Will & Bequeath: On starting small
SHOP NEWS | Life remains a little overwhelming, not going to lie.
Lundtofte of Denmark MCM salt and pepper shakers made of Rosewood and Stainless Steel, 1960s.
I’m in the midst of a house renovation (some new flooring we’ve needed pretty much since we moved in, but have been putting off to save money). And as is so often the case, the tear-out revealed a bunch of other issues that needed addressing and it’s all just a bit much. But even if it was just the flooring, trying to move stuff around and manage the kid and life in general at the same time would be a bit intense, I think.
Anyway, I’ve been trying to reconcile being overwhelmed with my urge to reopen the shop. The solution I came up with is pretty obvious, but it took me awhile to come around to it. Here it is: start small.
So here I am, starting small, literally and figuratively.
The first items listed on the revamped Will and Bequeath site are all particularly wee. “Bitty,” as my toddler would say.
Think salt and pepper shakers, tiny objet, jewellery. Stuff that’s easy to ship and easy to photograph in a simple light box.
Starting small doesn’t come easily to me. I don’t like it. It feels frustrating and irritating. My instinct is almost always to GO BIG instead. This has been a problem in many areas of my life. I would rather clean the entire house than just one toilet. It bothers me to wash a few dishes at a time. I put off writing letters to do the people I love because I want to be able to write long, detailed, perfect letters. I could go on.
I’m a natural perfectionist who is never satisfied, it bothers me to work in a piecemeal way. Isn’t everything better when it’s complete and done properly and organized? ISN’T IT?
Haha. Sigh. This is something I’ve really had to let go of since becoming a parent. Working the way I used to (with total focus, investing as much time as I needed to, never going to launch without having proofed and triple-checked and firmly decided on something) is no longer possible. It just isn’t.
As an editor, this has been extremely difficult to swallow. I make so many typos now.
If you’ve texted with or emailed with me in the past few years, I promise, I have been mortified by the quality of my prose. It’s a mess. The typos are out of control. And when it comes to the shop, it drives me nuts that I’m not able to put up 300 items perfectly and only then open the (virtual) doors. But I’ve realized something: If I don’t work piecemeal, if I don’t accept that starting small is nothing to be ashamed of, if I don’t give myself a break, if I don’t face the fact that doing a little is an accomplishment just as laudable as doing a lot, and that I am not defined by my productivity, then I’ll never get anything done and the store will be nothing.
The beauty in starting small is that it ensures that you start.
And that’s what’s most important, right? Just get something down on paper. Just get a few items up. And then when you can, do a little more, and then a little more. In the end, you end up with the big picture you dreamed of, it’s just that you get there more slowly and in a less satisfying way.
But you get there. That’s what matters.
As I work to get products up for sale on my own site, interested buyers should feel free to shop Will and Bequeath on Etsy and Will and Bequeath on Poshmark. These platforms take a large percentage of the sale price, and charge various other feels to sellers as well. In the future, I hope to have all my stock available on my own site, but until then…