🔒Focus on what makes you happy

For the new year, I created a start-and-stop list, to focus on what I want to do and stop what I don’t.

As we grow in our careers, we pass through different phases.

In the beginning, when we open our businesses or start our careers, we do absolutely everything to come out ahead of the pack. We work long hours, oftentimes without pay. We donate our time, product and services to get our name out there.

We may even, admittedly, forget we have a family at home or friends who need us, too.

Obviously, I have done this for too many years.

It is a part of the grind we dedicate ourselves to if we want to reach a certain level of success. But as time goes on, we stop wanting to work for free. We stop wanting to be involved with things we aren’t passionate about. We realize our product is worth something, as is our time, and we need to have a stream of revenue to support our costs and have a life.

So, we start to become a little more selective of what we give to. We focus on our direct community. We hone in on those who we’ve seen hustling, who we know we can help. We remember the family at home, our friend’s special events and focus on what matters most to us.

What comes with this type of selectiveness is the fear people will start believing we think we’re too good for them.

This could not be further from the truth for me personally. I will never forget where The Queen’s Cups started. But I know in order to get where I want to go (both personally and as a business owner) at some point I must stop giving to things I don’t feel a direct connection to. For those who will most likely never start their own business, I need to stop telling my story and giving advice they will never adhere to.

It was not easy to do that in the beginning, it is not easy to do it now, but it is a necessity moving forward in my professional career.

I was out with a few of my friends over the past month, all of who inspire me greatly: Genuine, down-to-earth people with a strong desire for success, who I love spending time with. One of them talked about how this year he was going to get back into the state of creating, stepping out of his comfort zone and learning new things he has always wanted to, but lost sight of. This really resonated with me and aligned with my own start-and-stop list for this year. This friend proves why it is especially important to make time for those who make you want to be better, who support you and help you grow.

Just like my friend, my own personal goals were put on the backburner while I was trying to get my business off the ground. That is normal, of course.

But, after hearing my friend talk about his personal goals for the year, I realized it’s time for me to be creative again, too. It is time to put my dreams of real estate into practice because I have always been interested in buying and selling properties. I want to start mentoring those who have a fire in their belly to start their own business and are serious about it. I want to focus on this column, inspiring others to be more honest and open. I want to travel to Haiti again. I want to focus on my family at home and my friends who have been more understanding than they’ve needed to be.

It is my time to start to focus on what makes me happy.

Maybe it is a fault to wait for a new year to put our dreams and goals into practice, but it is oftentimes the push we all need to start.

Looking back on the previous phases in our lives, appreciating our time we donated to others; the advice we gave not always put into practice; the events we attended because we felt we had to … all led us to one place: The place where we can finally feel free to be who we want to be, so the next generation of hopeful entrepreneurs can begin the process, too.

Renee Diaz is the founder and owner of The Queen’s Cups bakery in Worcester, who turned her hobby into a million-dollar business.