Have you ever noticed that once you start to make significant changes in your life everything starts to shift and dance and, frankly, crash around you, all at the same time? I’ve seen this happen to many people many times and have lived through it myself more than once.
Almost the minute I made the very frightening decision to jump with both feet into self-employment from my secure, stable, and salaried job of 12 years, my life started to fall apart. A health condition that had been worsening over six years resulted in a surgery that laid me up just when I entered the Land of No Work and No Pay.
Our one-car family became a two-car family due to my transition and one month later, the original vehicle decided to blow it's engine during rush hour while I was driving it on a major Chicago route. My computer crashed and I lost everything (not great for a largely web-based business) and our furnace died. This meant the purchase of a new furnace, air conditioner, and hot water heater.
Had I known any of these things would be happening, I would not have left my job! As it was, self-employment terrified me. I was certain that a life of macaroni and cheese and 10/$1 ramen noodles was before me. Despite the fears, I knew I had no other choice. This was what I sincerely wanted to do, so I leapt...and leapt right into every fear I had, and a few I had forgotten to consider (like having my health crisis).
I hear similar stories from my clients all the time. Making the commitment to pursue major life changes sometimes sends seismic waves through our lives. Understandably, we may be tempted to respond by fighting it, panicking, and taking the instability as a sign that we should retreat. We say things like “I can’t deal with that now, I have to finish this first.” “Why did this have to happen now, just when I was focusing on this other stuff?” “Maybe this is a sign (that this is the wrong direction)!”
Article comments
1 - Howard Dratch
Laura. Good advice and fair warning to people on the cusp of change. Still, the gain of change is worth the pain.
I left my secure job of 11 years for the vagaries of freelance writing and photography in 1981. Perhaps it was the raw clams at a wedding I shot (I hate weddings!) but I spent nearly 6 months with hepatitus. Accompanied by the need to learn how to photograph and to find clients. In the end I did and the pleasure of 18 years doing what I wanted was worth all the pain.
I, luckily or wisely, have a supportive wife who, along with her parents, never thought much of my being a social worker nor working for the State of New York. She starved with me and worked with me and together we carved out the life we wanted. It took work. It took support.
Good advice, Laura.
2 - Ron Reisman
I wish that I could take the leap to become self employed, although I do not see myself doing it full time until I am retired, I love to take photos and sell them on websites but I do not even clear $100 a month doing that so I still have a long ways to go..:)
3 - Laura Young
So think through the mode by which you are selling your wares. The internet is SOOOO image rich that I think selling photos this way (if that is the only way people can find you) is going to be a very uphill battle. You may be Ansel Adams but if you only showcase your work at flea markets (the web is a flea market of images, available for a song if not outright pirated), then no one will ever know you. Give your work the attention and venue that shows you respect it, then others will be more apt to take you seriously instead of thinking you are just one more guy with a digital camera trying to make a buck.
With me?