Part 6: My First Online Class: The Willa Journals Course
This is the sixth post in a series about how The Willa Workshops on willawanders.com came to be.
Part 6
At this point, four things happen that make it possible for me to overcome all of my resistance about at least trying to create an online course.
The first and possibly the most important thing is that I have a conversation with Caylee from Get Messy about the resistence I have to showing my hands on video. I have really pudgy hands and if your whole life you’ve been told that “you are too big,” it’s totally understandable that you would want to completely fade into oblivion and not draw attention to your body.
Caylee totally helped me to overcome this fear by letting me know that she had the same fear about showing her hands on video because she bit her cuticles. Knowing that someone I respected and adored so much overcame her own resistence totally helped me to overcome mine.
Secondly, I start burning out on making and selling Willa Journals. They are simply too labor intensive in relation to what I feel I can charge for each one (roughly $175 to $275 USD). I’m back to where I was twenty years before with realizing that making and selling your handcrafted goods gets you, at best, to poverty level income. I’m just not cut out for that. My nature is too eager and ambitious. I’m growing weary and no matter how much I charge for a custom handmade journal, it doesn’t add up to much of anything.
Third, the pandemic happened. Suddenly we’re all not leaving our houses and many of the things that used to fill my time vanish. This opens up enough time in my week to consider trying something new that is 100% doable from home.
And lastly, DJ Pettit and I decide to jump in to this filming and editing thing together. She too wanted to release an online course and had no experience in doing it. Since working with another person had helped me in the past with starting and growing a printing company, I knew that “partnering up” had it’s benefits. Two heads are always better than one and DJ and I didn’t need to enter a legal partnership in order to release an online class together. We gave each other the confidence that each one of us lacked on our own and we started filming and editing practice videos.
(DJ has since decided that she isn’t up for creating online classes due to health issues, but she is still creating amazing art up in the Pacific Northwest, albeit more slowly than she used to).
All of these things help me to go from “I’m never releasing online courses” to “I’m actually doing this thing!”
Approximately ten months after the start of the pandemic, I release and sell my first ever online course, The Willa Journals Course. The response to this course blows my mind. Not only do people purchase the class in much greater numbers than I could have imagined (don’t forget, I have a pretty big Instagram following at this point), but purchasers rave about this class. This positive feedback on every level became the next fire that was lit inside of me and continues to burn to this day.
Filming, editing and releasing The Willa Journals Course, the class that started this thing I call Willa Workshops, would never had happened if even one of the things that I’ve mentioned hadn’t have happened.
My husband likes to say, “If one thing were different, everything would be different.”
If my daughter Maya hadn’t started that slime business (more on that in the next chapter) . . .
If I hadn’t had that conversation with Caylee about our hands . . .
If I hadn’t pissed off my art crush . . .
If I hadn’t needed to do all my homework about handmade books and copyright infringement that led to me connecting with DJ . . .
EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED.
To be continued . . .
Leave a comment below and keep reading by clicking the green button right here:
Well, this story just goes on and on. Glad you’re still with me! Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
