And with a few clicks on a keyboard, a Blog is born. This Blog. The Introverted Chick Blog. Hello. How are you? I am fine.
I’m Sarah Jane Alleman, and I’m the Chick In Charge at The Introverted Chick. This company exists to make Introverted Women smile. That’s it. No complicated mission statements. No lofty goals. Just one goal...to make you smile. Do we do more than that? Heck, yes! But THE GOAL is to make you smile.
Why such a simple goal? Why not so simple? Life’s hard and being an Introverted Chick can be challenging at times. Who can’t use more smiles? Do we want to change the world too? Sure…but first, more smiles for us all.
What will this new Blog be? We’ll discover all of that together. Yay! I’m sure we’ll talk about Introversion (and Extroversion). I’ll share news from The Introverted Chick Community, info about the Quarterly Subscription Box, Online Boutique stuff, and other eventual ventures. We'll cover topics like Career, Home Life, Love/Etc., Lifehacks, Science/Tech, Career/School, Relationships, and More. I’m also excited to highlight the Makers and Business Owners I work with on the retail side. Plus, there will be an Interview series where we learn about members of our cozy, Introverted Chick Community. I’ll tell you some of my views and stories, and we’ll do some interactive sharing too. I don’t want to put too many expectations or restrictions on this project yet. Especially since Y’all, the readers, will help shape things around here. I’m sure this Blog will evolve, change, and reveal its personality as we go along. It will be fun for us to see what it becomes now that we’ve started.
I feel like this blog should have begun a long time ago. That was my plan. And it did, but I only ever made one post. This one, which I'm re-working and re-wording and re-cycling for use now. So, if any of this seems familiar, that’s why. Originally, it was back in pre-pandemic days. I published the first and only blog post on December 18, 2019. But I ended up halting my business operations on March 16, 2020, when my state of Kentucky shutdown for mitigation.
I re-launched The Introverted Chick on March 16, 2022 with a Spring Gift Bundle wondering if anybody would even remember me. You did remember me! Yay! The full re-launch happened on July 25, 2022 (and would have been sooner if not for web site drama, which will probably end up in a blog post at some point--omg!). The Introverted Chick today is an online boutique with Introvert-centric items, themed Gift Bundles, and a Quarterly Subscription Box that launched in September 2022. This Blog brings a new facet to the business, and I have much more up my sleeves for 2023 and beyond.
I have said so many times “the Blog is starting soon” that I just stopped saying it. The best intentions of mice and Introverted Chicks…. I find I'm constantly feeling like I coulda, shoulda, woulda. I feel like I'm late in most of my beginnings. But usually there is no real deadline, and it's just undue pressure I'm putting on myself...sigh. What's that? You put undue pressure on yourself too?...double sigh.
Want to know what has been happening while this Blog hasn’t been happening this time around? LIFE and lots of it. John Lennon sang “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” YESSS! I guess I just haven’t been ready to begin the Blog. But now I've begun.
The truth about beginnings is that things start when they start. It’s sometimes only in hindsight that you can see when something began. Not everything has a convenient date and time stamp to show its birth. Even The Introverted Chick really began in April 2016 when I created the social media accounts…long before the business ventures were even conceived by my brain and originally launched on November 2, 2018.
We may want to plan EVERYTHING before we begin. I often even plan my planning. Ha! Sometimes those plans just don’t come to fruition or take a different shape from our first vision. It’s so easy to get caught up in searching for a purpose (gag!), planning a formula to follow (x + y = __!), and figuring out all the steps (cha-cha-cha!) that you forget that eventually you just have to start. Starting is the only way you can do the things you want to do and get to the places you want to go. Again, things start when they start.
Starting is the only way you can do the things you want to do and get to the places you want to go.
I tell you this story of beginnings probably to make myself feel better about not starting this Blog until now. Ha ha. But it’s also a reminder that you can always start. Being so consumed with planning or when something should happen or the idea of committing to a project or any of the self-consciousness that shows up when you’re going to put yourself OUT THERE…all of that is in your mind. Your defeating doubts, fiercest fears, and crushing anxieties live alongside your highest hopes, glorious goals, and sweetest dreams. Even your most brilliant ideas might have to fight to for their lives. At some point, you just decide to make it happen. You start when you start. You finally just take a deep breath and make the leap.
OMG! The leap is scary. You might find your wings and fly through the air with the greatest of ease and land on your feet. Or you might flail and fall and be pummeled by the pavement below. Will you hear applause or a plop? And the funny thing about that big leap that you put so much thought, planning, and worry into before you took it…you’ll find out that it was just the first leap of many, many more. It will take countless leaps and bounds to build whatever you have conceived. To get where you are going. To finish what you started. Rarely is any journey worth taking ever completed in just one step…or one leap.
I have to add too that we are still living in a pandemic with no foreseeable true ending. When I restarted this biz earlier this year, I did it with the idea of creating much space for fluidity and flexibility. That's necessary because of supply chain issues, mental health factors, family obligations, etc. Plus, we all know now that anything can happen to stop us in our tracks. I do still get caught up in wanting everything to happen now. I still beat myself up regularly for any downtime I take and not meeting my imaginary deadlines no matter how many glitches I experienced along the way. This is not how I want to run my biz, and I'm working on all of that. Learning how to slow down is hard, Y'all.
Until next time…here’s to all of our beginnings. May we start when we start and be happy with our biggest of leaps and tiniest of hops along the way.
Love,
Sarah Jane Alleman
Chick In Charge
The Introverted Chick
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Sarah Jane Alleman is the Chick In Charge at The Introverted Chick, an online Boutique and cozy Community created especially for VIPs—Very Introverted Persons. Sarah is a professional Introvert (an INTJ) and a total homebody. Her goal only goal with her business is to make Introverts smile.
