As I sat in my chair behind my iMac in my little home office, a wave of excitement shot through me. I was in charge of my whole day. Not only that, my whole year. 2019 would have so much to teach me, but in this moment, I felt freedom and joy at the expansiveness of the week, the work I would get to do, and the control I had over my life.

It’s March, and that means that R Artspace is turning 3 years old! Kinda crazy that it took almost 3 years of side-hustling to get to full-time status (If you wanna read about that journey, head over to this recent post). But in light of recently going full-time, I would love to share some misconceptions I had about working from home and what actually happened.

Back when I started this whole online business journey, I was convinced that I could get a website up and running and in a matter of months quit my day job. Boy was I wrong. Not only did it take YEARS, but it took so much more time, commitment and patience than I ever thought before.

Confidence plays a major role in how you do business. Confident people can easily talk about the benefits of their service, the investment to working with them and can help clients through their process with ease and certainty.

I think we can all agree that not only have we heard of these brands, but we LOVE them. We're sortof die hard fans, aren't we? Whenever I talk to people who love Starbusks, they REALLY love Starbucks. Or, I have friends who love going to Target–just to wander the aisles and see the beautiful set-up in home decor. Now, that's some brand love.

When I started my business, I thought I had it all figured out. I had soaked up all the free content that was out there like a sponge. I just knew my business would take off so I could quit my day job and live the dream of working at home in my sweat pants.

This past week I felt like a failure. Back in February I set a goal for myself that I would quit my day job on a certain day, do or die! Well, that day came and went this past Friday and here I am at work today, Monday morning with coffee in hand, just like normal.

Blogging is kind of like exercising. It’s a great for your business’s overall health and has some surprising benefits that you may not know about. While I’ve been consistently blogging for over a year I still don’t consider myself a blogger. I just view blogging as a way to keep my business healthy, moving forward and further establish my expertise.

We are all given the same amount of time in a day and in order to get ahead, especially as a side-hustler, you need a plan to use your time to be the MOST productive when you are working on your business.

Let’s talk marketing, more specifically, let’s talk about your marketing PLAN. If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking, uh, marketing plan?! What’s that?! Let me tell you, I was in the same boat. Just weeks ago I had no idea what a marketing plan was or that you needed one. And I was thinking, Oh crap! Another thing to add to the to-do list! *cue the sobbing emoji.

When you first step into the world of online business it can be overwhelming, to say the least. There is so much you “need” to do, or “should” do when you have an online business.

I want to encourage you, if you are just starting out, congrats to getting this far –but don’t get distracted with all the “shoulds” cause trust me, there’s a lot.

I think we can all identify with the fact that we have a lot on our plate... and it seems like we're only told to put more on. And sometimes we think there's a cure for this feeling of overwhelm, and the cure is to take a vacation. This is what I thought, at least.

When you start your business, you know that content marketing is important, but you may not be sure how to go about it. Or, quite possibly, you didn't know that it was a thing. Well, let me be the one to tell you, content marketing is one of the most important and valuable ways to find customers and sell your product or service.

As a side-hustler, I feel like I look over the fence to my friends who work for themselves full-time and I sigh and say, ahh that would be nice. You get to work from home, work in your pjs, get to spend all day working on projects you love… the list of wonderful-ness goes on and on.

One of the biggest mistakes I see new business owners making is they think they need a logo when they're just starting out. Heck, that's what I thought when I started out too. And having a logo is important but what you really need is a game plan. A strategy.

There’s a lot that goes into starting a business. One of the main things people (like myself) get hung up on is branding and visuals. But, I'm here to tell you, it's at the bottom of the list of things you should be doing when you first start out.

Not all businesses have a brand. Some businesses just have a logo, like some gas stations or hardware stores. Maybe even some restaurants. Businesses can survive and do well without branding.

The idea for a business normally comes first, then the dreaded task of finding the perfect name. You want that name that is everything - explains what you have to offer, shows your strengths, represents your unique offering... But how on earth do you go about choosing a name that represents how great you and your services are?

When you’re coming onto the online business arena you are bombarded with all these things to do: get a great brand, build an email list, be active and consistent on social media, blog... it can quickly get overwhelming.

The feeling can leave you paralyzed with “there’s so many things I need to do I don’t even know where to start” and then you either: don’t do anything or try to figure it all out on your own, which is tough.