Trust The Process

I’m currently in the midst of a beautiful and life changing transformation. I’ve finally tied up all the lose ends in terms of back-end functionality on my website and I’m getting steady views. Every single day. My analytics have me more motivated than ever. There’s nothing I love more than seeing progress. 

I’ve been super overwhelmed for the several years because I’ve been trying to do so many things at once, however, I finally got my new office renovated enough to move in and be comfortable in my workspace! That’s so much weight off my shoulders. Plus, there’s not a space in my home that I’ll be more excited about decorating than my new office! There’s also not going to be another space that I’m more proud of than my office because I did a large majority of the work solo, so it will forever be my reminder that I can anything I set my mind to.

A few years ago, I started looking into buying rental property or flipping houses. I thought that would be a sure fire way of supplementing my income. I thought I could be the next Joanna Gaines. After remodeling my home office though, I quickly decided that I shouldn’t quit my day job to flip houses because there wasn’t a thing I enjoyed about remodeling my office. I just wanted it DONE. To be honest, it was the worst. Not a good time at all.

 0/10. DO NOT RECOMMEND.

I’ve actually been trying to be find my niche since 2011 and I’ve failed over and over and over again. In 2011, I started my first side hustle crafting and selling jewelry, but that was very short lived. In 2014, I attempted to start my first business. I began sharing information regarding toxins in our everyday lives, as I learned about them, on my blog at the time, as well as creating my own nontoxic cleaning supplies. I continued building that business until 2016 with no success, so I gave up. In 2017, I began crafting and tried selling my crafts on Facebook, which was unsuccessful in so I gave up. In 2018, I started doing photography, however, that didn’t take off either. In January 2019, I launched my brand, Aspiring Ari. I also wasted a whole bunch of money jumping into something I knew nothing about. Again. I invested a lot of time and effort into my last three failed business attempts too. In April 2019, I launched my first store. I got my first sale and I was stoked. Then, I got another sale and then another and so on a so forth. For the first time in my life, something worked for me. Then, I picked back up with my photography business in August 2019 and it exploded right away. However, living in the Midwest and being an outdoor photographer in the winter season, doesn’t really go hand and hand.

From November until the New Year, I planned for a successful 2020. I had an overwhelming feeling that 2020 was going to be my year. I made a promise to myself that I’d work my ass off to achieve every goal I set out to in 2020.

2020 ended up being a train wreck. COVID put a damper on a lot of my plans. However, COVID turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me because it gave me the time and space that I wouldn’t normally have had to perfect my vision. As a result, my blog took off overnight in 2020. Literally overnight. It just happened. I woke up to find one of my posts had went viral. All it took was engagement. My views sky-rocketed and became steady. Every single day, someone was visiting MY website. All across the nation, and even internationally. I reached people in the United Kingdom, China, France, Australia, Canada, Singapore, India, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Pakistan, Ireland, Norway, and beyond. I started speaking my mind and TRIPLED my views. In November 2020, I started Ari Unleashed - The Petti Podcast, which took off like wildfire, however, my life took an unexpected turn for the worst in 2021. 

I found myself in a slump and right about the time I thought I was coming out of it, a shootout at my home, involving my neighbor and the police, resulting in two lives lost, set me on the track for my biggest downward spiral yet. Then, just a month later, I dodged 113 rounds of gunfire a block away from my child’s school on the day of open house, resulting in one life lost. Two months following that, my daughters school bus was hit in a drive-by. Thankfully, no one was hurt in the incident. By this point, I couldn't catch my breath. 

I ended up quitting my job, scaling my business, relocating, and then getting locked out of all my business accounts due to two-factor authentication, and from 2022 - 2024, my dreams remained on the back-burner, with the exception of branding and expanding a few local businesses, but I made absolutely no progress on my own brand during that time.

I’ve made so many mistakes trying to get where I am, but I prefer to learn from my mistakes. I also prefer to figure it out on my own. However, I don’t like to waste time and I wasted A LOT of time and money that I wouldn’t have wasted had done some things differently. 

The only thing that I knew for sure when I began trying to find my niche is that I had a purpose, I needed to find my passion, and I needed a workspace.

My previous home office had hideous orange carpet and just didn’t feel right. Sounds silly, but the ugly carpet was hindering my progress. Its truly the small things in life! Lol. Granted, I’m super OCD, so I was super bothered by the orange carpet contrasting with my brand and office color scheme. My workspace was so unpleasant.

Creating a workspace that I’m proud of is rewarding and I believe it’s where true success begins. However, I needed an office my entire college career and didn’t have the space until I moved into my new home two months after graduation! Lol, figures. But I had to start somewhere and my couch sufficed until I had a more room to work with! 

When it came to starting a profitable side hustle, I realized early on that you shouldn’t rely solely on local support, not even from friends and family. That’s why my nontoxic business didn’t work. That’s why selling crafts didn’t work. That’s why photography didn’t work. I relied solely on OTHER people to help me become successful. The fact of the matter is, most people would rather share memes all day long than take the one second it would take to support someone who is up and coming.

I never realized the power of marketing through social media. When I first begin trying to market, I only tried to market on Facebook cause that’s the social media app I use most often. That was one of my biggest mistakes. I knew nothing about marketing. Honestly, I didn’t know much about any of the side hustles I began when I began. I should have done more research before investing my time, energy, and money.

I also had convinced myself that I would never be as successful as I wanted to be because I had failed so many times before. I was also worried about what people who knew me would think if I started a lifestyle blog that was real and raw and opening myself up to people in such a way.

Then, I realized I didn’t care. I have less than ten people in my life that genuinely matter to me outside of my family. So I figured, mind over matter. If they don’t matter, I don’t mind. I took the leap and started marketing my blog for the entire world to see, including those people who follow to eye roll and criticize me for fun.

I began listening to the goal digger podcast shortly after I launched my blog and in one of her first podcasts, she said “fake it until you make it” and this really left an impression on me. I preach NEVER FAKE all day, everyday, so I’m going to reword what she said and call it speaking things into existence. By no means am I saying you should start a business you know nothing about and market it as if you’re an expert with ten years experience, but you can certainly speak that into existence with some discipline and dedication.

For those of you who are looking to start a side hustle or business of you own, but don't know where to start, start anywhere. Do it now. It might not be profitable immediately and you might not be successful immediately, but a little bit of progress everyday adds up.

Here's a recap of the things I did wrong when I started out.

1. I tried to do too many things as once. Then, I got overwhelmed and gave up.

2. I hadn’t done my research and didn’t know enough about marketing.

3. I didn’t have a clear vision, business plan, or mentor. 

4. I expected local support and never utilized any of the different platforms available to reach different people.

5. I allowed fear to keep me in the same place. 

Hopefully, you can avoid making the same mistakes I did and find your success sooner than I did, but regardless, if you work for it, it’ll work for you. Speak what you seek until you see what you said!

Cause, baby, look at me. I'm finally seeing what I said and it feels so damn good!