Excitement Vs Passion; Why The Beginning Isn’t The Hardest Part Of The Journey

By Tricia Scott

I love creativity. I mean really love it.

Many years ago, when I was still in school, I was forever dragging furniture around my bedroom. Sneaking pots of paint upstairs to paint my walls (our carpets paid the price for this on more than one occasion), the overpowering smell of paint fumes causing my parents to rocket up the stairs to see what-on-earth I was up to now.

While some people fear change and new beginnings, I always embraced them. I’d like to say it came naturally to me as a young woman, but I have to give credit to my Nana for that one. She was always reading what I thought at the time to be crazy literature; philosophy books, the law of attraction and quantum physics, all of the things a working Northern woman who brought up three kids and held down three jobs just didn’t read. She made books full of notes and knew things I couldn’t possibly understand when I was younger, but nonetheless, she told me often to take careful note of my environment and what I let in, reminding me that my thoughts were creating my reality.

She taught me to embrace change and allow my path to unfold. To stay open and not get stuck in detail. All of these things I now follow religiously, and as a result, I adore the refreshing newness of change. Working as The Female CEO, I’ve recognised the story to be similar for a lot of the entrepreneurs I’ve talked to.

It’s not that it’s not hard at the beginning, it certainly is. Scary decisions, diving into the unknown, releasing an idea, your idea, to the world without any real assurances that it’s going to work out can be flat-out terrifying.

But exciting.

If you want it, and you have to really want it, the adrenaline will carry you through this phase, and it’s just as well otherwise 99 out of 100 ideas wouldn’t make it over the starting line.

What I’ve realised on my own entrepreneurial journey is that the start hasn’t been the most challenging part. The hardest part, by far, has been the consistency of it. That is showing up for your dream every single day

- When you don’t have any paying clients yet

- When you don’t receive a single email for three days straight

- When you really don’t feel like it and even doing the washing feels like an appealing procrastination tool.

- When you look back the days of a steady income and think ‘that 200 degrees or sub-zero office cubicle no bigger than a tiny house toilet from 9–5 and the 2-hour commute wasn’t so bad, was it?’

- When the initial excitement has well and truly worn off, and you’re wearing the same hoodie at noon that you slept in two-nights running.

Here’s the thing… Excitement and passion are two very different things. Excitement is that part at the beginning when it’s all new and shiny, but passion is what is going to see this thing through.

This is the time when you have to really dig in. It’s when you have to call on the memory of the excitement you had at the beginning and remember your passion for why you’re doing this. You have to continually remind yourself that it is worth it, your dream is more significant than any of your doubts. It has to be. It’s the only way forward.

Choose hard.

Every. Single. Time.

Be committed to your idea because you genuinely believe in it. Belief comes before the money, the notoriety and the clients, belief is present long before the material manifestation of what you want. Trust this process, remember, overnight success is never just that. Always choose the bigger dream over the daily drag, your time will come, and when it does, it will be fucking glorious because you decided it to be that way. You made it happen.

You did that.

So, when it’s getting tough when the emails aren’t coming in, and the clients aren’t showing up do it anyway. Re-read this blog and remind yourself that you have to consciously make a choice. Get to your desk, pick up that computer and just get it done, stop throwing down obstacles on an already cluttered path. The world needs what you have to offer. In return, the universe will show up for you and deliver big time.

I believe in you.

Tricia Scott is the Founder and Editor of The Female CEO - Create Evolve Overcome, a platform and digital magazine holding the space to showcase female entrepreneurs from all over the world. She works and collaborates with various organisations to bring the most inspirational journeys, stories and training to help entrepreneurs on their own personal success mission. The Female CEO is growing, expanding and gaining global recognition daily and Tricia is able to bring her own level of expertise as a coach, mentor and multi-company director to her very exclusive table along with her team of brilliant Guest Editors and Bloggers. You'll usually find her with her Macbook in one hand and a coffee or a glass of something fizzy in the other and she always have sunglasses in her hair. Reach out anytime!