Take a Leap of Faith a blog by Vic of Greener Beauty

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Take a Leap of Faith

A blog by Vic

I have been shortlisted by the Great British Entrepreneur Awards under the category ‘Sustainability Entrepreneur of the year’ and it really got me thinking about the limiting beliefs I had to work through to actually take this leap of faith to put my name forward. I am going to share with you what I had to push through in the hope that it will also help you realise that you should take the leap of faith to follow your dreams however crazy they may seem!

So get comfy, grab a cuppa and let me tell you about this little journey that I have been on recently.

I have been following the Great British Entrepreneur Awards for a while. And it was always something that I would love to win, in the future. Sometime in the future when I felt ready to put my name forward.

Greener Beauty is really still such a new business at only 3.5 years old and while we have an amazing and loyal customer base including you, I just didn’t feel that I was in a position to put my name forward as an Entrepreneur of the year under any category.

But of course this is my imposter syndrome taking over.

You may or may not know this but Greener Beauty is the first online ecommerce business that I have run. I do not come from a family of entrepreneurs and I don’t really know anyone in my circle who has struck out and followed their dream of building a business. So a lot of the learning and work I have done to date has been on a working it out as I go basis.

I am always keeping in my mind that my customers, the animals that I dearly love and the planet must always come first in everything I do.

And that is literally how I run Greener Beauty. I am sure there are many CEOs and founders out there who would do a better job and potentially be horrified at how I run GB.

So who was I to put myself forward for an award with the Great British Entrepreneur Awards!

And honestly despite putting my heart and soul and a lot of hours into my business I really wasn’t sure whether I was worthy.

When the awards were open for applications this year I would get the emails, I would read every one of them, click on the link, have a look at the web page and then close it. I honestly can’t tell you how many times I did this!

And then I had a breakthrough.

Would I ever really feel worthy of such an award?

Would I ever feel truly comfortable putting my name forward for an award of this scale?

And of course the answer is no! I don’t think it would really matter how big Greener Beauty gets I am not sure I would ever be truly comfortable doing this.

Of course that is not what the breakthrough was. The breakthrough I had was:

If I don’t think I will ever really feel 100% worthy of entering something like this what is stopping me from doing it now? What have I really got to lose?

If I enter and put my name forward the worst that could happen is that I wouldn’t be shortlisted. Nothing lost there other than a few hours filling in a form. And no one even needs to know about it.

But someone has to win that award.

And if the best outcome is that potentially I would be shortlisted as a finalist and possibly even win. Then I don’t have anything to lose.

Why not take that leap of faith.

Put my name forward.

Leave it in the hands of the universe.

And just see what happens.

So I did it!

I took my time to fill in the application. It was very long and detailed and I spent many hours filling in all of the answers with as much detail as I could. Sharing what I think are the most beautiful and sustainable points of Greener Beauty, the things I am most proud of and how I want to improve moving forward.

Then last Thursday I was invited to watch a zoom with the finalists being announced. I was hopeful but not really expecting much. These are very popular awards with lots of amazing businesses and incredible business owners in the running.

So you can imaging my pure delight when they announced the finalists in this category for the South East and in alphabetical order at the bottom of the list appeared my name. I literally let out a scream of absolute joy. What an amazing outcome!

Now of course I have only just been shortlisted as a finalist. I haven’t won the award just yet. ?

But I have put myself out there and the potential for success is there because I tried.

If I hadn’t taken that leap of faith and at least put my name forward then I wouldn’t be here now.

So for me I am going to make a promise to myself going forward to stop holding myself back. And to just go for it. Whatever it is. As long as it harms no one then I am going to do my best and put in all my energy. And just see what happens.

I know this blog is a little unusual for the normal Greener Beauty blog but I wanted to share with you the limiting beliefs that I had to work through to get to this place and to now be shortlisted as a finalist in the South East.

I share this personal insight with you in the hope that it will also help you realise that you should also take the leap of faith to follow your dreams however crazy they may seem!

Does my story resonate with you?

Do you have anything in your life that you have been looking at over and over again and not been doing because you don’t feel worthy?

Maybe you think it’s ridiculous that you are even thinking about it let alone doing it.

Please. Stop that thinking.