Self-employment Week: 78
“There’s no more work for all of us to do together for the rest of the year.”
is how I lost my biggest client last week.
Times are weird, some businesses are scaling up and some are scaling down.
So as it stood, in these weird times, I would be left making next to nothing in the coming month(s).
Losing the client that helped me take the leap towards self-employment, to begin with.
There have been less drastic versions of this scenario that have taken place multiple times during the course of the last 1.5 years of self-employment and when they did, I have always taken solace in the fact that whatever happened, I knew I could just get a job.
I have lived with the (personal) belief that getting a job is the easiest thing to accomplish.
But this time, on this random Tuesday, when I experienced the freelancing version of ‘being laid off’, my first thought wasn’t that “I can just get a job”
My first thought was, “Cool, it’ll be nice to work on something new after so long.”
2nd thought:
“Damn, I can’t believe my first thought wasn’t to think of getting a job.”
3rd thought:
“Wait, should I get a job?”
4th thought:
“Nah, I don’t think anyone would give me a job.”
5th thought:
“Great, let’s figure this out then”
This is the kind of progress I could’ve only hoped to reach a few years from now.
I stopped checking LinkedIn jobs every single day only a few months ago.
I stopped applying to jobs I thought were interesting only a few weeks ago.
I stopped believing I couldn’t do this for the rest of my life only a few days ago.
I think this is what progress looks like for us on our own path.
We don’t have promotions and raises.
Making more money is a complicated goal. While I do have some material aspirations, I realize I never start a month with a desire to just make more money.
So, what can we track? How we do know we’re moving forward?
We do it by challenging our beliefs and we celebrate the days that we discover that we’re different now.
That we now think & react differently, we make decisions based on different priorities, we have different fears and we develop a different tolerance.
These types of progress markers might seem smaller or not worthwhile compared to something more traditional like trying to increase my clients every single month.
But they do move me forward.
If I had immediately jumped to all the worst-case scenarios about losing this client:
Worst case scenario #1
If this business is doing bad, every business in this industry must be doing bad and hence I probably would never get a client again therefore getting a job is the smartest decision right now.
Worst case scenario #2
What if the amount I was making with this client was a fluke and I can never go back to making how much I want to make again? Why should my partner compromise on our quality of life just because I want to work for myself?
Worst case scenario #3
I had a great setup with this client. What if I never find something this flexible? What if it’s all a myth?
If I let these thoughts instead of:
This is what I’ve been saving my money for.
This is what I have been mentally preparing for.
Thinking it’s all over is not the advice I would give someone else in my position right now.
You’re just losing some money, all you have to do is replace it.
If I let the worst-case scenarios take over, then where I’d be right now is with a couple of job applications / a week of confusion.
As opposed to where I am right now which is already having replaced the client + a ton of excitement and clarity about the work I want to do for atleast the next 12 months.
That’s why working on your beliefs matters.
And that’s why this is the progress I care to track.
If the goal is to be on this path and work for yourself for as long as possible, making money is important, yes.
It’s tangibly the only thing that will decide whether you need to quit and settle for something else or not. You run out of money, you’re done.
But I don’t think that means that’s all you track or celebrate.
A money problem might be the thing that finally will make you go get a job. But the decision to do it has nothing to do with money.
Because the decision to revert back to the default path doesn’t actually happen in a day. It happens so incrementally. Small things make you start seeing what others see as desirable.
Every day is an opportunity to make progress towards this identity or if you don’t, the world will pull you into their default identity.
And then, something big like losing a client or a slow month happens, money comes into the picture,
and your brain convinces you to seek safety rather than explore possibilities.
This is the 25th issue of my newsletter and I have had the most magical time exploring my thoughts on being self-employed with you.
If you’ve been reading a few issues, I’d really love it if you would reply to this one letting me know why you find these topics personally interesting and how it’s helping you on your journey.
Thank you for being here.
Things are tough out there, keep hanging there my friend ✨