I have been thinking about this blog post for a few weeks and I can’t believe that we are celebrating our 4th year anniversary already. What the hell? Where did the time go? I wasn’t sure of what to write about (but at the same time, I would like to carry on the tradition of a lovely piece of blog post on the day of our anniversary). The fourth year was much of a blur to me, I could say many things happened but at the same time I could say nothing much happened. Does that even make sense? I guess sometimes so much goes through my brain and my life to the point that I don’t even know where to start.
Top: Saint Laurent Logo-print Distressed Cotton T-shirt (link)
Jacket: Zara Jeans Jacket
Jeans: Zara Jeans
Bag: Celine Trio – Large in Grey
Shoes: Gucci Studded Sneakers
Glasses: Tom Ford
I guess if you ask me how was my fourth year with Hakme Beauty like, I would use 4 words to sum it up – “A Year of Consolidation”. We did our usual work, we moved CWB store back in June 2017, we modified the online shop last month or so, other than these big things, I couldn’t think of anything else. But I remember I was frustrated a lot of the times, I felt like we were hitting a plateau, I wanted to improve personally and professionally but I didn’t know how. My mood got even worse when I was diagnosed with Rosacea. Millions of things went through my mind at that time,”does it mean that I could not test products for the stores?” “Does it mean that I could no longer do my beauty reviews online?” “Why me?” “What does the future look like now?”…etc. I was really upset at one time that I thought “what a bloody joke! It’s not funny!” It was a phase, a dark phase and I chose not to show this online and even in front of anyone. I might have briefly talked about it on Instagram Live when I felt better but I chose not to have a full blown drama online. It wasn’t because I wasn’t real online nor I didn’t treat you all as friends. It was just that sometimes I do feel that there are so much drama online that it doesn’t need my involvement. I chose to clear my head and dealt with this on my own. If I have to learn something out of a situation, I have to learn it by myself because I feel everything I feel, right? Luckily my dark phase was never long, my “I-can’t-sit-still-and-feel-sorry-for-myself” personality comes in handy when my dark side tends to get overwhelming. I got bored one day and I changed my thoughts.
You all heard me saying this a thousand times if not more before – “Everything Happens for a Reason”. The next phase was that I was trying to find the reasons. To be quite honest, I didn’t see any valuable reasons at that time but I had accepted the fact that I was diagnosed with a skin condition which MIGHT affect my job in SOME ways. See the use of the words of MIGHT and SOME? There you go! Accepting is the most important step for me to embrace a situation. Once I had accepted the fact, I modified what I do to suit the situation. I started to think maybe there were other people with Rosacea looking for skincare products as well, so I could focus a bit more on that. I also started to think though I couldn’t try many skincare products, I could try other ranges like body care, hair care, lifestyle items. And, I have colleagues, so for the face stuff that I couldn’t try, I could ask my colleagues to try and observe the results with my eyes and review their experiences…etc. When I was willing to use my brain to come up with alternatives, I instantly found so many solutions which were right in front of me the whole time. And when I refused to give up and said “oh that’s me done!”, I got the drive to keep going and to shoot down every single roadblock along the way. Also, because I couldn’t do as many beauty review videos as before, I asked you all for advice, and so many of you said you loved the vlogs and gave me the confidence to relaunch my vlog series every Thursday (no matter how boring sometimes I think they are). Now, I am at a great state of mind and my Rosacea is under control, I am laughing at the fact that Rosacea forced me to change my course and it’s indeed for the better. If it weren’t for Rosacea, I wouldn’t have made changes to the videos that I did, I wouldn’t have changed my routine on the things that I was doing and things wouldn’t have gotten better. You see my point now – “Everything Happens for a Reason”? Yea most of the time, we are shocked when shit happens and we go into self-pity mode. Nothing is wrong with that, we all need a little time and self-comfort to get through shitty situations. But I also want to urge you to have faith in yourself that you will get through whatever you are going through and rainbow only comes after it rains, right?
So back to “A Year of Consolidation”. I guess on the surface, we hadn’t done much different, we didn’t open more stores and we didn’t wow anyone in any shape or form. Behind the scene, I was dealing with my own battle and I was clearing my mind. I guess if my battle didn’t happen, then I wouldn’t have had the materials for this blog post too, right? *Laughs* Again we survived another year and we grew up a bit more as well. Though last year was a bit more quiet than usual, I now understood that it was necessary. I needed the time to think straight, I needed the time to come up with Plan B and I needed the time to direct my team. Thanks to all of you who have faith in us, thanks to all of you who have come on this journey with us, and most importantly, thanks to all of you who have shown me your love and support no matter what I do and do not do. This magical journey cannot happen without all of your trust, I am very aware of that, I really can’t say thank you enough.
In the coming year, I am not going to bore you with any silly little details of what I am going to do or not. I don’t usually write business plan and I don’t intend to do it here. What I want to say is that I do everything with my gut feeling (that’s the reason why I don’t know when I would feel like doing something lol) because I find that it’s my new best friend in life and in business; and I will certainly improvise when I come across any challenges again. I still intend to locate amazing beauty products for Hakme Beauty and I still intend to share my thoughts and reviews online until you are all sick and tired of me *Laughs*. I am certainly not giving up, you shouldn’t too! Challenges are there for us to grow, improvise and you will get to where you want to be! It takes a bit time, but it’s OK, you know?
