Analysis Paralysis - My Personal Struggle

“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.”
—Mark Victor Hansen

I've been making soap for 3 years now and have only dabbled with selling  for several reasons; I lacked confidence, so I let others derail me, I needed time to evolve and find my niche and hone my craft (in hindsight - I am a far better soapmaker than I was two years ago) and probably the most debilitating reason is that I wanted things to be perfect. I wanted to have a plan for everything-I pondered on failure,I thought about what if things really take off, how will I manage production?  I planned,planned,planned to the point of paralysis. I was driven to have the soap that I saw others making(others with years of experience) I taught myself soap making techniques by visually deconstructing the different soap making techniques of those I admired. I compared myself to others, and often was disappointed in my attempts to make soap as beautiful as that of my muses.The joy of soaping was slowly ebbing because I was so hard on myself.  I was absolutely caught up in the self defeating circle of analysis paralysis and self doubt-I was my own worst enemy.

Then one day, I read a little Etsy Bootcamp article - I believe it was written by Lauren Miller of Sunbasilgarden that really just stated the obvious - don't wait until you have everything perfect - just get started. Well folks, believe it or not that was a revelation to me. That was a turning point. I realized I had been planning, planning, planning to the point of paralysis - because I was so afraid of failure. After reading this article I mentioned it to my husband who concurred that I in fact I do "anal-ize"(his terminology) a little too much. He also pointed out that it was he who has been telling me-just make things simple,nothing is set in stone. I also realized that I tend to forget that "nothing is set in stone"- blogs can be tweaked, website's can be modified, product can be improved upon and given a different look any time I feel that it needs to be done. It's okay to have fun and fly by the seat of your pants just a bit.

Thankfully, throughout this ongoing life lesson, my passion for the ingredients and the art of making soap has kept me afloat. As I look back, I see a distinct pattern of letting the fear of failure overwhelm me(often before a new idea even got off the ground.) I still struggle and often have to remind myself that nothing is set in stone - nothing is permanent and that the only way to eat an elephant is-one bite at a time.