and infinity plus one percent effort on my part to make it work as it's meant to. So either the business will grow to the great heights I believe it can - or - I will actually fail. If I fail, at least I'll do so content in the knowledge that I could not have possibly given it any more than I gave it. I will have failed with no regrets.

But.... to continue to give it the half-assed effort I've given it thus far, and expect to see major results? That, I would regret. A lot. Failure for that reason - lack of committed effort - would truly not be an option. Because that wouldn't actually be failure at all - that would be not trying in the first place.

And to not try in the first place?

EPIC fail.

I don't DO failure.