biz journal 2

yeah, i am actually supposed to journal on this stuff for 15 minutes a day! it is indeed nice to have a class assignment to journal. now i HAVE to make time to blog!

in my reading from the curriculum today, there was a lot of talk about being specific.  specific business vision, specific goals, specific objectives. knowing your market, how much money you need, etc. i am seeing here that specificity (which i don’t think is a real word) is something that has never come easy to me in life, and it may be because i tend to be indecisive. these two, actually, most certainly go hand in hand. for example, if you give me  a blank apartment or room, i will have the hardest time envisioning the best way to decorate it to make the most of its potential.  i would be hard-pressed to decide if it should be decked out in urban style, farmhouse style, art deco style, or what have you. and then to decide on specific color schemes and furniture pieces? aah! but if you give me multiple views of the room completed in various styles, or even show me specific choices in colors, furniture, lighting, etc. , i will have no problem deciding which i like better than the other. it is just the blank canvas that makes my brain freeze. too many possibilities. so in regards to business, yes, i have several different ideas that i could see going for. i am just unsure of the specifics of each and how it would fit or not with our lifestyle and family goals. what if i went for one business idea, only to realize 20 years later, that i really should have done another one?

but another big theme in the reading today was the idea of “affirmations:” things you specifically tell yourself in order to counter and overcome your fears. re-trian your thinking, and re-train your brain. so here is what i should be telling my self instead of worrying about making the wrong choice: “i know our lifestyle and family goals. i am smart and intuitive about which things we should or should not invest in. i care about where God wants us to go, and i know He will be leading us. i know i will make the right choice. being in this class will give me a whole wealth of new skills, and i know it will be worth it. i am excited!” see? i can do this.

the worksheet today also encouraged us to talk about some fears (countering them with affirmation, of course!) and let me tell you honestly what my greatest fear is in starting a business: the fear that i will be working on this business at the expense of my children. i believe so strongly that i should be at home, engaged with their development, and focused on them,  that i fear a business start-up would not be compatible with this. then i will have to make a choice: should i power through and miss their early years in order to make more money and be able to help pay their college later? (it’s for their own good!) or should i stop the business process and be their mom 100% in order to focus on their early development, and trust God that if we are to be poor for the rest of our life, so be it? pray that he would bless my service in motherhood, and provide for us on some other way? there is a dilemma i have often come to in my faith: i don’t know what faith really IS, or it is difficult for me to discern what is fleshly and what is done in faith: i KNOW faith is not always simply sitting there and praying while your family starves, but i also know that God is enough, and that he DOES provide, and that he is NOT always pleased with man’s efforts to get ahead in the rat race or think that we need everything that other people in our society have. i would like to be a good steward in taking this class and make sure i am doing my best to be available and ready for His leading. but i am not 100% convinced that this wasn’t just an “ishmael” for me: that i am being hasty and trying to take things into my own hands, esp. when i don’t even have the money to pay for tuition… it is so hard for me to extract these things, that i suppose for now i will just do what i want (take the class) and pray that God will make all things beautiful in His time.