A good friend of mine opened her new store this morning. She has already been self-employed as an interior decorator and designer. But now she has a beautiful showroom tastefully decorated with perfectly matching items to welcome clients. This way, she has not only the possibility to inspire them and give them an idea of what she can do, but she can also sit together with them right there and work out some first ideas. No more visiting them, then preparing drawings and offers at home, visiting them again, and only working with catalogs instead of a choice of samples. Of course, so much went wrong the closer the date of the opening came, but she is such a power-woman. Like a magician, she switched to alternatives that turned out as a much better option than the original idea or order.

That is how she was even led to the decision to go for this whole concept. She invested a lot of money and, of course, risks a lot. Every new beginning is risky because it is a step into a new unknown field with new experiences. But what in life is actually certain, right? However, I was looking back at the long way she has come. She started her additional education as an interior decorator and room planner when she was in her mid to end-thirties. After that, she worked at a company for a while before she founded her own company. Mostly, she worked on her own, but also worked together with someone in a team. But that did not work out well. Over time, she got a little frustrated since she could not see any development or a satisfying way to apply her growing experience. Then, about a year ago, she noticed a market niche in a part of her field. She thought, now, she either stop being self-employed or do her own thing in a really big way… and here she is about 12 to 15 years later! She kept the direction when even she had not considered having her own store one day.

I heard about the progress on and off. But everything in the process was completely led, beginning with finding the premises which actually found her. Also, the two people she employs, she already knew for so many years. But it was meant to be that they were available at the right time, that they have the experience and potential that is needed, AND that all the three even talked about it. My friend needed to go this long way with all her experiences in between to be so well prepared and experienced that she could deal with the responsibility. Because of all her little steps and seeming detours, she could accumulate a really big network that is now at hand for anything she needs in her business.

We often question life and ourselves why things don’t develop in a certain way, at a certain pace, or not at all. We can get frustrated when we need to take a sideway because the main street is blocked. But the sideway holds some experiences we need only to reach the main street again. And that makes you look a little different sideways. I don’t think we ever make detours. Probably we already are on the main street anyway since everything we do and experience takes us further on our personal path. All we need to do is keep faith in ourselves to keep moving and to do what feels right in the very moment. Then miraculously, we know what to do, or things just fall into place, and decisions appear like a simple consequence. Then we don’t even need that much courage because everything feels doubtlessly right and clear.

Maybe you need to look at obstacles not as a way to stop you but to keep you on track.
There are no detours but only the next steps.
There are no sideways but only narrower parts of the main road.
And of course, it is never too late or too early to start a project when the passion is burning inside.

In Love and Light