We are so damn good at making excuses. Honestly, we really are. When it comes to starting or even growing our businesses, we somehow allow ourselves to come up with oodles of reasons why not to do something.

Sometimes its really obvious like “It’s not a good financial decision right now.” or “How will I find the time with all the other things I have going on?” Other times it’s disguised like …”I’m taking my time to really truly research all the potential problems that could maybe perhaps one day arise” (sneaky, right?)

Now, I’m not suggesting that research, finances, and time management aren’t important.  But what I am saying is that we very often make them way too important.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do I allow my surroundings to deeply affect the way I run my business? Meaning, do you let what’s happening in the world around you stop you from moving forward and doing things that are actually productive?
• Do I let myself get caught up in the notion that things need to be close to perfect before making a decision? Meaning, do you spend time nitpicking over every last detail or possibility to the point of being paralyzed?

Look, I know that starting a business is scary. I’ve been there.  Actually, I still am there.  When we introduced the Community this past Spring, we knew it wasn’t perfect and that was OK.  We knew that we would spend the next few months making the Community everything it should be.

I too had a ridiculously hard time getting past the lack of “perfection”.  But I knew that if I didn’t do something; take a step int he right direction, put myself out there, I would always be someone who just talked about my “business”, not someone who actually had one. I would be stuck in my cycle of excuses.

5 Ways to Stop Making Excuses and Start Creating Your Fashion Business

Here are some ideas of things to do that will help to you lose the paralysis and find your way to a successful business!

• Seriously look at your finances and see what it is you need to be bringing in to start this business. Don’t lie to yourself. Once you have a clear understanding of the numbers, you can start getting creative about how you’re going reach them.
• Analyze your time.  If you have a full time job and want to start your business on the side, make a list of activities that you can eliminate or changes you can make in order to have the time.  Do you watch TV?  Do you even just flick through TV?!  Do you pretend you’re on the Food Network and cook elaborate, time consuming, meals 3 times a week? Can you get up an hour earlier each day? Stay up an hour later?
• Spend some time doing market research. What’s going on in the marketplace and how does your business or business idea fit in?
• Get a blog live and show examples of your work.  Share it, talk about it, ask what people think.
• Create a mailing list on your blog and decide what you’d like to share with your subscribers and how often.

Remember, there will always be a reason (or 10) not to do something.  If you make a conscience decision to do one solid, productive thing each day, you will be on your way to really making things happen.