Am I Doing the Right Thing?

Y'all my zinnias are in rough shape.  We sent packets of free zinnia seeds out in May of big beautiful flowers and I have been growing mine in my basement since April.  I popped them out into the garden in May and, well, it got cold and my healthy green seedlings started to get brown leaves and some literally snapped in half!  What the heck?!  I got discouraged because I felt like my timeline was crunched and I had missed the perfect window for planting/growing these flowers and now it was ruined. 

How often does that happen?  You do all the things correctly, you baby your idea, nurture it and then it's ready to go out into the world and SMASH, it gets botched.  OR you're making a big decision and you're listening to God/the universe/yourself to make sure you're taking the right steps.  You're doing all the things and feel you're being led and not leading, if that makes sense.  And then SMASH, it gets botched.  It can feel overwhelming and like a failure.  Which can bring shame which can bring immobility.  

And we're frozen into indecision and doing nothing for fear of future pain, heartache, and/or embarrassment.  

It happens with relationships, it happens with work - it happens everywhere.  

But what if the idea was a good one but just needed honing?  What if the concept was sound but the timeline was wrong?  What if we were being led to something far better for us that we never would have thought of on our own?  

Graph from Insider

I remember getting the idea for Erin's Faces and literally shaking my head and thinking to myself "nope, that's not what I want to do."  It felt insurmountable - a beauty company??  When Loreal, Estee Lauder, Johnson & Johnson and Coty exist?  How could I possibly compete?  Who did I think I was?  I literally had no money.  Like none. And my husband was unemployed at the time.  And I had no business background.  But the nudges kept coming until they turned into firm hands guiding me (that's what it felt like anyhow).  And while it has been incredibly hard at times (very much the equivalent of a zinnia snapping in half or a grand SMASH), it has also had some beautiful flowers.  Like crazy beautiful.

2016 in Houston with some awesome ladies I'd see at a holiday market each year where I had a booth

With this company we're able to help people, really help them.  And care about people.  We happen to do it with sunscreen and lip gloss but we're doing it.  And this company grew from an idea into filling a 10x13 room in Queens to filling a 2800 square foot office in New Jersey which employs not just me but multiple people.  And I love it.  I love Erin's Faces for the reach it has, for the good it does and for the opportunity it gives me to connect with more people than I would have been able to do on my own.  I believe that I've been doing the right thing for the last 12 years,  And I'll keep listening to see where I'm led to go.  

As you can see in the first pic, I've trimmed the dead leaves off of my zinnias and have also planted some new seedlings as backups.  Because they're worth it - even if they're late, even if they're not perfect, I know they'll still be beautiful. 

zinnias from last year's garden