How to think about your business
So it works for your life, instead of running you.
The honest version
How I accidentally changed my life.
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Before
Capable, but not reaching my potential.
I spent fifteen years working in beauty, constantly juggling multiple jobs. Bridal makeup artist, Land Rover reception shifts, bank work, bar work. Always busy, always working, always chasing the next booking. From the outside it looked fine, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was capable of more than I was letting myself build.
Then at twenty-five, everything stopped. An anxiety breakdown took two years of my life and forced me to rethink what success was actually supposed to look like. I promised myself I'd never build another career that cost me my health.
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The turn
I saw an opportunity, and went for it.
I tried to grow within the beauty industry first. Permanent makeup paid better, but it never quite clicked.
Then I discovered fine line tattooing. There wasn't some huge lightbulb moment, I just remember thinking: "if I don't do this now, someone else will." So I trained. I started before I felt ready, and I built a calm little studio at home. People booked. Then they came back, more than once. Then they told their friends.
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The build
Fully booked, before I ever taught.
Building Petite Ink, line by line Within a year, I was fully booked three to four days a week. Not once, and not lucky for a month, I was fully booked for three years straight. Tattooing gave me the flexibility, creativity and income I'd been looking for all along.
Only then did I start teaching. Because I realised other women were asking the same questions I'd asked myself: could I really do this? Could I make it work? Could I build a career from it?
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Now
Life looks very different these days.
I closed my bridal makeup business. My husband has retired, at 42, and we now home-educate our two girls. I work three or four days a week doing something I genuinely love.
Petite Ink has grown into a multi six-figure tattoo, training and mentoring business. Not because I had a perfect plan. Not because I was fearless. But because I backed myself before I felt ready.
My exact journey isn't what I'm promising you. But it's proof that ordinary women are capable of extraordinary things when they finally stop waiting for permission.