A few months ago I started crocheting a toy for Abby. She picked out an animal and a color of yarn that she liked… and then I was put to work. Since I had wanted to try my hand at designing a toy of my own, I embraced the project, but knew that it probably wasn’t going to be a quick one.
Rounds and rounds of stitches were crocheted, only to be ripped out and crocheted again, each time slightly different from the last. Every finished body part brought forth a sense of accomplishment… and a little bit of pride.
Eventually, all the pieces were completed and Abby’s new toy was finished. She couldn’t have been happier, honestly though… I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Maybe it was the blue color, maybe it was because I could see all the things that I would have should have done differently. The perfectionist in me just couldn’t let it be. I had to make another.
This time I picked out a yarn in the perfect shade of gray, along with a light pink and white to compliment it… then I got to work. This time the stitches flew off my hook, and even though I had to rip up a few rounds here and there to make small changes to the form, everything went much smoother and faster.
Before I knew it, I had all the body parts finished, and a daughter who was claiming this newest toy as her own… because her old one needed a friend!! Haha. I couldn’t wait to put this big little girl together and was so excited once she was finally finished.
With the pattern perfected (, I set myself to typing it all up. I was (and still am) so proud of my little creation that I had worked so hard on. In fact, I’m so proud of her that, instead of being tucked away with all of Abby’s other buddies, she’s proudly sitting on top of the mantle watching over us. But I digress… you see, the thing is, I typed and typed and typed until I had 95% of the pattern finished… and then the self-doubt set in.
“What if it’s not good enough?”
“What if people don’t like her?”
“What if there’s an error in my pattern?”
Self doubt is like an invisible toxin, that slowly worms its way into us and then multiplies until we can’t move. I let fear and doubt find its way into me and take over… I let it stop me from completing the one (business related) thing that I really wanted to accomplish this summer. I let fear and doubt win… or so it thought.
Next Tuesday is World Elephant Day. It is also the day that I will release the pattern for Ellie the elephant! Since her pattern is being released on the day that focuses on protecting forest elephants from poaching and extinction, I’ve decided that for every pattern sold between 8/12 and 8/31, I’ll donate 10% of the total pattern sales to the Wildlife Conservation Society.
I’d love to give a nice big fat check, but I need your help in order to do that! Please help me spread the word and come back here or to my Etsy shop on Tuesday!
Note: While I was contacted by Child’s Play Communications and asked to spread the word about World Elephant Day and www.96elephants.org, this post is not sponsored and I received no compensation for writing it.