The Turning Point That Changed My Entire Business
- Feb 11
- 3 min read
By Rachel Erickson
For the longest time, I truly believed I could juggle several big goals at once and turn them all into thriving successes. Like many ambitious entrepreneurs, I convinced myself that my drive, passion, and work ethic would somehow make me the exception to every piece of advice I’d ever heard about focus. And for a while, it felt like I was the exception. I had built a successful apparel development agency from scratch, hired an incredible team who believed in the mission as much as I did, and was confidently bringing in a solid five figures every month. Things were stable, exciting, and full of possibility. My goal had always been to grow the agency, and I was genuinely proud of the business it had become. But because it was running smoothly, part of me felt the itch to do more: to stretch myself, to chase more ideas, to build more things.
That’s when I decided to start my own apparel brand. I loved helping others build theirs, so I naturally thought creating my own line would be the next logical step. Within a year, I had fully designed and launched my brand. And if that wasn’t enough, during that same year I also started filming videos that would eventually become my first online course. The ideas were flowing so quickly that I felt like I had to keep up with them. So, I made plans to build a full educational platform for apparel start-ups, a space where founders could learn, grow, and access the knowledge I wished I’d had when I first got started.
From the outside, it probably looked like everything I touched was turning to gold. Three companies. Three visions. Three missions I believed in. But what no one really saw was the weight of it all: the constant switching between roles, the exhaustion of trying to build three entirely different things, and the emotional toll of feeling like none of them were getting the attention they truly needed.
After a few years of trying to grow three different companies at the same time, I finally had to face the truth: I was making a huge mistake. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t operating at my best, and neither were the businesses. Something had to change.
The first big realization was that my heart wasn’t actually in selling my own apparel pieces. I loved the creative process, sure, but selling my own products didn’t light me up the way helping other founders did. I didn’t want to compete with the very people I was trying to support. I wanted to help them bring their ideas to life. So we made the tough but necessary decision to stop producing new pieces and move through the rest of the inventory.
Once the final items sold, we officially shut down my travel apparel line. It was bittersweet, but it was the right move.
Next came an even bigger shift: choosing to put all our efforts into the online course and networking community, what would ultimately become The Business of Apparel. Instead of splitting my time, my energy, and my creativity across multiple directions, we decided to pour everything into one. And honestly? It changed everything. The Business of Apparel has been our core focus ever since, and because of that, it’s finally starting to grow in the way I’d always imagined. When you give something your full attention, it shows. It expands. It deepens. It flourishes.
Looking back, I can say without hesitation that I learned this lesson the hard way: you MUST focus on one big goal at a time. I had heard this advice over and over again from mentors, business books, podcasts—you name it. And every time, I thought, “Well… maybe I’m different. Maybe I can handle more.” But there is no exception to this rule. Not for me. Not for anyone.
So if I could give you one piece of advice, it would be this: choose the goal that matters most. Choose the goal that will change everything for your business and your life if (and only if) you give it your full attention. Commit to making that one thing better and better every single day until it becomes exactly what you want it to be. Then, and only then, move on to your next big goal.
You can do many things over the course of your life, but you can’t build them all at the same time. Focus isn’t limiting. It’s freeing. It’s the thing that allows you to build something truly great.
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