Solopreneur Style | Making Decisions when you Work Alone

The decision to write this post goes back a while. I mean it’s taken years of me trying to get comfortable enough in front of the camera to be happy with putting my awkward face and body out there so publicly. (If you follow the blog you’ll know I have spoken about this quite a bit so I’m not going to bore you all again with all that. You can read here though if you haven’t already.) But in more recent months I’ve been toying with the idea of a solopreneur style feature and here we finally are!

Trousers ASOS (Currently only £9 in the sale!!!)
Jacket H&M
Lace Crop Top – Similar here
Sandals – Similar here
Sunglasses ASOS – shown later in post (On Sale!)

One of the reasons I don’t tend to take many photos of myself day to day, is because I feel a little inadequate when it comes to blogger style. I have a pretty basic day to day work uniform that usually consists of jeans, jumper, trainers varying in style with the weather. My biggest problem is that after making so many daily decisions what I’m wearing that day comes low on the priority list.

I know this sounds like a cop out. Is it really that difficult to put an outfit together especially now we have so much inspiration at our fingertips (hello, Pinterest!) But making that decision to be out of my comfort zone can often leave me with a knocked confidence and bruised ego.

This is something that I (and many business owners/solopreneurs) deal with on a daily basis. As the sole decision maker for my two businesses (Fall For DIY and We Make Collective) I am responsible for all the big, small and somewhere in between judgement calls and if something goes wrong then I only have myself to blame.

To be honest though I do think this is a good way of working for me in the long run. I learn best from my mistakes and I make enough to be improving constantly! But it’s not just mistakes that come out of decisions. Sometimes my own decisions put me in situations I am not comfortable in which can lead to anxiety and stress.

Last year I spoke at Blogtacular. While I knew I wasn’t a confident speaker I bought into the idea that I could practice and improve. For most people and in most cases I agree wholehearted with this idea, but I’m just not made of public speaking stuff. I was lucky to have discovered this in front of the kindest audience I could have hoped for and although I still believe my decision to put myself in that situation was a bad one, I learnt that this isn’t a direction I want to explore. I learnt to let that go.

But those are just the big decisions. My everyday choices shape the direction, success and outside opinion of me and my business. It’s intimidating knowing this and difficult to always be confident in your conviction when you know one wrong step can mean disaster. Ok, so that might be a little overdramatic but then again, we’ve all seen pr nightmares materialise over a box of macarons!

Generally I do believe if you are genuine and honest with you readers/customers/followers they will understand a slip up here or there. We’re so often confronted with the bad online that we forget most people are kind, caring and patient – especially when it comes to independent business. When those difficult decisions do lead to mistakes it’s ALWAYS best to own up, apologise and do your very best to rectify the situation. In most cases the outcome will turn out fine and you might even learn how to avoid making the same blunder again.

I’m hoping that I can put those skills I’m learning into this feature. I want to play with my own style and take some risks knowing that while it might not always work out, I can learn from it and be/look a little better next time.