ep. 051 • So You Feel Like Quitting?

Chelsea: I see you. I know it's really hard sometimes when you are in it, in the thick of your business, doing all of the things and you're not getting the results that you're looking for. And sometimes it becomes so challenging that you start to reach a place where you go, "I don't know. I'm not sure if I can do this or if I want to do this. Maybe it's best if I just quit now. Maybe it's best if I just let it go." 

And if you are in that place right now, friend, or if you've recently passed through that place, or if you feel inside of yourself that you're beginning to reach that place, this episode is for you. 

In this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you six different ways that I suggest you approach a little bit of internal inquiry and some practical things that you can do as well when you reach the place inside of your business where you feel like quitting. All right, let's go. 

Welcome to the Hennapreneur podcast – the exclusive podcast of its kind dedicated to giving you an honest look at the realities of making a living as a henna professional. I'm your host, Chelsea Stevenson, a tea-loving, shoe-collecting mother of three in constant search for the most popping pair of earrings and the perfect shade of red lipstick.

I'm also a professional henna artist and business strategist who went from barely being able to piece together a fluid design to being the owner of the most celebrated henna boutique in my city. I'm on a mission to help henna professionals to harness their skills and grow vibrant, profitable businesses that they absolutely love.

If you want to make more money with your art, you are definitely in the right place. Let's get to it.

Hey, hey, hennapreneurs! Welcome back to another episode of the Hennapreneur podcast. I am excited to talk to y'all today about something that, you know, oftentimes we can get a little judgy about – and that is the premise of quitting. 

What happens when you feel like quitting? What happens when you reach that brick wall, if you will, in your business where you're going, "This is not what I signed up for and I think I'd like to leave now," okay? 

Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty – because I do want to share six different tips that I have for how to approach the situation when you get to this place – but before we do that, I want to be very, very clear about where I stand on the concept of quitting, okay? 

Oftentimes, the connotation that runs alongside of that word is one that is definitely negative in tone. I think oftentimes we, when we speak about quitting or we consider quitting, we often pass judgment to the person who is doing the quitting, right? You're a quitter. By extension, you're also a loser, or you're giving up. You're 'whatever'. And that comes with like, this very bizarre. judgemental, holier-than-thou, 'I'm better than you' energy. And that is not what we're giving over here, okay? 

I want to just kind of lay a foundation and say that I don't think that that's a problem. I don't think that it's wrong for people to quit. I don't think that it's wrong for people to put a task down or an identity down or whatever, right? We all are entitled to make the decisions that we find to be the best and most aligned with our lifestyles and what we're hoping for in the future. And so, if at any point in time you decide that what you wanted yesterday is not what you want today, then you are allowed to change your mind, okay? 

With that said, I just want to be incredibly crystal clear, if you make the decision at any point in time that you want to quit your business, you are allowed to do that and you don't need permission from anybody else. All you need is the decision and the gut check, right? You need to know inside of yourself that 'yes, this is the right thing for me'. 

That said, if you are someone who's like, "Ooh, I feel like giving up, but I don't want to quit," then hang with me because that's what I want to talk to you about too. 

Let's kind of back it up a little bit, and I want to start from the top, 'cause I want to kind of lay down an expectation that I think oftentimes goes either unseen or misunderstood in the marketplace as it relates to hennapreneurs, specifically. And I see this often as I'm consulting with other business owners who work in creative spaces or who work in industries rendering services or offering products where these are not necessities. 

Many times, business owners who are in that sort of sphere approach the market and they immediately want to sell their business or sell, you know, sell the product or the service that they're offering through a lens of like, 'you need this'. 

Newsflash, no one needs henna, okay? So if you are coming to the table saying, "Oh no, you need this because..," "You need this because..," "You need to hire me because..," and the because has anything to do with the fact that you're actually doing henna. If the "because" is actually what you're rendering – the actual, tangible service – you are doing marketing wrong, okay? We can talk about this a little bit more on another day. 

In fact, you're welcome to check back at past episodes because I talk about this a lot. You don't sell henna, friend. You sell many other things, but henna ain't it. Henna is the means to an end, okay? 

Let's start there. People don't always value our service and oftentimes they don't value our service because we don't give them a reason to. 

If the only thing that you can talk about is how clean your designs are, how fast you are, how crisp the pieces look, and what a great stain they're going to have, that's great. 

But guess what? You and every other henna artists on the market is saying probably the same thing. 

