Gears….

Matthew Pye
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

I’ve been self-employed for the best part of a decade. It’s been a roller coaster with high highs, low lows, steady at times and bumpy as shit quite often too.

I seem to remember that in 2007 the word entrepreneur was assigned to those that had made it, and were riding high, living off the back of their creation or service. The only Guru you’d find lived high up in the mountains of Tibet, a Coach was another word for a bus or someone who showed you how to do sport and a Mentor was half man half bull, or something…

A flood of apps, ideas, MLM products and the ‘look at me aren’t i fucking great’ side of Social Media and now anyone can hashtag themselves out as an entrepreneur. And i wish them all the luck on the planet.

I don’t refer to myself as this, frankly i find the word douchey as hell. I work for myself, I’m self employed, providing services to business so that they can promote, market and function as well as possible. Or something like that. Self analysis isn’t my strong point, i probably need some Guru help with that. I also, on occasion need help with focus.

I’m currently wondering about energy and focus for self employed people. Some of us are naturally energetic and focused and i’m sure they could teach me a thing or two, which i would probably ignore.

What i am starting to realize about myself is that i have gears. I also have a park gear, reverse gear and a crash gear. I’ve got the cold at the moment which has meant I've slipped into park, reverse and crash this week. Mid-afternoon yesterday i frankly slipped out altogether and started to question the point of what i was doing entirely. I am a tad highly strung when feeling grotty.

All that changed today was that instead of sweating it out in my home office, i took my laptop and went to a really nice, kind of fancy cafe with solid WiFi. And the change was instant, i slipped through the gears and have put in solid hours and more importantly have produced in that time too. The change in location, sights, sounds and ambiance had a profound effect on me. Now i’m not sure if i should do it every week, in case it becomes too normal, but it won’t hurt to try.

I seem to be able to focus better when there is white noise around me, rather than in my own space where i can procrastinate and faff about to my hearts content. My energy comes from my sunbeams at home, so i have tonnes of that, but I can have all the energy in the world, if I can’t channel it then its useless, my gears slip and i don’t produce.

So there we go, as always no real point to this, the thoughts are fragmented as is my mind. But if you are struggling to get down to something and you are self employed than maybe a change of venue could let you snap back into focus and get what needs to be done, done.

That’ll be all.

Till next time…

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