Conquering Fears in Action

So I did it!

Trust me when I say that no-one is more surprised than me but I did it. I went to the fair, got great compliments on my designs & some sales as well. 

The nerves didn't truly set in until yesterday morning. But I did my affirmations and reminded myself there was no pressure on the day. Due to the fact we travelled on foot as opposed to car, we had the option of leaving when we wanted and my social battery managed to last until half 2. 

It was a long, overstimulating day of making eye contact with people, standing to look approachable, making small talk and trying to take in the crowd without panicking. For such a small tent hosting 12 stalls of traders, we sure had our fair share of people traffic! At times it was so busy people were at a stand still attempting to travel in both directions.

One darling woman compliments my catfirmations poster which was very popular with people traffic throughout the day, insisted that she needed to have it and then.... bulked at the £10 price tag.

Now this is an A3 poster. Which I was already selling at a discount for the event and she had the audacity to exclaim she wasn't paying that much followed up by a very sheepish no offence. You're in a craft marquee at a fair honey. Folk are charging £12.50 for jewellery, selling wax melts and candles. You get what you pay for. 

Which is very much a hill I will stand proudly on. As a society people are becoming far too used to an oversaturated market of cheap goods made in factories overseas that lok all nice and shiny, and that's then tricking them into thinking these types of items are the norm when they're actually not. It's why so many small businesses are struggling to make ends meet. Companies are either stealing designs to create cheaper and inferior copies, or quite simply people are too used to shopping cheap & then wondering why something falls apart a week later. 

For me the fair was a massive learning curve. I went into it wanting to experience this environment for the first time to see how others with far more experience do things, and of course work on my people skills so for that I am happy. Am I planning to do more fairs in the future?

Yes however I shall probably cater more towards my niche & not in a hurry to sign up to anything as my social battery is still recovering. As a neurodivergent masking to my hearts content..... My brain was still bored by half 11 and wanting to be anywhere else. I kept zoning out, legs felt heavy, mind felt tired and I really tried not to be the first person to leave. Everyone else though? Tired but used to it and not letting the fatigue phase them. We got back home, I watched the remainders of the Chelsea game, napped for just under 4hrs then watched the Man City game before going to bed and waking up with a headache which I knew to expect.

Masking is exhausting. I like many ND folk can and will do it because it's what's expected but trust once I'm back in my safe zone it soon catches up with me and I just want to hibernate for a week.

Alas no can do as tomorrow I'm off on a very exciting day trip then 2 days of rest before getting back to work on Saturday. Over the course of the next week I will be making more changes to this humble home of mine including more products and the like!