As I discussed here and elsewhere, I closed my business (Whole Damn Woman) on the 1st. Patreon was my only consistent source of income. The number of Patrons I had from July 2020 to July 2022 was incredible! After July 2022, things started to stagnate, then decline. When you’re only making $250 to $300 a month, any decline hurts.
I made it a point to keep my overhead low at about $61 a month. I never went into debt for the business. I had enough money saved to keep it going for another year.
What did it was the lack of enthusiasm toward what I was creating, and I don’t just mean from followers, friends, customers, and clients. I mean from me as well. The shift to journaling was easy, but it wasn’t compelling. I’d planned a journaling workbook, and I could not convince myself to actually make it. I was bored with it. I was burnt out from trying so many different things but seeing no results.
If you factor in economic concerns–particularly that people are seemingly spending less on extra stuff–I could not generate buzz for anything I created. It’d been like that since I started the self-care coaching.
Had I stuck with consulting, I might’ve been fine, but Iowa’s hate-driven laws saw to the end of that avenue.
As I’m prone to do, I’m lingering in the depression/anger stage of grief. I’m angry at myself, socioeconomic circumstances, social media, my followers, and back to myself. I pivoted too often. I relied too much on Instagram. I don’t have anything compelling that people want to spend money on. America doesn’t value what I was making. I lacked the talent.
I could keep listing possibilities, but nothing changes the fact that my first effort at starting and maintaining a business failed in a lot of ways.
Certainly, I succeeded in a lot of ways too. It’s just harder to see those right now.
To stop this from being a depressing, personal diary entry (which there’s nothing wrong with, but I digress), I know I’ll be OK. I know I taught people things. I know I had fun. And I’m proud of myself for trying something completely foreign to me. I was hoping it’d last longer, but I’m glad it lasted at all.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a job, which I’m learning is impossible right now. Labor shortage, my ass.
