Loving this. The Knife - Live - Marble House

Here I go!!

So, I'm a big procrastinator. *rewrite* I USED to be a big procrastinator. I'll explain.
For a while now, I've been wanting to go bigger with my shop. Really find my niche and market to them accordingly. I've been wanting to do other kinds of networking, such as tweeting again, which I did a while back and it just didn't stick. I want to start it again now to get myself out there. And I don't mean, get my shop out there. I want to meet new people, I want to let them know who I am and make new friends. I want to advertise in new places, maybe try paid advertising. In order to have an effective paid advertisement, I'll need to find websites that jive with my style (research). I want to have a more engaging blog.
Basically, to sum it all up, I want to let go. I want to put myself out there. I want to put myself out there and not be afraid that I'll be rejected. I want to let everyone know who I am and what I stand for. I want to have a positive difference in people's lives.
The reason I've been keeping myself from doing all this? Fear. I was afraid that people wouldn't take me seriously. I was afraid that people would think I'm ridiculous. I was laying low, not showing too much of myself because I wanted to please everyone. I didn't want there to be a person out there that thought anything less than neutral about me.
Part of this change in attitude was brought about because I hit a goal in my shop. I wanted to write an ad for craigslist, and pay for ads, talk to big blogs about featuring my shop. But I figured if I had less than three pages in my shop it wouldn't be worth it and they wouldn't take me seriously. Well, today my shop hit three pages. The third only has one thing on it, but it's three pages darnit!!

So, I finally hit that, but aside from that, I've been reading some really great articles. Some about my Etsy shop and some on personal development. It's interesting because the ones on personal development are unquestioningly affecting the way I handle my shop too. Anyways, as you may have guessed, one of the articles I read today was about fear, and how it can hold you back and keep you from trying new things and living the way you want to. It was on StevePavlina.com. The article was called The Courage to Live Consciously.
I just recently found his site (through the Etsy forums no less) and it has a wealth of inspirational and educational articles. The article I found in the forums was titled How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or blog). That one is WELL worth the read. It's not just good for getting traffic, but for being a real person too.
A good forum thread I read that helped kick my butt and make me want to get out there was Etsy Opens Doors, but....
So there it is. I've decided I'm not going to sit idle (sp?) anymore. I'm not going to let fear keep me from getting out there. I'm giving myself the permission to go out there, take some risks, meet new people, challenge myself and have fun. Now who's coming with me!!??