If natural henna is your sticking point, you're doing marketing wrong. And don't get me wrong now, using natural henna, obviously, that's a non-negotiable and we want you to be out there educating the public about why natural henna is important and educating the public about why having very clean, crisp pieces is important. They're going to have these designs on their skin for weeks to come, right? Of course it matters, but that's not what sells your service, right? 

And the thing is, again, people don't always value our service until they've actually used it. And why is that? 

Let's talk about it, right? We are luxury service providers. There is never a time where anyone actually needs us. We are a luxury, not a requirement, okay? They may want to have henna services, but they don't need you to have that. Even in those scenarios where henna is expected. For example, when you're using henna alongside a cultural practice, alongside a religious practice, alongside of a milestone like a wedding, for example, right? These instances where the use of henna is expected, it feels like a necessity. 

It's not really a necessity because guess what? If they don't book you and they don't book someone else, they can always pick up some combs, right? They can always buy the henna themselves. They could always have a cousin or an auntie or a friend or a neighbor do some designs for them. Or, guess what? They can always just go without. No one has ever died–. 

Hey, let me let you in on a secret, okay? No one has ever died because they didn't get their henna done. And that includes on their wedding day. Ooh! Okay, with that reminder, we need to be aware that while they may not actually need henna, they do often times need other things and those other things are what you're offering, right? 

So depending on the type of work you do, the way that you service your clients, and what your promise is, what experience you're offering them, of course, what they need may look different and how you're going to render that is also going to look different and that's okay. That's where we all become differentiated in the marketplace. 

And that's the beautiful thing about really stepping into the way that you service your clients rather than the way, you know, you stack up against the competition. That's never really the strongest way to market your business. Own what you do well and how what you do benefits your clients. That is always, always going to be a much more compelling call for an action, right? A much more compelling call for people to actually book your service. But I digress. There's your little marketing tip for today. 

But let's get into what we actually came for, right? So you've got this, this marketing strategy all mapped out, right? So we've got this premise laid out, you understand you're selling more than henna, you've understood what it is that your clients are looking for, you've now created this wonderful marketing around it and it's, like, not going to plan. 

You're doing all of the hard work. You're sharing things on Facebook. You're posting to Instagram. You're making TikToks. You're attending local festivals. You're going to the craft shows. You are marketing literally everywhere humanly possible and within your capacity, and yet you're still not seeing the growth that you felt like was going to come alongside all of this hard work. 

And so, at that point, you begin to question, right? You begin to ask yourself, "How long am I going to keep doing this before enough is enough?" Like, "At some point I've got to decide, now's the time to throw in the towel. I've put in all this effort, I'm not getting a return on my investment; now what?" Right? 

And I can tell you what, as long as I've been in the industry – even prior to the existence of Hennapreneur just as another artist working alongside other artists – seeing the trajectory of most henna artists when they come into our market, oftentimes, they come in, they get really excited and within two years they're gone. Poof! 18 months. 24 months. Somewhere in there you stop hearing about them. They just kind of fade into black and that's fine if that's, you know, the decision that they wish to make. 

And also, if you don't want to be in the position to make decisions like that, then maybe it's time to do something different. 

And also, I say this because I want you to know that it's normal, right? It's normal. I have heard it from so many different hennapreneurs. 

"I can't do it." 

"I can't go full-time in my area."

"There isn't enough demand." 

"Chelsea, this isn't working." 

"I'm not good at this." 

"I don't know how to market."

"I don't know how to 'whatever.'" 

"I'm not a good enough artist." 

"It wasn't meant to be. Maybe it's just not meant to be." 

Yeah, for you and anyone else who follows that thought process; then yeah, it definitely isn't meant to be, right? You're not alone. You're not unique if you've experienced this. You're not alone and you're not unique if you haven't gotten the instant gratification of, you know, massive sales, full books, wonderful clients, right off the bat. That's not really how this works. Unfortunately, unfortunately, that's not really how this works. Every single entrepreneur experiences this at some point in their journey where they realize, "Oh my gosh, I'm doing a lot. I'm not yet where I want to be and I'm really tired." It's normal. It happens. It's a part of the journey. 

So what should you do when you reach that point and you're like, "Hey, I really think I'm ready to quit"?

I've got six things. I've got six things that I'd like to share with you. 

The first, I want you to be honest with yourself: Do you even want this? Do you even want to own a business? Do you even want to be a hennapreneur? Okay? You can enjoy henna and not want to be a hennapreneur. You can choose to work in this art. You can choose to develop your craft. You can even invest, right? You can take classes or you can go to conferences and you can spend the time, the money, the energy to build your skillset and not want to do this for work. And if that's true, that's okay, but be honest with yourself about it. 

