Dealing with Doubt

I'm going to get vulnerable here. I started this website in March 2025, saw an immediate flurry of sales, which quickly tapered off, a profit margin that is definitely not a Shark Tank dream, and pair all that with the fact that I started to question my overly simplistic design esthetic: the result was a drastically declining motivation to continue to push my brand across social media.

Not only did I have the products I was losing faith in, I had also started this blog with the intent of a monthly post, featuring lessons learned from a life of high-performance sport, and by the time the second month came up, the lack of motivation I speak of had already hit an all-time high: High, low motivation, aka, zero motivation. I abandoned the site and the Instagram account (@relentlessapparel2025) essentially overnight, too fearful to log into either and see the endless rows of analytics showing zero sales, fewer "likes" and definitely no "reposts". Full disclaimer, since I have started this pursuit, I have not even cleared the $56 monthly fee I pay to Shopify to host the website. I'm net negative. Period. End stop. And it sucks. 

Now, all that being said, I still believe so strongly in what Relentless Apparel stands for. Women and girls are barely scratching the surface of what we are capable of in sport as a result of hundreds of years of inequality of opportunity; opportunity that connects to funding, viewership, merchandise, sponsorship investment. Men aren't better and more entertaining at sports because they're better by nature, they're "better" because society has been set up for them to gain traction in the list of things I mentioned above. Relentless Apparel stands for three main things: 1. doing sports like a girl with no shame or apologies because doing it like a girl is not lesser, 2. doing sports like a girl doesn't mean it has to be continually held to the ways of men to get what men get and 3. being relentless in your pursuits despite the hurdles, the systemic barriers of inequality and sexism, and self-doubt is the only way to reach the peak. 

So, I'm back! Since starting the draft of this blog (three weeks ago), and completing it now, I still haven't made a single sale. But I have continued to try. I am still promoting the brand and pushing the message. I have rekindled the Instagram page and had a post with the highest number of views yet (+2000)! This is progress; these are the small steps that I learned to take on my journey to the Olympic podium. How can I sell a brand born out of the learnings of being relentless in the pursuit of Olympic gold to then not proceed with that same level of determination? I realize now that I had a sort of super power when I was rowing. I lost a lot; I performed less well than I wanted more often than I excelled, but I never was deterred. Not once. I might have been angry for an afternoon, a day, maybe a week, but I never ever considered stopping. Stopping wasn't just not an option, it wasn't even a concept to be on the list of options. So here I am, again, not stopping, not being deterred by something not going the way I want right away, and continuing to believe, that even when there is a copious amount of self-doubt, the doubt doesn't have to be the reason something shouldn't be pursued.

Being an Olympian taught me (and I'm going to apply it here) that doubt is not a fact that should inform choice, doubt is a feeling you get when you're stretching beyond the known, and that's exactly where we need to live if want to achieve what we haven't achieved before.