#189: Did You Give Up Too Soon?

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Did you give up too soon? Did you really just maybe try one thing and then felt like you were a failure? Hi friends, this is Shelly Hitz. And I just wanted to come on with a quick word of encouragement to you today and share a little bit about my own story and whether or not you're in business, you're an author, you're an artist, I really think that this can help you just in life in general. Sometimes it's really easy to get discouraged and to give up. Well, what I wanted to share with you today is about giving up too soon. I think a lot of us have what we perceive as failures and sometimes it's just that we need to try again or we need to try another way or we need to just continue on for a longer period of time. Amen. Have you ever experienced that for yourself? But I love this verse from Galatians 6, 9 and I really think it's a great verse for this topic. Let us not become weary in doing good. For at the proper time we will reap a harvest. If what if we don't give up? I love that verse. I love it because, you know, I've had my own business since 2011. I started my side business while I was working full time as a physical therapist in 2004. You know, so it was seven years working two jobs until I quit my job as a physical therapist to go full time as an entrepreneur. There's been so many times that I've wanted to give up and if I would have, you know, I would have missed all that God has for me. So it's Galatians 6, 9. Let us not become weary in doing good. For at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. And I was recently had an experience with this. Last year I was really deciding like, okay, I think I'm going to go forward with my art business and my art career. I'm an author coach. I'm successful at that, had a successful business, but really thought, I wonder what could happen with my art. So I decided I had been teaching on skillshare and so I decided to launch my same courses on my website and I thought, oh, this is going to be so good. I've seen other people doing this and doing it successfully. And so I thought instead of being on skillshare, you pay a one time fee. I just Decided I was going to do a membership thing. And anyways, I launched it Black Friday weekend almost a year ago. And.

It didn't do good at all. In my opinion, as an entrepreneur. It failed because the money that I put into putting all those courses on my site and setting everything up and doing everything I needed to do, I didn't even earn back the money that it cost me to do that. So I didn't even break even. And I was so discouraged because I've been doing this for a long time. I really sense that God told me to do this. And have you ever had an experience like that where, you know, like, God is asking you to do something and. And yet, like, it doesn't turn out like you think it was going to.

I was like, this is embarrassing. I'm supposed to be an expert at doing these things. And it just totally flopped, you know, and so I was ready to give up. Like I said, I already have this successful business as an author coach. I have Author audience academy. But I was just like, the enemy was just like, shelly, just go back to what you know, don't press through. Don't do this. You know, this is a waste of time. You didn't even make back your money. You lost money. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The lies of the enemy, right? They start to bombard your mind, and you just feel like a failure and you feel discouraged. And so I was ready just to give up and put all my energy back into author coaching. You know, I'm good at that. I've been successful at that. And then I signed up for Matt Tommy's Mastermind in March. Matt Tommy's amazing. I had signed up for that before this failure. So I'd already paid my fee. I already had my airline ticket. And I was like, oh, my goodness. I'm spending all this money to go to this mastermind to learn how to grow my art business, and I'm not even going to try to grow my art business anymore. I was kind of like. And I'm like, why am I going to this mastermind, God? Because I felt like God was telling me to go to the mastermind too. And I'm like, it's a waste of money. Like, why am I doing this? I was like, well, I can talk to Matt about running membership sites because he runs one. And I run one for authors. He runs one for artists, I run one for authors. And I thought, okay, I'll just try to make the best of it. I've already paid. I'm going. So then Matt sends us out homework before the Mastermind. It was just basically a question. I don't even remember what the question was. I could look it up, but he just sent us a question and. And I began to pray. And immediately I sensed the Lord saying, shelly, you've only tried one thing one way and you're ready to give up. I didn't tell you you could give up.

And you haven't tried all these. And so all of a sudden it was just like. And I just had like all of these ideas of, like, other things that I could try and other things that I could do. And all of a sudden my faith was starting to be renewed and. And then I went to the Mastermind and wow, I got some really, really great ideas. But not only just ideas, but encouragement and motivation. I met people who are doing this full time as artists, and I'm like, if they can do it, I can do it, right? And people prayed over me and prophesied over me and gave me words of encouragement and oh, my goodness, I left that weekend with so much. And it was literally the turning point for me of just, you know, just really seeing my art career take off. Now I'm not at this point making a full time income with art, but I was adding it up and all of my art stuff. So far, the first 10 months of this year, it's been maybe like $26,000. So that's pretty good, right? For someone who was ready to give up, for someone who was ready to say, forget this whole thing and I can't do this. It's not working. I'm just gonna go back to what I know. And the Lord was like, nope, nope, nope.

You just need to press on. So I want to tell you something, though. The Lord has shown me many times that there's wisdom in knowing when to press through and when to let go.