If you know, 'I have zero interest in actually running a business. I don't want to have to do the marketing. I don't want to have to do the bookkeeping. I don't want to have to do, like, the things that are required of me in order to have a henna business,' well, then don't have a henna business, okay? It's fine. Quit now. You're allowed. Here's permission, okay? Consider alternatives instead. 

You know, there are so many alternatives that you can select from that would allow for you to continue to work in your craft and to keep your art in practice without compromising the industry because you are refusing, in some cases, to do things properly, to do things well. And actually, I'm going to say that again. I'm gonna say that again in a different way. If you do not wish to have a business and/or if you wish to have a business, but you do not wish to do it in the ways that are appropriate, that are proper, you are – you and your mediocrity – you are compromising the industry. And I say that again. This, like, I'm using strong language here because I want it to land exactly how I'm intending it. And it's not from a place of judgment. It really isn't. This is an observation. 

If you are unwilling to work with natural henna, if you're still totally fine taking bookings working with chemical combs; if you are someone who is refusing to register a business or pay taxes; if you are someone who is not maintaining insurance to cover yourself; if you are doing these things that are harmful; if you were undercutting your local competitors because that's the only angle that you have to secure the booking, yeah, I take issue with all of these things. 

All of these things are behaviors that are prevalent inside of our industry and that do compromise our industry and that do compromise the hard work of those people who do intend to make their businesses grow and flourish. 

Not only that, but depending on what sort of infraction we're talking about, you actually may be placing, you know, the public, your shared market, in harm's way. Chemical cone users, specifically, I'm speaking to you. 

If that's, you know, somewhere that you're like, 'Okay, I don't want to do things right,' then please just be honest with yourself and let it go. You don't have to have the business. 

If you just enjoy doing the art, if you just enjoy creating the designs, if you just enjoy making the pieces and putting them out in the world, you can still do that and not compromise the industry.

There are many ways for you to do that. You can work underneath another artist. You don't even have to have a business name. You can literally reach out to your nearest local, natural henna artists and say, "Hey, I would love to work with you sometime. If you ever have extra bookings or if you ever need extra help, if you're working festivals, if you're working events, I would love to come and help you. This is what I would ask for in compensation," or whatever, right? 

And you can get out there and you can build collaborative sorts of relationships that would allow for you to still do your work without compromising the industry. There's so many ways. That's just one, okay? All right, let's move on.

Tip number two: Acknowledge your wins.

So, assuming you're like, 'Yes, I've checked in with self and yes, I do want this to be a business,' now we need to really give yourself some credit for what you've done thus far. Acknowledge your wins when you experience them. Celebrate them. Jot them down. Share about them. It's not by chance that we, you know, over in the Hennapreneur Community, we encourage you to share your wins. Tell us about what's going well on your business. 

Why? Because we understand also. And especially when you're first starting out, those wins are going to feel like they're very far apart. It's going to feel like 'I'm doing tons of work and I'm only very rarely experiencing good and seeing the fruit of my labor'. 

So when you see the fruit of your labor, I want you to rave about it. I want you to have an internal party. I want you celebrating. I want you tooting your horn, right? I want you really acknowledging the win that you have when you have it. And over time, and as your business grows, as your experience grows, you will find that those wins become more frequent to the point where things that used to excite you when you were early on are going to feel like every day, 'eh, that's just how it goes', right? 

And that's fine. That comes along with the journey, right? You and your business will grow and evolve and you'll experience larger wins. Things that perhaps the earlier version of you could not have even imagined would even be possible, okay? 

Acknowledge those things as they happen. Celebrate them as they happen. It's important. 

Number three: Keep educating about the value that you bring.

Don't get tired, friends. I know it's exhausting to feel like 'oh my gosh, I'm doing all this hard work and people don't see me for what I'm doing. I'm not getting the booking. They're not paying me what I want. I'm not able to yet leave my 9-5 this is rough'. Keep educating people about the value of your art and the value of sharing space with you.

Going back to what we touched on in the beginning as we kind of laid our foundation, people are hiring you for something and sometimes it's the connection, sometimes it's the way that you make them feel, sometimes it's the way that they see themselves when they are wearing your art, sometimes it's that they want to flaunt in front of the public, right? Sometimes it's because they want to show off. Sometimes it–. Like, you have no idea. Well, you should. Hopefully, hopefully you do. Hopefully–. And especially hennapreneurs, y'all PROs, you already know, right? When you work with me, we get very clear on what it is that your specific ideal client is, what it is that they're looking for, so then you can really speak to that value. 

