How to take myself seriously

How to take myself seriously

My post on navigating the road blocks to getting started with a Tarot business was inspired by a previous post on cleaning up your “money is dirty” mindset. I had a complicated relationship with the first post, and especially because there’s a section on the power of positive thinking: it took me a long, long time for the phrase “positive thinking” to stop being a trigger for my depression and anxiety. It also mentioned a few tips for taking yourself seriously with money, but it seemed like the same things people say all over the internet. I want the nitty-gritty. How do you set up a PayPal account for business? What about keeping track of receipts for growing your business? Is the IRS going to care about what I’m doing?

Some of these questions are also barriers to getting started for me, because anxiety likes to latch on to “what ifs” and turn them into full-blown awful scenarios. So yesterday, inspired by my therapist telling me to Just Open For Business Already, I sat down and tried to figure out the answers to some of my questions.

  • How do I accept payments? Is PayPal the only way to go? Haven’t I heard of a Google option? Are there any other, better options?
    I’ve heard of drama with using PayPal in the past, and I’m wary of supporting a company that limits free expression. However, after asking around for similar money-processing sites, I think PayPal will be the best option because it’s better-known and its terms of use are not as ridiculous as Google Wallet’s. Google Wallet’s terms are trying to dictate moral behavior, whereas as near as I can tell, PayPal’s are “don’t use it for anything illegal”. Other sites just are not as well known for me to start with.
  • What’s the best way for me to put aside money that’s specifically for Witchling in Flight purposes?
    I’m going to open a separate bank account purely for this. That will make it easier to track fees and income. I’m sure there will eventually be business-related expenses (though, actually, this domain itself is an expense), and it will be good to be able to see straight from a different account what kind of expenses I will have and how much I’ll get from it.
  • How do I want to word my code of ethics?
    Call it a code of ethics or a disclaimer. I want to put into writing before I do Tarot readings for people who aren’t friends what to expect from a reading and what not to expect. While I doubt I’ll run into trouble with clients to begin with, it never hurts to have a disclaimer in place. Still, figuring out what I care about is time- and energy-consuming!
  • And, the “duh” question, what spreads do I want to offer and for how much?
    I’m still figuring out this question for now! Along with what format to email the querent the reading, do I want to make a super-shiny PDF to send people, if so how should it look, etc.! And that doesn’t even begin what I want the design on this site to look like—since I had to get Witchling in Flight started somewhat quickly, I had to use the most bland theme I could find right away. Now I’m trying to figure out how I want this to look, and that is decidedly not my specialty, but I’m going to figure it out.

I think taking these questions seriously, and starting with a conscious mindset that I want to provide this service to people, is taking ME seriously. I could probably be running for the hills right now, putting fingers in my ears and yelling “na na na na I can’t hear you” when I think about being an adult with responsibilities, but instead I’m researching my options for getting started. No, I doubt I’ll make enough money in the next few months for the IRS to take notice, but if I set things up so that I have records for the future, that’s taking me seriously enough to flourish. Not haphazardly putting up a “donate” button and getting an investigation into my account once (not if!) I make enough money. This is a real investment in myself, and if I take it seriously, maybe my readers will, too. I certainly hope you do!

The bonus is that if you search for blog posts on the topic of setting up your blog for business, none of them talk about the actual logistics of earning income. In fact, my search resulted in the first 6 or 7 articles looking like they had all been written by the same person! The tips were all geared toward finding readers, which is an important first step, but real logistics of how you’re going to get that income and keep track of it is a great thing to set up in advance.

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