Sometimes there's wisdom in knowing when to press through and when to let go. Because sometimes it's not something we're to press through. Sometimes we are to let it go. We're to surrender it. We're to move on to other things. And so sometimes you don't want to just keep trying to beat a dead horse and try to get it to keep going right? So that's where relationship with the Lord is essential in really being able to know. Okay, Lord, is this something I just need to try again? I need to try something else. You know, I had one of my Etsy Entrepreneur students, I have a course called Etsy Entrepreneur helping you, like, set up a Business and get started digitizing your artwork, selling it on products. Well, I had one of my course students contact me and she was like, shelly, I released my fall collection and it's not selling yet. And when did it start selling for you? And sometimes it's a matter of learning our audience and learning what kind of products are of interest to them. What are they going to want to buy. And to be honest, I have a fall collection too, and I have certain products in my fall collection that have sold zero. So do I give up and I don't do my Etsy shop anymore because I've sold zero of certain products? No. Like I try again. You know, I keep improving my skills as an artist. I keep improving my products. I keep listening to my audience and I watch what they're buying and what they're not. And I try again, especially an artist or an author, when we're selling products, we're selling books, we're selling art. It's not always going to be the very first product that you release that's going to sell. I have written and published over 40 books and it wasn't until we had published many books that that I really hit a best seller, right? I mean, I think we'd already published like maybe 10 books. And then I published a series on gratitude, which this is a great season if you're interested. My gratitude books are available on Amazon and my 21 prayers of gratitude is available on my Etsy site. But you know, if I would have given up just after our first few books, I would have never written one of my best selling series on gratitude. I would have never written my book Broken Crayons Still Color, which is my number one bestseller probably of all time, of all my books. And so I just want to ask you again today. Did you just try one thing? Did you give up a little too early? Did you let that discouragement set in, those lies from the enemy, like penetrate down and cause you to quit? Did God really tell you to stop? Did he really tell you to quit? Or did you just give up because you felt like you were a failure and that you couldn't do it for me, God didn't tell me to quit. I kind of just used my entrepreneurial mind, you know, like, okay, I tried something, it wasn't profitable. This isn't going to work. And so, yeah, Valerie says I'm still moving. Yeah, don't give up. Keep asking papa. God ask him. What is it? What is it that you have for me? What products, what books, what, what things do you want Me to try? Yeah, we can't do everything and do you know, we can do anything, but we can't do everything but press in and ask him, are you to press through or are you to maybe let go? Is there something else for you? One failure does not define you. I've heard a quote before, failure is not a tattoo, it's a bruise. Did somebody need to hear that today? Failure is not a tattoo, it's a bruise. The only thing that keeps you in failure is not getting up and trying again. Right. And especially with the Lord and asking for his ideas. He has the best ideas. We can have good ideas or we can have God ideas. Which one do you want? You know, I know I want God ideas. And of course, I sometimes still press forward and try my own strength and my own flesh. But. But the Lord is teaching me over and over and over, especially the last few years. Shelly, if you just listen, if you just press in, if you just come to me, I'll show you. I'll give you those ideas again. I just want to encourage you today that maybe it's time to try again. Maybe it's time to try something different. Maybe it's time to just to keep going even when you feel like giving up. Galatians 6. 9 says, Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, God's timing, right? The proper time. We will doesn't say we might. We will reap a harvest if we do not give up. So I encourage you. Keep going. Friends, I'm going to pray for you. So, God, I just thank you for every person listening today, whatever it is that they feel that they failed in, in their life, whether it's work or writing or art or something else, a relationship. Lord, I just pray first and foremost for healing in their lives, for healing in their hearts. Lord, I pray that you would come in and you would bring healing to the brokenhearted. And, Lord, you would set the captives free. You would set us free of any of that stink and think and those lies from the enemy that hold us back, that keep us down. And I pray that you would just release us into moving forward, forward in what you have for us. Not what we come up with in our own strength and our own mind, but God ideas, those ideas that you give us, the things that you show us to do. And a lot of times you don't show us months and years in advance, you'll show us the next step. Your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. So you put it to our feet for that next step. That next step, that next step. But Lord we do just trust you to give us those those God sized dreams and we just thank you that you are able to do immeasurably more than we can even ask or imagine. And I just pray your blessings over everyone watching. In Jesus name Amen. All right, thank you guys for being here. And if you are interested I am doing a webinar. It's called 10 Ways that I've earned income as an artist and you can too. And it was after that turning point, after that turning point of like I tried one thing and then the Lord gave me all these things to try and now my art business has taken off and so I'm sharing with you on that webinar. Free webinar. It's at YourCreativeAdventure.com 10ways the number 10 and ways. You can also just comment below. I'll send you the link, but you're welcome to attend. It's free, but I just wanted to share this encouragement for you today and hope that it encouraged you. If it did, just share in the comments below. Share this video with someone that you know that could be encouraged by it as well and I'll see you next time. Bye bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Author Audience. I would like to invite you to attend one of my free trainings all about how to sell more books without being pushy or self promotional. It's called amplify youy message. Plus I will give you two free gifts just for attending, no credit card required. First you'll get my bestselling book 9 Strategies to Build and Grow youw Author Platform and you'll also get my ebook titled List Vend 5 powerful emails you can use immediately to grow your business. These are basically fill in the blank style templates and they are yours at no charge when you join us for the training. You can sign up for my free training by going to shellyhits.com/ that's shellyhitz.com S H E L L E Y h I t z.com amplify this training and the two bonus ebooks are free and I would love to help you sell more books.

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