But if you haven't yet identified this, now's a great time to do it. Ask yourself: What is the value that I bring my clients? What feedback do I get from them? What do I want to give them? If I weren't giving them henna, what would be my contribution to their life? That is a big question. Know the answer to it because then, in your marketing, you can continue to show up and you can continue to educate about how that contribution benefits them. 'Oh, and by the way, you get this beautiful henna on the side'. 

Reason number four: I want you to reconnect with your big why. Reconnect with what's motivating you to do this work. Why are you even here? Oftentimes, when we get tired we begin to lose sight of what our big goals are. 

And that's why I always love to encourage y'all to secure the bag – your big audacious goals. Them big ass goals, friends. What are those goals? Why do those goals exist? What's motivating you to even do this work? 

Is that that you want to have financial independence? Perhaps you have a partner, perhaps you don't. Perhaps you have support, perhaps you don't. Perhaps you're living in a scenario where you're like, 'man, I just, I want to have something that's mine. I want to know that I'm contributing to my household, contributing to my family' and even with the support of a partner or a roommate or a friend or family, whatever, you're still like, 'hey, I would feel great if I could get financial independence. I want to be able to send my kids to private school. I want to be able to buy a home for the first time. I want to be able to go on vacation with my family. I want to be able to buy the handbag'. 

Whatever is your reason, it doesn't matter. Whatever is your reason, that's unique to you and specific to you and I want you to own it. I want you to reconnect to it.

Oftentimes, this is one of the things that my students come with – it's financial independence. Oftentimes, also, the best of my students come with one of these three things, if y'all want the tea. 

The best of my students come to the table with three desires, specifically. 

They want financial independence. They want to have a very clean and crisp and fresh identity that they can share with the people around them. They want to be acknowledged, right? They want to be acknowledged for what they've built with their own two hands. Literally, with their own two hands through their art. That sense of identity. I built this. I made this. This is me shining. This is me doing what I love. And it's not from a place of ego, it's from a place of 'I am owning my creativity. I'm owning my agency here. This is the life that I want, so I built it'. There's this very powerful sense of identity that comes alongside of that. Or the third thing is, they're thinking about the impact that they're making on the world around them. They want to leave the world better than they found it. Be it by way of connecting with women over henna and elevating them and fixing their proverbial crown or by way of education or by way of furthering the legacy of the tradition of henna in their family or in their community. There are so many different aspects here, right? 

So what is that for you? What is the thing that keeps you going. What is it, friend? Know it. Own it. Reconnect with it. Keep it in the forefront of your mind, because then when those hard days come and you're like, 'man, I'm really so ready to quit. I'm so ready to just throw in the towel', you can look back and go: 

"Yeah, I would throw in the towel, but my kids are watching." 

"Yeah, today's really hard and I feel like I am ready to throw in the towel, but I'm so close to having $20,000 saved in our savings account and my family has never had that before. And I just, I'm so close. I cannot wait. I have to keep going." 

Or "This is really hard. This is really challenging. I'm not seeing the results. I'm so ready to throw in the towel. I'm so ready to throw in the towel, but–" Insert your win right here. 

You know, you know best what it is that motivates. You know best what it is that you really want to be the fruit of the work that you're doing here. And when you own that, when you put a name on it and when you acknowledge it and when you stay connected with it, it makes it so much more challenging to really consider leaving the work behind. 

Tip number five: Examine yourself.

I was just chatting with someone who I love her dearly, I really, really do. And when I spoke with her, I was asking her about how things are going in her business. "Tell me about how things are going in your business." And she says, "Chelsea things are actually, they're going really well most of the time. I get my bookings. My clients are coming in and most of the time I feel like things are going great. And then there are weeks at a time that I have no bookings. Maybe I'll pass a month or two months where I'll have two clients. And then, the third month will come and I'll be booked all month." And, uh, she goes, "When I see that, I know that, you know, things are growing and I feel really happy and excited about it, but it's not yet enough for me to leave my job and that's what I really want to do, but I can't do that yet." 

And I love her. I love her and I love her work and so I said to her, you know, "One, it totally is possible. It totally is possible for you to do so. Not only can you do it, but the question really becomes: Will you do it? And the 'will you do it?' depends on one big thing and that's: Do you believe you can? Right? 

That's half the battle – believing that you can. I would say that's one of the biggest pieces of success. Examine your self-belief.

Do you believe that you can reach the goals that you have? Do you believe that it's possible for you to make enough money through your art? That you can leave that 9-5? Or do you think that it's not possible because, insert, you know, the reason of your choice here. 

