Tomorrow marks the Grand Opening for Our Third Twin, our (my twin sister and my) first online store. It features mostly hand illustrated designs, BY ME! The reason why this is such a huge deal is for years I have tinkered, iterated and to be honest hid. I continued to have huge creative inspirations and spend hours, days and even weeks sometimes doing one digital illustration. Only to reluctantly send one copy to someone via text as a "hope you like this, it was just a little practice project I worked on". I totally minimized my accomplishment and to be honest hid behind "just something I was playing around with", because of an enormous fear of being judged, having my illustrations laughed at or even worse, the person not responding at all.
But what I realized was, the reason people were not more excited about my illustrations and designs was because I wasn't confident in them. I wasn't confident in my own abilities because well, I never thought I was an artist. Art was never something that I was supposed to do. It was a hobby, something I did to de-stress from big corporate jobs, executive positions, work travel and leading large teams of people. Really it was just because I was too afraid to put my art out there for people to see. I had a fear of making clothing with my own graphic designs, because I would have to tell people I drew them!
I signed up for shopify and loaded hundreds of designs all the way back in 2020... and NEVER launched the shop. I used all kinds of excuses, the typical "I'm not finished with the illustration yet" and of course the "I have to update the product design again" for the hundredth time... all just excuses because I was fearful of letting myself think that someone would actually want to buy something with my illustrations on them. Really, who would want to wear a hoodie with my drawings on them? Who would pay for a tshirt with my illustrations?
Fast forward to 2023, we jumped in and are not look back! The old saying "leap and the net will appear" is an understatement. Tomorrow marks the official grand opening! And YES I am still scared, still have creative doubts AND I am moving forward in-spite of all those fears! The irony was, when I did finally share my designs, I had so many people ask me why I had been hiding this talent, why had I been keeping my illustrations from everyone?
So take the leap, put yourself out there, start the business, be your creative self! Do it because you love it, do it in spite of the fear and do it anyway!
Be afraid and do it anyway! Good luck and get out there, the world needs the real you!