Rule #4: Get a Thick Skin

If you take risks, sometimes you’ll get a standing ovation, and sometimes, people will throw tomatoes. Can you think of any leader or innovator you admire who doesn’t have enthusiastic fans and harsh critics? Get used to wins and losses, praise and pans, getting a call back and being ignored. Work on letting go of needing to be liked and needing to be universally known as “a nice person.”

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UGH. I struggle with this SO much. A lot of the time the reason I don’t do something is because I’m afraid of someone not liking it. And I’m not talking about doing something intentionally mean. However, I think I’m getting better at just throwing myself out there for the wolves. Take, for example, my photography. People pay me money (sometimes, a lot) to take their picture. I would hope that they’d seen some of my work and already liked it before hiring me but there’s still that chance that they won’t like what they paid for. Thankfully, I’ve only had one semi displeased client in my one year of business and it was an easy fix. I try to give every client my best but, just like with any other job, sometimes things don’t go perfectly. Like a writer with writer’s block, sometimes you just have an off day.

I haven’t taken a lot of risks with my business (yet!) and it’s mainly due to wanting to be liked. Hopefully, once I graduate nursing, I’ll be able to focus more on growing my confidence with my photography business.