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Dear Readers:

Whether you are a florist, designer, planner or client, we are all human beings with strengths and shortcomings. On today’s blog, I will be addressing the latter in hopes that we can all learn from one another, also extracting the lesson that it’s OK to acknowledge room for improvement. In fact, it is the first step in the direction of a more successful future. There are times in my life when I have been in this business thirty-three wonderful, challenging, amazing years and I still struggle with some of the same fears and setbacks that I did when I just started out. Here are my three main ones.

Procrastination.

While some might equate this with laziness, I assure you that I am far from lazy. In fact, I will be bold enough to say that I am the least lazy of anyone I know. My issue is that I often find myself brainstorming what I feel are good ideas, but then tell myself, “I’ll work on this tomorrow.”  Unfortunately, I tend to get so caught up in my day to day duties, designs and dedications that tomorrow never comes.

If you are like me, let’s work together to make a real effort to set aside an hour a day to flesh out that great idea and put it into action before someone else does. Perhaps, we can get up 30 min earlier and spend another 30 during the day. Even writing on your notepad during your train commute or speaking ideas into a recorder so that you don’t forget. There are ways to make it work, let’s get creative!

The Perfection Obsession.

I have no idea why we even bother with this one because, lets face it; the only perfect being is God. Still, I there have been several occasions where I have pushed myself to great lengths to make a design or presentation just so only to have my clients look at it and tell me what they didn’t like. This is not only a humbling experience, but it adds to the vicious cycle of me pushing myself even harder to be more perfect next time, or worse, not to try at all. I think procrastination is somewhat linked to this on a deeper level in that my fear of an imperfect outcome leads me to snuff out what could be great ideas before they have a chance to blossom.

What I have tried to remind myself of, is the importance of listening to my clients and trying my best to bring their visions to life while understanding the arbitrary definition of perfection. Giving your all with a strong deference to your clients vision is a powerful and honorable thing, and if your work needs to be tweaked, that’s about preference and not imperfection.

A Lack Of Faith

Another fear-based thought process, after all of these years, I worry about never getting the next job. If I do not have an event on the books months in advance, I begin to worry that others are getting the great jobs and anxiety about my huge overhead, the responsibility I feel towards my staff, and the deeper, well-documented fear felt by most artists triggered by the heavy question: Am I good enough?”

In these moments of worry, I try to grab onto the shoulder of gratitude and remind myself that I have been fortunate in this life to have realized so many dreams and to have experienced the success I have. I remind myself of the hard financial years that, put frankly, were terrifying. I then recall that I survived. God always provides, always, and my faith in that fact is never tested.

Preston

(Photo Courtesy of Pinterest)