By now you probably know I no longer own a studio.
I wasn’t able to keep the doors open. Too many wrong decisions and not enough customers add up to not enough revenue to pay the bills. I failed. There are stories, justifications & excuses but it was my name on the checks and the lease.
It’s been two months since I packed up my props. The blankets, blocks, mats, bolsters & straps are all that’s left of two years and an initial $10,000 investment.
I was not walking my talk
With more than $10K and a lot of sweat equity invested I could not just walk away. I can make this work. I don’t want to fail. I don’t want people to see me as a failure.
That critic in my head kept me bound (attached) to the studio when owning it was no longer serving me. That critic in my head made “failure” sound insidious, negative, and everlasting. That critic in my head said I should keep trying because I’ve put so much into it already.
Manifesting is expansive
In January 2012 I did a dream board. It had been falling down repeatedly for several months and I’d been stubbornly taping it back up. The last time it fell brought an epiphany…Nothing on my dream board came to pass. NOTHING. Because it existed (and was created) in fearful state of mind & energy.
With that epiphany I threw away the board.
Enough was enough
I finally quieted the critic in my head and closed the doors. No big announcements. No trying to save anything or sell anything. Just done.
Two months later, my perspective is a little clearer. The failure label is no longer a negative…I am who I am today because I’m the sum total of both my successes and failures. And if we’re honest, we know growth comes from the failures more than the successes.
Here, in no particular order, is some of the perspective I gained:
- I spent untold amounts of energy on something that I didn’t thoroughly love doing that prevented me from having the necessary energy to work on the things I did love.
- Those warning signs are real and ignoring ’em only makes ’em bigger. Like the drunk who keeps getting more annoying yet we stick around until he vomits on us. Then we get mad at him. I didn’t have to wait for it to get SO BAD.
- You can’t go back. For me, operating a studio again was the equivalent of remarrying a man I had divorced. There’s a reason why the marriage didn’t work the first time.
- No amount of money (invested and/or lost) is worth your health, well-being and sanity. AND I WAS GOING CRAZY and making those closest to me crazy too.
- You can make a different decision. All decisions are made with the current information available. When different information is revealed, we have the power to choose differently.
- I haven’t missed a single day of the studio since I “closed” the doors. I’m nestled all snuggly in my new home at Yoga on Main, coming and going as I need and leaving the studio operations to someone who does love it.
One last perspective
Thomas Edison never viewed his previous attempts at the lightbulb as failure. He said he just figured out all the ways in which it didn’t work. There’s nothing wrong with failure. It’s simply an indicator. BEEP. You car door is ajar. BEEP. Fasten your seatbelt. BEEP. The copy paper is out. BEEP. You don’t like owning and managing a studio. BEEP. Change your course.
BEEP. Share your thoughts with me.
There’s a P.S. to this story
By letting go of Brick House Yoga, someone else was able to be blessed. Now Melissa Pierce in Sulphur Springs is the proud, new owner of Brick House Yoga studio. She’s thrilled with her new endeavor–and her new name. And I’m completely happy that it’s able to live on with someone who will love it to pieces.
