pursue your dreams: hilary of dean street society

Pursue Your Dreams is a weekly mini-series brought to you by a handful of talented handmade artists, bloggers, small business owners, and ladies who are chasing hard after their dreams. The series focuses on 3 insights they've learned about staying inspired, dealing with negativity, business tips, blogging, setting goals, marketing yourself, and more!

1 // Trust Your Gut

This advice is a bit hard because sometimes what we think is our gut is actually fear or resistance. Sometimes we're afraid to take a leap, or loathing the uphill climb that looks like a lot of work. But time and again I've found that trusting my gut helped me hire the right assistant, walk away from a $10,000 contract, and stand firm in my convictions even when working with fancy brands. It's also something I wish I'd done when I held onto an employee for too long out of fear, stayed in a partnership for too long out of fear, or didn't launch soon enough because I was letting resistance make the mountain feel larger than it was. I once asked my friend, Liz DiAlto, who excels at this, how you know the difference and she said that if you'll breathe into it, you'll notice that there's either a tightening or a relaxing. Sounds simple, but I find it's really true. When I'm anxious because something's not right, that tightening doesn't go away. When it's right but just a little scary, the butterflies feel tingly yet light and I know it's the direction I want to be headed.

2 // Overwhelm Is A Choice

Or rather it's about making choices. Everyday, all day, we're saying yes to some things and no to others. Overwhelm comes when we have 25 things to do and time to do 2. So basically, your typical Wednesday in the life of an entrepreneur. The wiser I get about what to say no to, the less I feel overwhelmed. It's not easy. Every single thing screams that it must be done. But the truth is that come midnight, 23 won't have been done, and no one will have died. Life will go on. But if you chose the 2 that did get done wisely, you'll feel more accomplished, in control, less stressed. If you just ran around like crazy, avoiding the decision of what to say no to, then you just choose your yes's by default, what's easiest, most fun, shiniest, the lowest hanging fruit, and perhaps not what will actually make you the happiest and calmest come the end of the week. This is an ongoing lesson and one I'm committed to getting better at, but since I realized that I'm in control and can ask myself, "What can I say no to?" or "What are the 2 most important things to say yes to?" whenever I feel overwhelm creeping in {aka every 30 minutes most days} I have been such a healthier and happier person.

3 // Everyone Looks Fancier Than They Are

When I wrote my book,

The 4-Part Entrepreneur Cocktail

, I decided to share numbers all throughout: how much my expenses were, what I spent it on, my profit, my newsletter following. These are things that so rarely get shared, and I find that we naturally assume everyone is making more money, faster, easier, with a larger following, than they really are. It's the nature of social media that we all want to both represent our brands well and not be a Debby Downer. So it's no one's fault when they're not leading with the hard parts. That's why I loved writing my book! It was a place where it was totally appropriate to share that honestly. But through mentoring fellow entrepreneurs and hearing them describe others in the industry, I realize that we all inflate others while downplaying our own success with lots of "onlys" -- I only have X amount of newsletter followers, I only have X number of likes on my Facebook page. The best antedote for this, is to find folks with whom you can have really honest, vulnerable, transparent conversations about business, money, numbers, growth. Those friendships are worth their weight in gold for helping us to keep a healthy perspective as to where we are on the path, on our own path, and how we can get to where we want to be.