I want you to examine the why, right? Not the why not. Why is it possible? How is it possible? And that's just it. The way that our brains operate, when we ask ourselves a question that hinges on 'why' or 'how' – I love 'how' – but if we can get to why instead of why not, our brains immediately kick in and begin to come up with ideas. It triggers our problem-solving nature, right?

So instead of, you know, holding onto this belief and coming up with all the reasons why it's not possible for you to reach your goals, why not just reframe it? 

How can I set up my business so that I can leave so that I can do this full-time? 

How could I set this up? You know, this empire that you're building. 

How can I have my business and also homeschool my children? 

How can I have my business and also be able to go on vacation with my husband? 

How can I have my business and stop working at the 9-5? 

Maybe you just–. Maybe you want to fall back. Maybe you want to go part-time. Maybe you want to go and you want to depend solely on your art. How can you make that happen? 

When you invite inquiry, you also invite ideas. Ideation. 

If we can search and make that shift and get away from why it won't work and why quitting is the best option then, yeah, it becomes much easier for you to start to wade through the different ways that you can make it happen.

And tip number six: Try something different, okay? 

If you've done all of the above and you're still not getting the results that you're looking for, then let's try something different. Let's do something. If you continue to do the same things and you're receiving the same results, that's a very good indicator that it's high time you invite a new approach and here is where, you know, I want to remind you that sometimes it's not a matter of everything that you've built is wrong, sometimes all you need is a little tweak to one or two or three parts of your system and with that small adjustment, suddenly your business is aligned to make the impact that you're wanting or the income that you're wanting, right? 

Invite in some other eyes. Invite in the expertise of your community. Invite in the help of a mentor. Invite in new ideas, new presence, to give you a new perspective to help you move forward. 

This is one of the things that I love so much about working with hennapreneurs inside of my program, because oftentimes they come in and they have the makings of a business, but things are just out of order, right? Things are out of order. There's something a little wonky here, or there's something over there that really we could tighten up on, or 'hey, you have part one and part two down, but part three is totally missing'. 

So people just kind of drop out. They drop off. Of course you're not seeing repeat bookings, right? There are all of these little tweaks that need to be made – little adjustments that need to be made – and then once they're in place, oh my gosh, suddenly, and seemingly like overnight, you begin to see results. And it's like, 'wow! How did this happen?' 

Well, you tried something different. You tried something new.

If you're in a place right now with your business where you're like, 'okay, I've done all the things. I've tried all of the things. I'm in it, Chelsea, and I'm not getting what I want'. Have you checked out Hennapreneur PRO? Have you visited the Hennapreneur website? We have resources for you to make the things better. And this doesn't have to be some massive thing. Not everyone is going to be ready to come work with me for a year, I get that. 

But maybe that small tweak is as little as, 'hey, you know what? I need to invest in a new contract. I need to invest in a new contract. The contract that I have, it's not serving me. My clients aren't respecting my contract. They're not paying me on time. I'm experiencing issues. They're constantly breaking the contract. Maybe I just need something better, something more clear, something that protects my time and my money and my peace.' 

Yo! Go to the Hennapreneur shop online, download the contract that you need, right?

Like, make the small shifts. Make the small adjustments. It's okay. Try something new. Try something different so that you can see where these new and different results come from. And if it works well, then continue in that direction. And if it doesn't work well, hey, now you know 'okay, now let's try something else. Let's tweak something else'. 

I have a question, because y'all know, I always have questions. I want to know how y'all are doing. I love to check in with my community. I love to know, right? So I have a question for you. I want to know: Have you felt like quitting? 

Tell me about a time that you have felt like quitting. Maybe that's recently. Perhaps it's more in the distant past, but I'd love to know if you reached that, what helped you to move through it? And I'm asking this question, specifically, because I would love to see suggestion and feedback and improvement from one hennapreneur to another. So I'm inviting this conversation over in the Hennapreneur Community on Facebook where I'd love to know: Have you felt like quitting and how did you move through it? What helped you to move through it? 

With that said, I will leave you all for today, but I do want to let you know, I'm here, I'm rooting for you and I'm very, very hopeful for the future of your business. If you need support, you always know where you can reach me. Pop over into the Hennapreneur Community and let us know what's going on. And yeah, I'll talk to you all. Bye for now! 

Hey friend, I just want to give you a quick thank you for tuning into this episode of the Hennapreneur podcast and I hope that you're really enjoying connecting with me in this way. You can find links to all of the content shared today in the show notes located at Hennapreneur.com/podcast. 

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