Following Your Dreams…

Growing up I would always hear adults talk about following your dreams. However, I never actually saw any of those adults truly following their dreams. I assume they told me to follow my dreams because they never did. Because they all ended up working in jobs that are nowhere near as fulfilling as they would have thought, but they paid the bills.

So as an adult, I did follow my dreams. My dreams have taken me to places I never thought possible. To places I saw in movies and thought were reserved for people that weren’t me. At 20, I moved to New York City to start an internship with a wholesale clothing brand. I loved the city- the feeling every single day walking to work. The hustle of everyone around you. Doing their all to make ends meet on their dreams. To this day, I still have never felt such energy in any other city.

I moved back to the Midwest in order to be closer to my family and to follow a new dream. Well, it wasn’t really all that new. Since I was a little girl, I dreamed of opening my own clothing boutique. For my 5th birthday, my only present request was a cash register so I could open my own store in my basement. As I got older, I put that dream on the back burner and chased a career I thought would suffice. When you tell people you are leaving a Division One Golf Scholarship and Pre-Dental Biology Major to move to NYC to work in fashion, you get some really confused looks.

To this day, it’s one of the best decisions I have ever made. Garish Gal come to be October 1st, 2015 and I don’t believe I would have had the courage to start if it wasn’t for NYC.

What Following Your Dreams Means….

When you follow your dreams, they don’t tell you what it really means. It means making sacrifices, wearing many hats, stepping out of your comfort zone, and making tough decisions. Its just you. You have to be the one that makes every single decision. You are the one that is taking all the risk. You are the one that has to move back in with your parents in order to be able to afford starting a new business. You are the one that has to work multiple flexible jobs to pay your own bills and still be able to focus wholly on your business. You are the one who has to try out new ideas in hope that they will work out well for the business. Your dreams don’t pay the bills-initially. Your dreams can be overwhelming and scary. But the feeling you get when someone tells you they love your business makes every emotion and stressful moment worth it.

What They Never Told You About Following Your Dreams…

When you follow your dreams, your dreams can take you places you never imagined before. As Garish Gal is still it its’ first year, I counted on slow and steady growth. But every time Garish Gal grows in unexpected ways, I am astonished. I get overwhelmed with humility and graciousness- it usually makes me cry (but don’t tell anyone!). Garish Gal has evolved and expanded my dreams into ideas and ways I had never thought of before. It makes me insanely excited for the future and puts the stresses in their place.

The coolest part of making my dreams come true is being able to give back. Being able to support nonprofits that fund and provide education for children is the most rewarding part of owning a business. Using an insanely materialistic and shallow industry to change the lives of children is my way of bucking the system. Buying clothes changes lives-that is just plain awesome.

So follow your dreams, be prepared for the wildest ride of your life, and soak up every single moment!

xo-

Maggie