Make Your Mistakes
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work"
-- Thomas Edison
Sometimes it's one step forward and three steps back. Sometimes that's actually a wonderful thing for clarity of purpose and desire. Why are we so afraid to make mistakes? What's so wrong about failure? It, like everything else is impermanent. When we mess up, we always have an opportunity to learn and rise up again. To start fresh. We know this intellectually but fear of failure is still very much alive.
To dispel some of that fear for my clients and now you, my dear blog reader, I've complied a list of just a few mistakes, failures, and missteps I've made along my wellness career journey. I cannot emphasize enough, these are by no means all of them, but a few gems from the highlight reel.
Becoming a Personal Chef | There was a time for about a 4 week period when I was convinced I was becoming a personal chef. I interviewed with a few families and even set a date for the first session. Thankfully, one family pushed my start date back a few months and I had a wakeup call that this was actually not at all the profession for me, and stuck to cooking for myself, friends, family and sharing a few recipes through my blog.
Teaching Anywhere and Everywhere | I think there's a time in every yoga teacher's life when the point is to just get hired by anyone. I started to work at studios where I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the owner's vibe or places that were super inconvenient for me to get to, just because I wanted to be hired. Then I realized I was running, not wandering all over town (D.C. and VA), I was completely exhausted, and it was time to cut back and be honest with where and when I truly wanted to work.
Working with Brides Only | Some of my current clients laugh when I share with them I initially thought I would only work with brides. I found my unique recipe for health and wellness after I was a complete stress-case planning my own wedding, so I thought it was my destiny to save other brides from the same fate. Turns out, non-brides get stressed out and need help too. And though some of them do happen to be brides, I'm just not interested in focusing solely on that demographic.
Creating a Meditation App...for Someone Else | I was approached by someone I respect about creating a meditation app. At first it sounded wonderful. I would be well compensated, and get to write and record up to 10 mini meditations for a corporate wellness service. I was *this* close to signing the agreement until I realized - wait a tick - I would like to have my own meditation app one day and not be a small part of someone else's and sign all the rights to these meditations over to them. I bowed out gracefully and continued chasing my own dreams of recorded relaxation.
Curating and Maintaining a Perfect Food Blog | I love food. Love, love love love love food. I love cooking, eating, sharing, and taking pictures of food. But I realized about a year into my wellness career that focusing mainly on food for my blog wasn't going to cut it. It was becoming burdensome feeling I "had" to create recipes a few times a week to share in my newsletter and social media. I decided to write about topics that were burning issues for me and my wellness clients and instead let the food piece be, shall I say a bit more organic.
I can honestly say each of my mistakes have led me to other wins and what I know will be future wins for Wandering Wellness. Here's to celebrating some favorite mistakes over the years and not being afraid of making more in the name of finding our way.
photography by Raisa Aziz