The Measure of Success

What does it mean to me to be successful?

For me, because of the challenge I have set myself, I have been forced to confront this question over the last few weeks and I am still struggling to come to an exact conclusion.

Of course, success is measured differently by everybody - and it does not always hold monetary value. The single mother might consider herself a success if she can find the time to get a manicure once a month, or if she can get to work on time after getting her children off to school. The father of three might consider himself successful if he can find time for work, spending quality time with his family and still manage to squeeze in the odd game of golf. The high school student might consider herself a success if she scrapes through her exams with a pass grade, yet her peer might hold very different expectations of themselves and only feel successful if they achieve an outstanding result for their exams. 

Now, I've always considered myself to be a big picture kinda gal and have needed to work towards large goals to measure my successes. That 4 year Bachelor of Education degree I hold? I got a big buzz from attaining that one. The dream of owning my own home? Well, that was another long term goal we had to work hard and slowly at achieving. Admittedly, I have not always been very good at living in the moment and often feel that I will only feel successful if I have large goals to work towards.

But what about celebrating the small successes along the way to attaining those larger goals? Or what about simply celebrating every baby step of each day?

As part of my resolve to remedy my 'always looking to the future' kind of attitude I have vowed to notice and show gratitude for the smallest of things in each day. Being the app addicted chick that I am, I went searching and found a great little app simply called 'Gratitude!' (It costs $1.99 on iphone) which allows me to record the things I am grateful for every day, rate my day out of five stars and even add a little photo. It reminds me to reflect on my day, feel confident that each day has been successful in some way (even if it means feeling grateful that Max only spilled his bowl of spaghetti mostly on the tiles and not entirely on the carpet) and feeling lucky to be me.

I've come to the conclusion that my short and long term goals will keep evolving and that's okay. Part of my 365 day challenge is to set a long term goal related to the business. To quote myself- "...to create a successful, thriving business by which I can support myself and my family...". In reflection, I really have no idea when I will actually feel the business is a 'success', but I'm aiming for being able to earn at least one days teacher's wage and drop a day at school in one year so that I can be there for my son when he is in his preschool year. That, at least, would be a great start. I will be celebrating that success when it happens and then I will be setting myself a bigger goal. I'll keep you posted on that one!

I urge you to try noticing your successes in each day - even if it means that you got your little ones to bed in time to sit down and watch your favourite TV show, or you heard a great song in the car on your way to work that had you bopping along. Or, like me, you didn't get your eyes scratched out by your cat when you had to shove a worming tablet down her throat. That near miss I am very grateful for.

Now... if you'll excuse me, I have a third attempt at cleaning red spaghetti sauce out of carpet to make.

Cheers!

Lisa

Okay, so you want to start a business?

Evening!

I'm going to take you on a thrilling trip into the past now, and I'll justify this by saying that I think it's only fair to start from the beginning of my Little Grasshopper journey to give you an insight into the process of starting my business.

When Max was born, like a lot of mothers, I dreaded the thought of returning to work. I'd always been fairly creative and had problems sitting still but something was luring me seductively towards creating for a purpose other than the pure enjoyment of it. 

How was I to choose a single thing I could love doing for potentially the rest of my days? As I soon discovered, it's all about passion. After dabbling in writing, painting and beading I found my passion lying in a pile of baby clothes. To be more specific: creating baby gifts out of baby clothes fashioned into bouquets. Who'd have thunk it?

Honestly, I was plagued with insecurities as I sat in the dark of my son's room at the 2am feed. What if nobody liked what I created? It would require time and effort, could I really afford that right now? Not to mention the finances of getting a business of sorts off the ground when I was on half paid maternity leave.

I started researching how I could make this a reality. I researched the competition in my hoped for market and looked for other businesses I would be in direct competition with in the A.C.T region. I talked to people about how I might approach starting something up. I jumped online and looked for local business support and mentoring. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. There are numerous business support and development initiatives in Canberra. Here is a good place to start if you're thinking of taking the plunge into being your own boss and you live in the A.C.T.

• Canberra Business Point: Provided me with FREE advice on Business Planning  and where to start. They also offer a great range of courses on business, from Business Basics 101 to Social Media  Marketing. Go to www.canberrabusinesspoint.com.au for more information.
• The Lighthouse Business Innovation Centre is also an advisory and mentoring service which I have heard lots of wonderful things about. This is a service I will be accessing in the near future to grow my business. Go to www.lighthouseinnovation.com.au for more information.
• Go to www.business.act.gov.au for a comprehensive overview of who can help.

