Progress not Perfection – Kate’s Journey as a Business Owner & a Woman with Endometriosis

Something I’ve grappled with as a business owner and in my personal life for a long time is perfection. I’ve wanted so many things in my life to be perfect, but especially as a business owner, I’ve wanted Oh Natural to be perfect. Perfect in every sense. Perfect not just for me, but more importantly for our customers. However, as contradictory as it is, perfection is a dirty word… dirty in the sense that it stops you from doing the good stuff. The stuff that actually means something to you and the stuff that allows progress to happen. 

I’ve been battling with perfection since we started our journey of owning Oh Natural. One of the big things that perfection prevented me from making progress on, was sharing with you, more about me. At first, I didn’t think people would want to hear from me and I didn’t know what to say because I was feeling so caught up in everything being perfect, along with learning, growing and doing the business all at the same time! But there was this thought that kept niggling away at me for ages saying you genuinely love helping people Kate and you’ve got good stuff to share that people might just want to hear. It took me ages to do it but I slowly came around to realising that I could put myself out there and that it could mean something, even if it was just one or two people, that would be enough and that would be progress.

My heart was saying do it!!! But my head was saying noooooo!!! 

We all grapple with perfection and we all want things to be a certain way… our way… But I’ve learnt (and am still learning!) that perfection does not equal progress. The desire for perfection can lead to frustration, anxiety and brokenness. I’ve experienced all of that not just in my journey has a business owner, but also personally.

I have a health condition called endometriosis, which can be a debilitating disease that affects many women and there is no cure for it. It can affect not just your physical body, but it plays havoc with your hormones which in turn affects your mental health. It’s a sure sign that your body is not perfect. My journey with this disease has been going for about 5 years now and I’ve always battled with it both mentally and physically. It’s been a slow journey but I’ve finally made some progress with it (without going on the contraceptive pill which I didn’t want to do or various reasons) and my last two periods have been soooo much better than any of the ones before them (that is another story). One thing that I know contributes significantly to it is stress. I was partly getting stressed about having the disease in the first place and what it was doing to my body and I tried to fight it, but this just made it worse! Patience was the key here. I knew deep down there was going to be a way I could manage this disease and I refused to give up. 

As most business owners do, I have big dreams for Oh Natural and I know that it has the potential to do great things. Not just for our business, but for the great brands that we sell and want to sell, the wider community and by helping those less fortunate than ourselves. We want to do more, and we want to do it now! But, as all small businesses can attest to, we can’t do it all now. Wanting what you don’t have contributes to stress. But the lesson here is to be patient. So many times in my life I’ve wanted something, but as soon as I’ve let go of the wanting and trying to force it, it happens. This even happened when I met Bevan, my husband! Finding a way to manage my endometriosis has required ALOT of patience and trust that I am on the right journey and making progress. It hasn’t been perfect (and still isn’t), but I’ve made progress and that is the most important thing. 

With all of this in mind, I have some great hopes and dreams for Oh Natural, and here is a sneak peek at what we want to do this year… We will be launching a new website and with that, a rebrand. The new website will be a lot easier for you as a customer to navigate and it will have new features that we haven’t had before. – exciting!!! And the rebrand, done by my darling sister Ros Bevin who is a super talented graphic designer and a big advocate for Oh Natural, is timeless, classic but also very beautiful. I can’t wait to share it with you! But patience is the key here. And the new website won’t be perfect from the beginning, I’m preparing myself for that, but it will be “progress” and allow us to move Oh Natural forward, give you a better shopping experience and help us to help others.

Soooooo – watch this space!

I’d love to hear from you and learn from your experiences so please comment below if you have a “progress not perfection” story to share.

Thank you for reading this and I wish you all the best in your life journey oxox