A decade of Katie Jane Interiors

So…it’s been a decade. 10 years. I started this website in 2014 and here it is…2024. You can’t “math mountain” that any differently- it’s a pile of years and it adds up to 10. It’s a collection of stories and a small blog journey that culminates in a decade of design and personal reflections. I did an anniversary post a year in- Why I really started a Blog– back in 2015. I explained my intentions with the blog as simply-

“I was not the first person to jump on the bandwagon of Facebook or this crazy blogging thing, but in my soul I have always been a writer.”

I haven’t changed all that much about the blog over the years even though a lot has changed for me. I edited the “About” page and then edited it back. I have a strange attachment to what this all was when I started it. When I pull the first couple of photo shoots I can instantly feel the thrill of the day I took them. I remember the calm winter morning, my only day off from work for the week. This may just be a photograph of marshmallows- but it’s so much more to me.

It was a chance to express myself. To take all my talents and create a place where I had my own authority over my voice. It was my opinion so I could speak freely. It was my own photography so I didn’t need permission to share it. It was my own brand so I could benefit from as much work as I wanted to put into it. I encourage anyone with this much creativity to take the time to do something like this for yourself.

I was 6 years into a sales and design consultant job that was starting to wear me down and this blog saved me. It completely rejuvenated me. 2014 still stands as one of my most successful years in sales at that company. I will always use this as proof that it isn’t the quantity of hours spent prospecting and working leads in sales- it’s the quality of the work. It’s how you feel about that work. I poured most of my free time into my blog posts, time I am sure the company would have recommended other tasks for if they knew I was willing to give it to the job. But it was my time and it was my choice.

And that’s a common misconception in sales. That there is always more to give to the “job” instead of seeing the investment in yourself as equally important to the success of the work. Most of the time it’s not the product or the procedure, it’s the person. We see burnout because the person stops being inspired. It was the confidence I had going into the meetings with potential clients that earned me the contracts. It was a confidence that came from having a voice. An excitement for creation that was contagious to people thinking of building a new house.

I was with that company for 10 years. A decade. I left because my life was about to change in some big ways and I wasn’t willing to reinvent myself there again. That was 5 years ago. I’ve had another successful sales career since then with another company. Successful in the sense that I was good at what I was selling and I was always very financially secure. But some companies just don’t speak to your soul. Sometimes it just isn’t a fit. If I’m guilty of one thing in my professional life it is trying too hard to make something work, to thinking I can always be the change that’s needed. I had a tenacity to prove I could do anything. Make any goal. But I recently wrote about how I have nothing left to prove and it’s the truth.

I don’t regret the challenges. The lows have led me here, to create an entire website of inspiration. Perhaps that is why I love this part of my story. Love those inexperienced first posts. Love something as mundane as a picture of pink marshmallows. They remind me of a time when I turned the tables. When I succeeded by following my instincts. They remind me to bet on myself when the chips are down.

I began this whole thing with a simple post entitled “And so it begins…”

I am proud to say- “and so it continues…”