Heart-to-heart: Green-eyed monster.

Hello there, it's Painfully-Honest-Me again. :)

Ever since I saw the wonderful outpouring of support for my previous heart-to-heart blog entry, I realise that hey, I have indeed more than the 5 readers I originally suspected haha. (no, but I'm serious.) There's so much of my life I want to share with you, it's way different from the lifestyle of the regular Singapore office-girl, along with the mental tribulations I go through. If you've ever been curious about what happens after one takes the advice of those popular Pinterest slogans like the one pictured below, then you'll be interested in my heart-to-heart entries.

Today, let's focus on one nagging horrible flaw I have, which I've never publicly admitted. 

-breathes deeply.

I find it difficult to be truly happy for others. 

There, I've said it. 

Okay wait, I AM truly happy when my friends get married and start families etc, and I honestly want my friends to be happy and would gladly do things to get them there. 

What I'm referring to are people in my trade. Which is the tiny circle of miniature food crafters. Not a lot of them in the world, as you can imagine. Definitely not as many as the circle of doctors, lawyers, or any other regular profession.

I'll let you in on a secret, I've been consciously steering clear of the other food miniaturists' blogs. Well I used to surf them back in the days I just started AiClay. But I noticed that this growing sense of bitterness would just swell in my heart, and I'll feel so discouraged that they've managed to perfect some food I couldn't, or they've achieved some success like have massive good sales or be invited to some overseas exhibition etc.

So I stopped going to these blogs, just so these terrible feelings would quit surfacing.

I've tried to be open and positive, and I'll head into someone's website consciously repeating to myself like a mantra, "Wow, that's amazing texture. Now I have to improve on my techniques to perfect my food miniatures. Ooh, her weekend sales rocketed? That's wonderful, hopefully I'll be able to achieve that too if I keep working hard at my craft."

Apparently you can't MAKE yourself feel positive, because I felt the same afterwards even with the consistent pep-talk. Just a tad more silly.

I have a suspicion that it's my insecurities acting up, and I am slightly better with handling other people's success now. I attribute that to AiClay having gained a small, okay tiny level of success too, which is why it's a lot easier for me to accept that others are successful too. But I wish it didn't have to be like this. I do want to be happy for others EVEN if my own sales was down or if I lost subscribers/readers.

Now every time the green-eyed monster rears its butt-ugly head, I'll bury those negative emotions and simply refocus on something else at hand. But who's to know if all that negativity would just snowball and unleash itself with a fury one day.

I'll like to know if you struggle with these emotions as well, and how do you deal with them?

If you're a food miniaturist as well, please don't think too badly of me and hopefully you'll consider it flattery that I'm so jealous of your successes haha.

Heart-to-heart: Everyone likes to sound successful.

I have forgotten the real purpose of a blog.

Remember the days in the past, when blogs used to be an online replacement for our paper diaries, when one could spill thoughts into the immense world wide web.

For some people, blogs are still very much like that. But when commercial blogs started entering the picture, product photography and beautiful descriptions trying their best to convince the reader to purchase took over honest words and thoughts. 

I never wanted this blog to be that way. While it is not a personal blog, I had wanted to share my thoughts (oh I have so many) and feelings (as many as thoughts) while I carry on this journey of being a full time food miniaturist. Many times, I have forgotten about this, but TODAY I will pen down some thoughts.

They would be disorganised and may be more like rambling, but they are from my heart. So if you would like to, read on.

So, as opposed as to what others think of my life, I do not have a crazy schedule of sculpting orders to complete and loads of parcels to send off to the world every day. I don't jump out of bed thinking, "Another wonderful day ahead! I'm going to make use of every minute today to complete everything on my schedule today!". I don't sit back at the end of every day, patting myself on the back for another day well spent and feeling satisfied with being able to support myself with AiClay.

Very much the contrary in fact. 

Ever since I quit my job and started AiClay, I have known myself to be fighting against the odds. Of course, these include living in a country where a university graduate is expected to join the workforce and climb the career ladder. And also judgement from peers and family. But the greatest odd of all, would be myself. 

I believe it is crucial in the pursuit of happiness, to know one's greatest strengths and weaknesses. And wow, am I weak in discipline. I found that out soon enough after I embarked on AiClay full-time. When I started getting attention from the media, one of the most popular questions would be, "Describe how a regular day in AiClay would be like." I usually tell them what they want to hear. " I get up at 9am, check my emails, get started on sculpting orders, mail off packages, answer emails, brainstorm on new products, and repeat this the next day." 

I guess it just sounds much better than the truth. Which is. "When I feel hardworking I get up at 9am, but many times I have found myself snoozing past 11am. I surf the usual social media sites while having my brunch, and then when I feel up to it, I open up my mail and get so distracted answering my mails that it's usually evening by the time I feel ready to work. And then I might have to walk the dog, and by now it's probably time for dinner, so I get food. Sometimes friends ask to hang out after their work and I have a problem with saying no, although I should probably be working. I really don't get much work done at all in a day." 

There I've said it. Now that you guys know the ugly truth, I hope you're as disgusted as I am at my lifestyle. Because there is no way a business could survive like this. 

Most people envy business owners and our flexible work-play schedules. So many people hope to quit their day jobs and start a business, thinking they'll be less stressful and they will get to work lesser. Let me set the record straight, and tell you that if your business is to take off, you will face MORE stress and will work even harder than the regular employee. 

Because, flexible working schedules can also be read as having no fixed time to knock off from work. In a workplace, you might find yourself counting the minutes to 6pm before you can leave the office and head off to a night out with your friends. If you're a business owner, sure you can leave anytime but if you know there's work sitting there which directly affects your income, most likely you'll be working hard and forgetting your hunger. 

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy working hard, that's not the reason I quit the workforce. I just wanted to work hard for myself, and not for others. And definitely not working hard at something which didn't even matter to the company in the end. 

While I say that I enjoy working hard, there is still a not-so-fine line between enjoying working hard and getting to that point. Once I get in the mood, I can get raring and sitting at my computer/sculpting table for ages. But these moods are hard to come by. 

I digress, I think. (Reminder again that my thoughts are not organised at all.)

So the biggest problem with AiClay and how I'm running it, would be that all this time without knowing it, I've been trying to have the best of both worlds. I've been enjoying the flexibility of spending time not working during work-hours and also allowing myself to hang out with friends/family after (usual) work-hours.  Or simply put, I've just been a lazy unmotivated bum. 

Being my own boss sounds a lot grander than it really is. 

That being said, I now know my greatest weakness and a solution is for to seek collaborations. While I am all up for working for myself and not under a boss, at the same time I crave for human relationships and the knowledge that my actions (or rather, non-actions) affect another business/person. I needed this accountability. Let's face it, I could sculpt the most realistic miniature food and I would still not be able to support myself with AiClay. A business, is a business and money needed to roll in. 

So this May, I am glad I had formed quite a few business relationships and never had I attended so many business meetings in my life. Now, before I take a time-out on an email/project which has been abandoned for many months, I know I'm accountable to others and I force myself to get the work done before allowing that haunting tune of Candy Crush to fill the air once again. 

This entry is a mad jumble of thoughts but thank you for reading through if you have. :) I'll love to hear your story or thoughts if you could leave a comment below.

P.S This is inspired by my business partner/friend Daniel, who has always amazed me with his honesty, even in prestigious magazine features he gives the bare truth about his own struggles. :)