New Years Resolution- Business will be FUN!

So yesterday many things hit me about my shop(s). I opened Bubba & Rye in February, right after I left my job, and then Lilac Ave in July, in hopes of padding my family's finances, and hopefully building it enough so I could be self employed versus going back to work. Well by September I was pretty well aware that it was just not going to happen as fast as I needed to, and we really needed me to be working.

Since September that vision, and that ambition hadn't changed much. I was very driven to make a lot of product for holiday craft shows, and have as much inventory as possible, to see what the possibilities of the Christmas sales were. The craft shows did not got fantastic (but were fun), and sales were my best EVER in November and December.

So now the holidays are over. For the past couple of months I had been strategizing to diversify Lilac Ave and close Bubba and Rye (so I could have time to diversify Lilac Ave). I opened another store on 1000Markets. I had a plan to set in motion to grow.

Then yesterday a couple of things in my mind changed:

1. I actually still love making cards, I just can't make them at the pace I was making them, when I wasn't working. This is the main reason I was going to close Bubba & Rye. But then I asked myself, "Who says there needs to be "X" number of items in my store, or that I have to have "X" number of sales? ?Apparently my own ambition and pride. Wouldn't it be better to let those go, than this shop, that I love dearly, and still enjoy making cards for?

I do think the shop will be a little changed when it re-opens. I have some different ideas, and different thoughts on the product being put in there.

2. This should be fun! I've already established that my income issues were changed by going back to work. This isn't to say I am going to price myself as a hobbyist, etc....I still have a busines sense to me....but I have enough stress at work, and these business are for me, and I love them. I don't want to make them so stressful that I hate them. So from here on out, if it isn't fun, if it isn't enjoyable, I am not going to do it. Now this doesn't include listing items, which I find awful and monotonous, LOL! It does include when I am not feeling right about a business choice.

So this is my new business strategy.... "HAVE FUN"! That sounds more fun that "diversify" doesn't it?