It’s the start of a new year and we think, “New Year, New Me!”. I love the New Year. It is filled with new resolutions, clean slates, fresh starts and most importantly hope.

Well that’s how the start of last year was for me. I had started a new website, one specifically based on faith and entrepreneurship. After a year’s worth of writing, almost 100 blog posts in and finally gaining traction, I thought the end of the year would give me the fruits of the hard labor I had been putting in!

I was wrong. It ended with my website having to close down.

Wait…what?!

I thought that this is what I was supposed to do? I worked so hard? How did it end this way? Needless to say for many people the end of the year is wrought with disappointment and failures.

Failure to reach that goal weight. Failure to publish that book. Failure to change jobs. Failure to get out of debt. And after year after year of failure after failure we look at ourselves in the mirror and think that WE are failures.

And that’s why we love the New Year. Because we can look at ourselves in the mirror full of hope and say “This year will be different”.

This website was a hard lesson for me. It hurt to lose it. I mean it was called Faith Filled Entrepreneur! I was full of faith and hope and it ended in failure.

Or so I thought.

I learned so much this past year. Learned so much about website building, SEOs, marketing, social media and writing a good blog post. Not only that, but I also learned what works and what doesn’t (insert “shrug’ emoji). I also had some question marks in the air. I had things I was putting on the backburner as I put so much time into this new project. And now I have already made blogs to repurpose into something newer and better!

Not only that but it answered the questions for other projects and things I wanted to put my effort into. It opened up my schedule for more. It gave me clarity on where to go next.

My biggest lesson from this past year…sometimes a closed door IS an answer to the question “Where do I go from here?”. A closed door IS an answer to “What do I do next?”. A closed door IS an answer to “What is my next step?”.

Yes, grieve the closed door. I did. But then quickly get back up and look for the next open door that will lead you to the purpose you were created for!