I am a perfectionist. Extremely self critical and fearful of failure. These traits have served me well in some aspects of my life, but mostly they have kept me sheltered and hidden. I opened an Etsy shop in 2009 with the intention of making it "the most phenomenal of all Etsy shops" and I was not going to make it public until such standards were met. Well, fast forward 4 years and I still had not published my shop. Some excuses I had listed off in my head included, "I still need professional photographs", "I'm getting married so I need to wait until my new name becomes official", "I still need to rewrite my bio". I realized that all of these excuses were just standing in the way of my success. How would I ever get my work in front of buyers if I kept it stashed away for that perfect moment? I decided to take a running leap into the vast cyber world and just let go! Nothing is permanent and as I learn more about what works and what needs to be rewritten I can make those changes accordingly. I can only fail by not trying.