THOUGHTS ON: WORKING WITH YOUR FRIENDS...& HAVING THE BALLS TO CALL IT QUITS
PHOTOGRAPHER: THE ETERNAL CHILD
You know those times where your parents give you like, the 3 main tips to become a successful person and you don't listen then find yourself awkwardly telling them about how it didn't work out?
I feel like the three from my parents were
1. Don't rely on anyone to do ANYTHING for you.
2. Don't date a baseball player (idk why my dad had a thing against me dating baseball players haha).
3. Don't be afraid to stand up for yourself.
Over time I learned that the excuse "THEY said they we're going to do it" began to completely back fire, I striked out not one but TWO baseball players, and I always found myself biting my tongue.
Then there's the "rules of life" that everyone from your parents to the random barista repeat to you over and over and over again until your ears bleed. One of those being, DON'T work with your friends.
Right? You hear so many horror stories about it. Friendships crashing and burning like it's fucking world war 3, old people talking about what happened when they worked with their friends back in '58 and how they still hold a grudge.
But still, I did it. And for a long time, I FREAKING LOVED IT.
I worked with two of my best friends (who I'm still best friends with HOLLA). We were the perfect trio. We met up all the time to work on our blog, create content, go to meetings, eat, sleep, drink, EVERYTHING.
We were always talking about where we saw ourselves in 5-10 years, what we wanted to turn our business into, what kinds of people we wanted to talk to and how we wanted to go about everything.
BUT. There came a point where I personally started to feel....like I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing.
I started to feel like our schedules between the three of us was too much to try and keep up with and that I was sort of just falling out of love with everything that we had talked about.
OBVIOUSLY this made me feel weird, sad, confused, torn, and almost angry? I wanted things to work out but I felt like it just had been too much work with not enough of me focusing on what I wanted to be focusing on.
I know that probably sounds selfish..which is why I sat on this feeling for a YEAR.
AN ENTIRE YEAR of me feeling like I didn't know which direction I was supposed to be going in. A year of confusion, of trying to see how I could make our business work out along with what I wanted to do...IT. WAS. STRESSFUL.
If it had been some random people that I had met and we started a little business and I was losing heart for it, I think it would have been a lot easier to bring up my feelings, but it was my best friends. SO, I did one of the things that my parents always told me not to do, and I stayed quiet.
I started working on my own thing as I continued to work with the girls, thinking that maybe I could do both. But then I found (and they started to realize) that I was more focused and determined to do what I needed to do for myself.
AND I WAS HAVING FUN DOING IT.
Of course then things slowly started to collide. Little arguments were happening and I KNEW I had to just spit it out and say that this thing that the three of us had spent 2 years trying to create wasn't going to happen with me in it.
BUT I JUST COULD NOT FUCKING SPIT IT OUT!
I felt like I was ruining everything, I felt like I was giving up, failing, and I obviously didn't want my friends to be upset with me nor did I want to make them angry so I stayed quiet.
Everyone would tell me, "You have to focus on yourself", and "They're you're best friends, they're going to understand". I knew it was starting to take over my entire mind when I realized that I was trying to get advice on what to do from anyone that would listen.
Want to know what finally made me make the move?
3 Months in to 2016 I started reading a book called, THE TOP 5 REGRETS OF THE DYING by Bronnie Ware. I had seen her as a guest on Marie Forleo's YouTube and I was just so fascinated by her.
She was this very intriguing older woman who was explaining that she grew up working as a care taker for the elderly. But I'm talking like VERY ELDERLY, like on their way out elderly.
She said that she had spoke with so many dying people that she started to see a pattern of the things that they would say they regretted, hence the title.
So that pretty much just slapped me in the face.
Also, regret #1 (sorta):
I say sorta because the girls only expected of me what I said I would deliver, but it was the fact that SOMETHING was telling me that I wasn't meant to be doing that anymore and didn't have the heart to say it that was killing me.
So to read that these were two of THE TOP 5 regrets coming from people who are about to pass away and are really contemplating their lives, was a litttttttle bit of a wake up call and a notice to grow some balls.
I remember that after a nice night of shopping and grabbing dinner, I decided to tell one of the girls what I had been thinking, over a nice big bowl of ramen. Nice right?
It's our favorite ramen spot and I totally ruined dinner.
Tears we're falling into my soup like some old episode of Laguna Beach, I just blurted out that I needed to talk to her after a good laugh with no smoothness AT ALL, and I was balling like a damn baby.
#TRUETALK.
I told her that I had been thinking about this talk for forever and that it was NOT easy for me and that I felt horrible, I didn't know how to tell her blah blah blahhh. It was horribly awkward and then I pretty much just lingered in my room for the rest of the night.
I just sat there waiting and waiting and waiting for the feeling of relief to finally come rolling over me. It didn't. I woke up in the morning, still nothing.
I went to san diego for 2 days to clear my head...STILL NOTHING.
I started thinking that I had totally fucked up everything and I hadn't even told my other friend personally yet. Just really screwing up everywhere, having one of those 'what am I doing with my life' moments.
Then came the big talk with the three of us, mind you this was like 2 weeks later. It was also horrible. Feelings came out and things were said while other things were just heard and hard to register but all in all, it was shitty AF.
It was pretty much everything I was trying to avoid for a year all exploding right in front of me.
But guess what...
Just like with everything else, I started to feel better with time. We all did, and it was EPIC. We all started to realize that that was the decision that needed to be made in order for all us to be happier, we just didn't know it because things were never really THAT BAD.
It was all based off a little feeling I had that it just WASN'T what I was supposed to be doing. That's it.
Is this all making sense?
If you're doing something, especially if it's something sensitive like working with a friend or a family member and you're not 100% happy, you need to just speak up.
I promise you will feel so much better. You won't feel better right away, but you will sooner than later, and you will be so happy that you made that decision for yourself.
Same goes for being in an unhappy relationship.
I remember I wanted to break up with one of my exes because I just wasn't into it anymore but he didn't really do anything that drastic.
I know you've done it too.
But that's obviously not the way to handle things. And if you're wanting to actually KEEP a relationship with the person or the people you are having trouble with, then that's REALLY not the way to do it.
Also, I think talking to other people helped me A LOT. Mainly because I get annoyed when someone tells me their same problem like 8 jillion times and I didn't want to be one of those people.
Once I pretty much talked to everyone in my life about it like twice I realized that I had to do something about it.
NOW, this isn't to say that working with your friends is a bad thing!! I have plenty of friends that I work with now and it's so much fun!! But it's more of working with them in a collaborative sense rather than a full on 50/50 partnership.
What are your guys' thoughts?? Comment below or e-mail me! Would love to share thoughts with you!
xoxo
