It’s good to back. Just by opening up a Word document and starting to type this makes me feel relaxed. I miss writing like this—I miss sharing my thoughts with you all about what’s going on in my life like this. I’m smiling right now because I’ve really missed this blog.
So what happened the last three years, Dina?
Long story short, I started a calligraphy business on the side of 9-5 job, I sold greeting cards and taught workshops for a couple of months, and then quit my job to become a full-time creative entrepreneur.
Okay, it’s definitely easier said than done hahaha, but I wanted to give you a quick summary before diving into the details. Now, let’s get into the details:
I stopped blogging here in August 2018 to start a calligraphy side business
You’ll see that my last post is from August 2018. Around that time, I was brainstorming ways of how I could start a side business. I had a ton of ideas, such as start a resume and cover lettering editing service, freelance, start a cake shop, and monetize this blog. I had so many ideas that I really couldn’t pick.
Randomly one day, I was looking through Pinterest at pretty cakes and stumbled on some calligraphy. Then I fell into a Pinterest calligraphy hole! I thought, “Wow, calligraphy is really pretty, I wonder if I could learn it and do something with it?” Around the same time, my mom had been discharged from the hospital for mental health issues and I had another thought. “What if I learned calligraphy, and got my mom to paint things, and we sold greeting cards together? Then I can start my side business, and she can get involved in something?”
So I did exactly that. (Read more about how I started my business here on Cold Tea Collective’s website.)
I learned calligraphy by myself, and by December 2018, I had a line of greeting cards ready to sell.
I officially had a side business, woohoo! A dream come true!
The next step in my side business: teaching workshops and quitting my job
In 2019, I started to teach calligraphy workshops at local cafes in Vancouver. I had a lot of imposter syndrome but did it anyways.
I taught workshops for a couple of months, and then decided that I wanted to quit my job. There were a lot of factors that came into this decision that I actually talk about in this Youtube video below.
(Say what!!! Dina you have a Youtube channel now?! YES I DO! I never thought I would have one. More on this later….)
It was hell of a ride after quitting my job in June 2019, but I survived. Around the time I quit my job, I was making about $1,000 per month in revenue from teaching workshops. Over the next couple of months, I worked my ass off and slowly increased my income by teaching more calligraphy workshops, doing some on-site events, and selling more greeting cards. By December, I had reached a healthy income that was sustainable for my life, woohoo! (Again, easier said than done. I struggled so much during this time and burnt out a lot. Story for another time.)
As COVID began, so did another season begin in my business: I started a coaching business to help calligraphers start businesses
Sad story: In 2020 January, I went to Beijing with my mom for what was supposed to be a month-long trip, but I ended coming back just after five days because of COVID. I was so sad, but health and safety were more important. At the time, COVID didn’t even have a name. I just called it “the coronavirus” or simply “the virus.”
When I came back, I hired my first ever business coach to help me start a coaching business. Ever since I quit my job, I’ve always wanted to start a coaching business to help calligraphers around the world turn their hobby into a business. My big dream has always been to have an online business and I saw starting this coaching business as a good step towards that, while also integrating my passion for helping people.
I had a lot of self-doubt about why I couldn’t be a coach, but my business coach helped me work through those mindset problems and—again, long story short—I launched a 1:1 coaching program and then a group coaching program called the Calligraphy Business Accelerator. In this one year since then, I’ve worked with over 40 calligraphers. I can’t believe it’s only been a year…. Wow.
Now, the Calligraphy Business Accelerator is in its fourth round and I focus less on 1:1 coaching.
So Dina, why are you blogging here again?
It’s been almost two full years since I left my job and I’ve been so caught up in making back my old income after quitting my job and then running these coaching programs that I’ve neglected a huge thing that has brought me joy for years: this blog. Read about why I started this blog.
After I finished the last launch of the Calligraphy Business Accelerator last month, I felt a bit lost. After doing multiple launches back-to-back, I decided that the next launch for this program would be in the fall of this year—5 months away so I could step a bit back and evaluate my overall direction in business and life. In November of last year, I started a Youtube channel dedicated to helping calligraphers start businesses, and I put that on pause too after posting a weekly video for six months non-stop. While I’m so happy that calligraphers have been finding my videos useful, to be honest I felt a bit drained making them (not sure if it’s the actual filming process or something else that I can solve).
