“So, how’s everything going in Spain?” — Justifying my social media appearance to everyone at home.
It’s such a simple question, yet one I find infinitely difficult to answer. Why is it that I find recognising my day-to-day achievements and describing them to people so damn difficult…?
I’m a UK freelancer, and earlier this year I made the decision to take a big cut to my income and spend a couple of months focussing exclusively on my fledgling start-up idea, whilst also having a delightful time in Barcelona. I’m incredibly lucky that I was in a position to be able to do this.
Now, 5 months later, I find myself going back into remote freelance work for two reasons, 1) because I have outright hit the point of my savings where I’d like to be paid, please, and 2)(quite honestly)because I’ve been finding it really, really hard to acknowledge to myself the value in the work that I’m doing day-to-day, and my professional self-esteem has taken a bit of a beating.
I’m a ‘freelance project manager’ not working on any freelance contracts, an ‘entrepreneur’ with no business yet, a ‘digital nomad’ staying in one place (ish), and I sometimes just feel a bit directionless.
In taking on some part-time work remotely whilst staying in Barcelona, I can resolve a couple of these conflicts and give myself a bit of an value boost for glorious positivity into the future with my continued entrepreneurial activities.
However, something about going back feels like *erm* going backwards. So I’m writing this entirely self-congratulatory blog post as an effort to commit to the internet (and convince myself) all of the reasons why the last 5 months have not been a failure.
Onwards to glory.
In no particular order, some things I’ve done this year that I’m pretty proud of:
I went to work every day.
Sometimes I was later than I wanted to be, or was unproductive, or got distracted. But still, every day that was considered a ‘work’ day, I got up, and I went to my desk for the day, wherever that was.
After many attempts with various other options, I even found a great to-do list manager and CRM called Insightly that I LOVE, and that I actually use.
I didn’t miss a single Spanish lesson.
2-hour classes, twice a week, every week that we were in Spain. Maybe I didn’t always do my homework, but I turned up, I got involved, and I got much, much better at Spanish.
I attended a business meeting entirely in Spanish and got the gist of it, I managed to travel around Cuba and communicate everything I needed to (despite being incredibly ill at one point), I got drunk a couple of times and managed extended house-party conversations, I can read websites without pressing ‘translate’ in my browser, and I have successfully complained twice in shops. There’s big progress here.
I tried my first business idea.
This one took up a lot of my time over the last few months; I built a hosted website, created a product, did a load of budgeting and finances, developed all of the content, wrote a business plan, researched and created an entire marketing and social media plan.
Then I tested my first attempt and it was totally rubbish. Bringing me on to my next achievement…
I did a load of research and I changed my plan.
I learnt what Design Thinking is, and then I roughly applied the principles. I spoke to everyone who would give me information. I interviewed 12 different people, 43 people completed my online survey, I spoke to all of my friends and family, my co-working colleagues, random people I met in bars, friends of friends.
I wrote everything up into a crazy post-it-notes-taking-over-the-entire-kitchen display of stuff. I spent weeks looking at it, thinking about it, being surprised by what people had told me. How much more complex the issues were than I had assumed.
And then I completely changed my business idea.
Doing this is perhaps one of the most scary things I’ve done this year. And as part of the process, I realised that the shiny idea in my head of a perfect product and the ‘business’ that I was working towards had a much more simple, practical version . A testing ground. An MVP. So…
I made a thing. An actual thing.
I started the BCN Fun Science Meetup Group (currently 185 members). I’ve run 3 events so far this year, all of which were better attended than I expected (between 7–15 people per event). Two more are already scheduled and looking popular, with more in the works. It’s gaining momentum, and it’s a real-life thing that I made.
I’m working with EU-wide research groups (BIBAFOODS), major international conferences (Biomimetic Summit) and loads of different local researchers to develop exciting content. I convinced an amazing German magnet company — supermagnete — to come on board as our first sponsor with free kit so we can play with electrical trains in future.
The BCN Fun Science Meetup Group doesn’t make money, but it was never supposed to. It’s a space to have fun, test activities, play with things and make sure that the enthusiasm for science-play that I imagine in adults is a real, verifiable thing. (It is, FYI.)
[+1 month edit: 250 Members, latest meetup had 29 attendees, I’ve got a shiny new website to try my hand at my first sales (in progress; watch this space), and I was featured in the newspaper! *fist-bump*]
Along the way, I learnt simple HTML + CSS.
Built me a range of kick-ass websites…. Check out www.sciencekitty.com. Made that, I did. Mobile responsive an’ everythin’.
I asked for help.
Not always been my strong suit, but I’m practicing. From seeking informal help and asking questions from the amazing people in Betahaus Barcelona to actively finding mentors, founding a regular Mastermind Group and plaguing Leanne Summers with questions, I actually asked for help. And then I listened to the answers and let them inform my decisions.
How mature of me.
I gave my help to other people without expecting anything back.
Some of my ideas are shaping the incredible things other people are making, and that’s really exciting to see.
I got robbed. Twice.
Not my finest moments (whiney blog post about it here), but I was together enough that I was at least partly insured both times. Small victories.
I’m also now much better at police-Spanish.
I did my tax return early.
Suck it, HMRC.
(Despite my boring finances chat…)
I was painfully sociable.
Board games, skype dates, cartoon drawing classes on the terrace, visitors in our spare room almost every weekend, drinks, parties, festivals, family visits, street fiestas. An excess of holidays that at one point even got a bit stressful — Skiing, London, Cuba, London, Primavera Sound, Mallorca.
I learnt that I can ‘function’ and apparently continue to party after 6 nights in a row of not going to bed before 4am and getting up less than 5 hours later.
It’s been absolutely mental, but I’ve loved every minute of it, and making new friends in a different country whilst also staying in touch with your old friends is totally winning (but if you lose access to Whatsapp cos your phone got robbed then you’re screwed).
I genuinely cared about politics (1st time).
Brexit is happening anyway and I’m heartbroken. But I tried.
I re-read my novel.
I also told some people about it, so there’s imaginary pressure for me to get round to editing and writing the other half.
I won a ridiculous bet.
Marianne Alton. Doing me proud since 2007.
I watched a different TED talk every day.
Approximately.
I scooted without death.
‘cos now I’m a badass.
I spent a LOT of time with this guy.
He’s my favourite. Don’t tell anyone.
With incredible ongoing support from this one, it’s been an insane 5 months — only made more crazy in retrospect by this process of actually taking a step back and looking at all of the things I’ve done, all of the ways that I have pushed myself, tackled new ideas and forced myself to keep trying.
Sometimes, it’s been really hard work. Seeing it all laid out like this though is kind of magical.
I guess my biggest achievement of the year so far is that I gave it everything I had; I took risks, I did things that scared me. I got my nose pierced. I talked my way into a meeting with a high-up person in a pharma company and then pitched them brave consultancy projects. I made my first tiny steps in trying to sell the upgraded version of my start-up idea. I went back to a previous freelance role and got them to take out all the bits I hated and then offer me a different role, doing a job I think I might like better.
I started something.
Not entirely sure exactly what it is yet, but I guess that’s what the next 6 months of 2016 are for…