If you are not living in Canberra you can check out your local state business support by going to www.business.gov.au.

Next, I needed to think of a name for my business and get it registered. This was by no means as easy as it sounded. Jumping on the ASIC (Australian Securities and Investment Commission) website (www.asic.gov.au) and searching already existing business names turned out to be a time consuming and completely frustrating exercise.

Right. I needed a name relating to my one and only product at that stage of baby bouquets. Baby Blooms? Taken. Budding Babies? Taken. Blooming Babies. Little Buds. Little Daisies. Sprouting Bubs. Taken. Taken. Taken. Taken! Where, where where? I was asking myself. Just where are all these businesses? My excitement was waning as I made my way down my list of potential names. That lurking self doubt crept in again. Maybe this wasn't going to happen after all if I couldn't even think of a bloody name for my non-existent business.

Luckily, it came to me in the night and the next morning I ran the name past my husband and a few fabulous friends. The tag line was important as I hoped it might give my potential customers an insight into what the business actually was as the business name didn't give much away. Eventually a friend and I agreed on a great tag line for Little Grasshopper. Putting a little spring into baby gifts. Ha! Yes! I love a good double meaning.

And there it was. My idea had a name and now I could go ahead and register that name with the Office of Regulatory Services, which I did the very next week. A business (albeit very small and hobby like) was born.

I hope this post has been helpful as a starting point for you. Follow me into my next post where I will talk about my adventures into getting online.

Good luck and Cheers!

Lisa

Welcome Aboard!

Hello!

Welcome to the inaugural post for 'Journey of a Mumpreneur'. My name is Lisa and I'll be your captain for this fun, exciting and sometimes scary expedition into an unknown land for me - the land of entrepeneurs.

Before we set sail, let me tell you a little bit about myself and what I do - because if you're anything like me, you'll want to be sure the person steering the ship is sound of mind, body and spirit. I'll do my best to convince you, though even I occasionally doubt the soundness of all three of those things on any given day.

My family and I live in the 'burbs of Canberra: the capital city of the best country in the world - Australia. I am a time poor, creative, 36 year old married mother of one inquisitive, chatty and wise beyond his years 4 year old son, Max. I am also a teacher currently working 4 days a week, and although I love my job and am passionate about creating a love of learning and meaningful relationships with children, I yearn for something more.  I yearn to be my own boss, to cow-tow to no man, woman or entity- to call my own shots, right or wrong, and be my own boss.

I want to build my moderately successful hobby business into a thriving, highly successful and fulfilling online business in the space of one year!

So, I hear you ask, just what have your yearnings got to do with me?

Well, as a paying passenger aboard this vessel (and yes, you are paying with your hottest commodity - your precious time. It's worth so much more than any money you could throw at me!) I owe you something in return. If you choose to stick with me over the next 365 days and not hoist yourself overboard I will:

• Pass on to you all the knowledge I gain during my research into demystifying the online retail business world;
• Share with you a growing list of links/businesses/websites for quick reference on where to go for help in starting your own online business if you should choose to do so; and
• Share my journey into the unknown with you and hopefully provide you with a few laughs along the way.

What are the aims of my challenge?

• To Facebook, blog, Twitter and publicise my travels, discoveries, successes and failures regularly with the aim of taking all the hard work out of you starting your own online business (should it be something you want to do) by sharing all the short cuts, cost-effective secrets and tips I discover;
• To turn my very small, very 'dining-room' table kind of hobby business into a successful online business by which I can support myself and my family, with change to spare after earnings; and
• To research the heck out of all aspects of online business and find the best ways of growing my business on a DIY budget.

Before you go, you might like to take a look at www.littlegrasshopper.com.au to see my starting point. As you can see, some time, money and effort has already gone in to getting my little passion online. In my next post I'll be covering some of the aspects of getting to the stage I am now at and the shoe-string budget short cuts I discovered along the way.

It's time to get serious and turn this ship around. I'm hoping to trade my dinghy in for a cruise ship in the next 12 months!

Looking forward to seeing you on deck!

Lisa