When is the Right Time to Start Following Your Dream?

There are a lot of us who want to be a photographer, blogger, model, freelancer, business-owner, but don’t know where to start or how to take a risk and start something new from scratch, move from stable paycheck to maybe “0” income in the beginning….

While I am not an expert and I didn’t make $1MM from running my own blog, but I still want to share my own thoughts about such a sensitive topic as “following your dream”.

Before I start, I want to tell you that when it comes to following your dreams, you must understand that it is so much more than just quitting your job and padding your life with freedom. Some of the greatest creatives had 9-5 job. For example, Philip Glass was a plumber before he became a famous musician and in fact, he didn’t earn a living from his music until he was 42. Kate White, the former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine who recently stepped away from the corner office managed to juggle the demands of steering the ship while penning a pile of books including seven New York Times bestselling thrillers and a career-advice book titled “I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This”. Kurt Vonnegut worked at a car dealer after publishing his first novel.

The moral of the story from the above-mentioned examples is to take a lesson from  these legendary creatives and pursue your passions. Nobody said it will be easy and it will happen overnight; nobody said you don’t need to sacrifice, but you have to strongly believe in your vision, fight for it no matter what life presents you with and understand that it’s ok to pursue your passions while still collecting a pay check.

So now back to me: people who have been following me for awhile know I have a full-time job and a blog. I have a degree in finance and business administration. In 2015, I was working on the Bay St (Toronto) trading floor same as NY Wall Street for one of the biggest banks in Canada, putting in 12-14 hours a day, but for some reason something was missing in my life and it felt like I was missing a creative outlet.  I always loved style and beauty. I remember when I was 3 years old, I would take mommy’s makeup bag (without permission of course…I am sorry mom), hide under the table and I would put makeup on. Back then, I was so obsessed with blue eyeshadows and pink lipstick…Don’t ask me why!  I would find the best pair of heels that was sitting in my mom’s closet, I would put them on and pretend that I am a model or a singer…I wish I had pictures to share…LOL…25 years later I was still was obsessed with makeup and fashion and thus, the beginning of “ShinyLittlePearl” happened.

I didn’t have high expectations; it was my hobby where I would share my style, beauty tips with my family and friends. I would never even imagine that any brand would ever want to work with me. I remember that time when Ivana from LangtonPR reached out to me for the first time – I think it was one of the first PR firms too (this is why this company has a special place in my heart). When I read the email, I was so shocked and didn’t know what to say or do, but I knew I have to do a good job no matter what, so I won’t disappoint them since it was my “brand” that I am representing in beauty and fashion industry.

I remember how I would dedicate every second of my free time to Instagram, blog, I would sleep for 3-4 hours just to meet company’s expectations…Trust me, there were moments when I wanted to give up; I thought I wasn’t good enough for this “blogging” world, when I would reach out to the companies or PR firms they would reject me and tell me your stats are not good for us to work with…But I didn’t give up, because that’s the thing – life will happen to you.

Instead of that I found another full-time job with more flexibility and ability to continue my Blog. I’ve realized that I have to be my biggest fan, even when it’s difficult, even when I felt like I’m not a shining example of success. I had to keep going and remind myself that there will never be a perfect time to do thing differently. I had to do the hard things first. I had to push towards the person I want to be, and life I want to live, because while following my dreams is tough– I will always be tougher and better!

Nowadays, I still don’t have 100K followers and I am still just a typical girl who has love for beauty and fashion, but I follow my dream and I am grateful for everything that I have and for people that I’ve met throughout this journey!

Love,

Olya