New Year’s Resolution Success

I’m happy to announce I’ve ticked the box on my new year’s resolution…and it’s still January! I’m not one who typically makes new year’s resolutions, but this year one of my goals was to finally get my Susan Newhouse & Associates website up and running. I started my own business about 18 months ago and have been flying pretty much under the radar. I wanted to start things off without fanfare or a grand announcement, but now I think it’s finally time to put it out there and go public.

As a new small business owner, I’ve had to learn a lot of things quickly…some more enjoyable than others. There’s the really fun stuff like exploring new creative techniques, developing a portfolio, and just doing the work. And then there’s the mind-numbing stuff like managing finances, dealing with procurement, navigating legal contracts, and chasing down clients to get paid. Nevertheless, I’m working through the challenges. When I look back on the past 18 months, I’m pretty amazed by all the new skills I’ve learned!

A little help goes a long way

I’m not sure I would have been able to make my new year’s resolution if I didn’t have badass friends like fellow small business owner Katie Garry, or Shannon Mattern, whose 5-Day Website Challenge taught me how to build, host, post and ‘Yeost’ my website. All on my own. I’m no techie, but I can now work my way around WordPress and Elementor. I know just enough to be dangerous. Ha! (And yes, I used Yeost as a verb. Try it…it’s fun!)

For a perfectionist like myself, building a website that’s ‘good enough’ is pretty daunting, which is why I probably didn’t do it sooner. I’ll probably never be 100% happy with it, and I’ll probably make a million tweaks and redesigns along the way, but I won’t have to hire anyone to do it for me. I’m a website developer, hear me roar.

Pausing perfectionism

Now that I think of it, that’s probably why I never set new year’s resolutions…I’m too much of a perfectionist. Why make promises you’re not going to keep? And why say you’re going to do something if it’s not going to be awesome, right? This might sound crazy to you, but for me the struggle is super-real. My mom, husband, siblings, bosses, co-workers and friends have called me a perfectionist (a/k/a ‘control freak’) for years, but I really have no idea what they’re talking about. Did I mention I’m stubborn, too? Maybe working on that will go on 2021’s new year’s resolution list.

Perfectionism be damned…I’m hitting the “pause” button for now so I can tick the checkbox on my 2020 New Year’s Resolution! That just leaves me with the goal of getting down to biz-nezz and doing even more great work for my clients.

Cheers to a successful 2020…clink!