The first thing I read this morning was this post about finding your passion from Tara Gentile and I can't get it out of my head.

I rarely think about the finding of passion, I spend most of my day helping you DO that passion  (and doing it myself!) Trying stuff. Adjusting. And trying other stuff.

Here's a secret…

That's the answer to 80% of the questions I get asked in one-on-one sessions: Try it. And then adjust.
Will this marketing tool work for you? Try it!
Will your people like this? Try it!
Will you get into that show? Try it!

I don't know what will work for you.
YOU don't know what will work for you
But that doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong.
It means you're learning.
It means you're living.

But that vital first step is simple: Action.

One tiny step toward your dream.

You don't have to be ultra-productivity machine.
In fact, I recommend against it.

On small tiny little movement can get you there.

And for that, I love that Tara Gentile is teaching a class called The Art of Action.

Getting started can be hard

Even for me. Even for the smart people Tara's interviewing.
Especially when you add in the layer of ohmygoodness, this is my dream! ack!

Here's how I get started

• I take classes, like Tara's to inspire action
• I read and ponder, especially books like Lisa's Take That Nap.
• I set my priorities and then get some gentle accountability for them (like we do in The Starship).

How do you get moving in the direction of your dreams?

On a lovely Thursday afternoon, right in the home stretch of daily-yarn-postings (Month of Love), right after uploading all my class materials and emailing all the students, after plotting out blog posts for the next week… my site disappeared.
Both my sites disappeared.
No yarn, no class materials.

It was a technical thing with my server and lots of people suffered outages and there wasn't anything I, or my beloved web ninja could do to remedy anything.

At about 1pm on what was supposed to be a very productive Thursday, I had a choice.
I could obsess and plot and work and fret and email everyone.
Or I could let it go and live my life.

Obsessing is easier.

Obsessing is natural.
We want to fix it. NOW.
We want to rack our brain for every possible solution.
We want to put the fire out.
(And if we can't put this fire out, let's find ANOTHER fire to put out).

After choosing to get up from my computer and spend the day doing non-computery stuff, it was still easier to obsess.
To check my email.
To check my sites.
To rant on Twitter.

I saw the obsession and I decided to experiment.

The premise was simple (but SO difficult!):
What would happen if I did nothing.

If I didn't go out of my way explaining it to everyone…
If I didn't rant on Twitter…
If I totally ignored everything I *could* do online…

If I walked away?

Results of Experimentation

Here's what happened: I had a great day.
A great Thursday afternoon shipping orders, knitting and reading.
A great Friday running errands (groceries, bank, the stuff I usually make Jay do alone, I tagged along. We had fun!) and reading and writing for Wednesday's class.
A great Saturday helping my mom prepare to sell her shawl pins to a local salon, reading (an entire novel) and knitting.

And then, without my watchful obsession, my sites came back on Saturday night. I simply tweeted the students who had noticed (less than 1/4 of my students even realized they couldn't get to the class materials!) and went back to binding off my shawl.

Sunday, I made a list of the stuff I wanted to do…and promptly took a nap.
I woke up refreshed, ready to work.

Here I am, feeling like I had a three day vacation, ready to fill a wholesale order, launch a new knitalong, and teach an awesome class.

You have a choice.

This week, something's going to go wrong (Don't Panic! It's expected) and you'll have a choice.
Obsession? Or living?

Obsession is easier, and lord knows I slipped into it every day, but living is funner. More fulfilling, more re-filling.

Bake Sale Jitters is a regularish look at the stuff that keep our business from being as much fun as a bake sale.

The foundation of Bake Sale Marketing is that it (all of your promotion + sharing + stuff) is coming from you: from your passions, your joy, your essence. It's not icky because it's not manipulative. You aren't faking your excitement and you're truly making + sharing your thing because it is awesome.

But this focus on you-ness can be uncomfortable.

As one of my clients recently said about her writing,

“I'm afraid to make it sound like me…because what if the people get to know me?”

This may be, a little bit, about fear of rejection (which will talk about later in the week), but I think it's also an issue of safety.

What if you're uncomfortable having YOU out there?

First, acknowledgment.

This IS hard. And scary.
It is so much bigger than just our business. It's our relationship to ourselves, others, the world.

Also, please know: It's not just you, lots of crafty artistic types worry about this.

And reassurances.

You don't have to do anything that feels uncomfortable.
Really.
We can find a way to craft a delightful and passionate business that feels safe.

Some ideas:

• Create an alter-ego.
  I started with an alter-ego, because I was much to shy to share my yarn with the world.
  Yours could just be a nom de plume or it could be an entire character.
  This isn't inauthentic, as long as it's still you behind it all.
• Keep it a well-kept secret.
  Whether from your mother or your co-workers, you do NOT have to tell your real-life people about your thing.
  Keep your blog password protected when you get started, if it will make it easier to write. Lock your tweets. Don't friend people on Facebook.
  Remember that it will be harder for people to find out about your thing if you keep it a secret, but that doesn't mean you have to jump out of the shadows before you're ready.
• Be hard to get.
  For us crafters, our thing is already limited; we can only craft so many things in a given day. Play with that hard-to-get-ness by highlighting  + promoting this fact.

  Maybe you only offer things once a month.
  Maybe you only sell at select venues.
  To make this work, find a place you are VERY comfortable and work on making it a sustainable venue.

• Set boundaries.
  Guess what? YOU get to the be the person who decides how much of your youness gets shared.
  Maybe it's just your favorite color on the background of your website. People don't have to know that's why it's there, you can just do it.
  Maybe you make a line of pins inspired by a beach. You don't have to share every memory of that beach, or even when you went there, or even that you went there. Just share the part that feels good.

The coolest thing about creating safety is that  you don't have to sit down and plan it out.
You can, if that helps, but you can also bake it right in.
As you write a description, add what feels right.
As you tweet, decide to write what makes you feel safe.

You never have to share more than you want, but I encourage you to think of some things that you would be comfortable sharing.
Knowing what parts of your you-ness you want to share will give you a starting point as we work on drenching your business with joy + you-ness.

PS. I really need to put this PS on everything I ever write, ever: everything I know about putting-your-thing-out-there and acknowledging-the-scary, I learned from Havi. Specifically her Blogging Therapy series.
Well, that and life and trial and lots of error.