Fearless in the face
of change
As I’ve grown older I’ve realised that I’ve never truly been scared of change. But I have let other peoples fear of change influence me from time to time. It’s difficult to have confidence in your own abilities and to maintain your self determination to shape your future into what you want it to be. We all have an innate need for validation, to know that the choices we make are the right ones. I still struggle with this and I suspect I always will.
When I decided to go freelance, almost 6 years ago, I spoke to many friends and family about my intentions. Responses ranged from “That’s great, good luck!” to “Ryan, you have a steady, secure income. Not everyone can say that!”. When I eventually decided to “take the plunge” a big part of me felt like I was being irresponsible. Our first baby had just been born, my wife was still on maternity leave and this was during the start of the recession and crash of the housing market. We’d just moved into a bigger house (so we had somewhere to store our new baby) and we couldn’t sell our first house. We still haven’t for that matter… I had one client I was working with and about 1 months worth of money in the bank. Despite all of this my wonderful wife was supportive and encouraging. I was depressed, and she knew that I needed to make a big change in my life to be happy again. She believed in me and that helped me believe in myself. I plunged.
“If your not happy, change something” became a bit of an internal mantra for me.
Not long after I went freelance, my wife decided she wanted in on the “making a big change” action. After 10 years working in the health service in various administrative roles she wanted to do something completely different. She applied for university to become a Midwife. After a 1 year access course, 3 year full-time degree and 1 year maternity leave in the middle to have our second baby, she is now a qualified (with a 1st Class with Honours degree no less) and practicing Midwife at Bradford Royal Infirmary. I couldn’t be prouder.
If I’d not gone freelance we wouldn’t have been in a position for me to be able to support her for that duration of time on a single income so that alone has made the decision worthwhile.
Sleep is a luxury I can’t afford
The last year in particular, although ultimately rewarding, have been very hard for everyone. 3rd year Midwifery students at Bradford are required to case-load (look after the same women from initial booking through to delivery), alongside placements and coursework. It’s a stressful time for them. My wife would often come home with tales of her fellow Midwives breaking up with their boyfriends and husbands (she assured me she wasn’t making any hints in this regard *wipes brow*), falling into depression and in some cases leaving the course entirely.
“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
When your circumstances are hard for a long period of time, the strain becomes the norm. You loose all perspective of the situation and the little things start to get to you.
For me it was an overwhelming need to provide a better quality of life for my family. I was working hard but we were still living month to month. At the end of the 2013/2014 financial year I realised I’d spent half of my companies annual turn over on subcontractors. Hiring other freelancers like myself. There’s nothing wrong with that, I needed them and they did good work. I enjoy putting great teams together to produce better work for my clients. But if I’m honest, I looked at those numbers on my accounts and I was pissed off. I wanted some of that money for us. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. One of the things that really grated at me was that we’d never been on a family holiday abroad. Me and the wife hadn’t been abroad together since our honeymoon 7 years earlier. “I work hard dammit, I should be able to take my family on holiday!” This self-imposed need to provide resulted in me putting even more pressure on myself.
I started taking on even more work, in particular back-end development work. I did save money on subcontractor costs. We went on a family holiday to Spain in May 2014. The kids loved it. But that came at a cost and that cost was my health. I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I was in constant pain with my back from sitting too long, I was putting on weight and I was stressed. I couldn’t maintain this workload and the rational part of me knew it.
I was also losing all enjoyment for the profession. I haven’t been tweeting, socialising with my peers, attending conferences or writing. I’ve become pretty aloof
That’s about to change!
Wiping the slate clean
Now that we’ve crossed the finish line I’ve been given some breathing room. I’ve sat back and looked at my career, the work I’m doing and where I want to go from here. It’s become apparent that to get to where I want to be, I needed help. I needed to find someone who shares my ambition, whos great at what they do and who compliments my skills perfectly. I found this guy:
Just as an aside: Can you imagine walking into a client meeting with this guy?!? “Hi I’m Ryan, nice to meet you, this is Brad, don’t worry about the surfboard he takes that everywhere.” I so wish he still looked like this!
At the net awards 2013 I met this tyke of a designer called Dan Edwards. Dan and I have worked together a lot over the last 18 months or so and we built oozled, a resource library for designers and developer. Dan had been going through a similar “web life crisis” (See what I did there?… OK move along…) and we’ve had many long discussions about where we want to go with our careers. The culmination of these talks has resulted in us formed a new agency: No Divide.
You can learn more about us at nodivide.us.
We’re excited about our companies future. We’re excited about welcoming new talent into the team. We’re excited about developing the ideas we have for how we’re going to operate and grow. Basically there’s a lot of excitment going around. Something that has been sorely missed for far too long.
If you want to work with us, then please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