I re-evaluated how I wanted to spend my time and how it connects with my purpose.
In the past month, I realized that I was burnt-out by my calligraphy and coaching business. For these two years after I quit my job, I’ve been going non-stop, with teaching workshops, launching coaching programs one after the other, and making Youtube videos. For a long time this month, I thought that the problem was calligraphy itself; I honestly didn’t know if I wanted to continue with this business.
I really really really like calligraphy, teaching workshops and helping calligraphers start businesses, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this forever. There are aspects of this business that I absolutely love, like how I get to meet super cool people from all over the world and help them start a profitable business so they can have more freedom/quit their job/provide more for their family. And I love seeing the transformation that my clients and students in my coaching programs have. I love that, seriously. And it makes me so happy whenever one of my clients gets their first calligraphy customer, hosts a workshop for the first time, overcomes a limiting belief, quits their job, or has a win in their business. I’m so freakin’ grateful and happy that I get to witness all this and be part of their journey.
Something else I wasn’t sure about was continuing with Youtube. It’s draining for me, but what I love about it is that the content in there really helps calligraphers with starting a business.
For the past month, I’ve been racking my brains and digging deep into my heart trying to figure out what the heck I want to do with my business and life. I know there has to be some kind of change, but I don’t know exactly what it is.
I’ve been journaling tons, reading a ton, and stressing out a tiny bit because I’m not sure what I’m doing. I’m in a mid-life crisis in my business right now haha.
Last week, I was journaling with the prompt “If money were no object, what would I do?” and I remembered that one dream of mine was to become a blogger. I loved writing about my journey, organizing thoughts and suggestions into concise blog posts, and sharing them with my friends. So I decided to revive this blog.
This blog website you’re on right now was actually dead for a year. It had so many outdated plugins that the website just completely broke and it didn’t work. Last week, I contacted Bluehost customer service to try to find the issue. Woohoo, I revived this blog! And finally after three years, I’m posting again.
I’m so happy to be writing in here again. When I blog, I can sit for hours and just write. It’s one of those activities where I forget to pee because I enjoy it so much.
So what now?
My current business coach and I did an exercise last week. You might have heard of it: it’s called the Ikigai—a Japanese word meaning “a reason for being”. Basically, your life’s purpose. There’s a book based on the concept that I’m currently reading and I highly recommend it. This is what me and my coach came up with:
I told one of my other mentor’s about my struggle with deciding what to do in my business. He and I did an exercise inspired by Simon Sinek’s Start With Why book, and here’s what we came up with for my purpose.
I inspire people to pursue their dreams confidently so that they can be happy and make the world a better place.
Knowing my purpose, it’s become crystal clear how I should proceed.
I’m going to continue with Dina Calligraphy—teaching calligraphy workshops and helping calligraphers start businesses. I will blog more here—because I love it and because it can also inspire a bigger audience to pursue their dreams. For the Youtube, the content will be half calligraphy-related, and half broader life and business topics.
I’m also going to limit my working hours on Dina Calligraphy to 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. I will dedicate 1-2 hours each day to maintaining this blog or learning new hobbies. This way, I won’t burn out again and I’ll make sure that I give myself the space for creating other things that make me happy.
Thank you for reading this and following along on this journey! A lot of you reading this have never seen this blog before, so if you’re bored, feel free to browse around and read some of the stuff I wrote from 2014-2018 haha.
These are some of my favourite articles:
- How to Learn a Language by Yourself Without Taking Notes or Doing Boring Grammar Exercises
- Bored on a Plane, But At Least There Are Cookies
- From the Diary: My First Marathon Experience
- Review of the Explore Program at Trois-Rivières, Quebec
- Budget Travel Tips: How I Spent $3,700 CAD on my 6-Week Europe Trip
- My Thoughts on Beijing’s Air Pollution
- We “Kicked Ass” at Tsinghua’s Got Talent [Videos]
I’m excited to continue walking this journey with you. Thank you for all your support and for reading! ❤️️
