Some lessons from my self employment

It’s pretty late on a Tuesday evening. I’m watching Louis Theroux on Netflix and thinking “I’m bloody fortunate not to live in Lagos”. They never really sell this in as the self employment dream — they save the stories of fancy dinners and constant happiness for that.

I often find it difficult to be open about things to the right people, and with self employment I have lived with some significant ups and downs, of which I think it’s best to share with my family, friends and anyone that can really read this. I find it important to document the journeys you undertake — sadly however I live in a digital age, so the traditional journal went well out the window.

Therefore here is an impulsive post. Very impulsive — so excuse any spelling mistakes and/or obvious errors.

Mental health is really important

Now I don’t claim to have been depressed. I’ve been down and I’ve been stressed. The two together can give you those feelings but really it’s about how you choose to make the plan to move yourself through that feeling.

I found myself coming across a post from Joe Scarboro entitled “The Sadness a Billon Dollars Can Bring and the Importance of Mental Health”. This was at a time I was finding the whole work and life balance really hard and, actually, was completely disregarding how to keep myself healthy. It was a case of going out of my way to attend to client needs and making sure I tick the right boxes for them. I wanted to be impressionable and in exchange I was sacrificing my own happiness at times. Stumbling across this post was timed perfectly for me to really grab the possibility of depression by it’s horns and realise to myself — I’m better than what I am forcing myself to be.

Subsequently there is a group of people that know the insides and the outs. To the family that think this is crazy and they haven’t heard about it — I can only apologise. Some things are just hard to admit when you push to make you very lovely people proud.

Family and Friends take even more precedence

You’d think this was obvious really, but I’ll tell you very straight forwards… it really isn’t obvious. Not when you’re pushing yourself and feeling you need to better yourself, stuck in your own little bubble.

I am crap at the Family thing. I’ll be the first to admit it. I think I see my family in Yorkshire maybe twice a year, my family in Devon about the same, and my Sister in Reading (and I am in London!) just as much. Since locking down to this new approach, and actually for the first few months working from home and getting serious cabin fever, it made me really appreciate even more the time with my family and getting to just simply hang out with them.

Friends too — it’s been difficult at times to find the balance. Particularly as I went through some form of health kick and decided to try and not drink. I always found that much of my friendship circles were actually the people I worked with, so it was a massive culture shock to find me working alone and not having people to laugh with, share lunch with and throw expletives across the room at.

I am very fortunate to have some great housemates, but I was unfortunate in the sense of they weren’t exactly around during the day when you needed that camaraderie. So I made much more of an effort to grab coffees with people, keep striking up connections with people and making sure that I had human interaction in my life every day.

Physical health is actually a thing

You wouldn’t exactly think that it would be a discussion point really. Everyone should be active where possible and actually, when in a full time job, I was much less active than self employment.

A friend of mine, George, would probably state this is a bit of a humble brag but I am in the best shape of my life and probably the healthiest I have ever been too. It all comes down to the fact however I get to balance my own time and subsequently I make sure I’ve got an hour for the gym everyday, I’m cooking actual meals and I’m not having lunch at my desk (which was always a horrendous Tesco meal deal — sorry Tesco).

And being in better physical health has really helped me in many other ways. I feel much more productive, I wake up earlier which means my days can be better planned and I have started developing little habits to my day that help me structure it much more than I ever did before.

DON’T work from home

So this is a very simple point — just don’t mix up your work and life. I was working from the room I slept in and it just felt like I could never turn my brain off. That subsequently causes you to not be as attentive in your personal life, and that’s really not good for the people around you.

Find a good workspace for you, of which I am very fortunate to be spending time with the lovely folks over at WORKLIFE in Camden.

Being your own boss brings a lot more responsibility than you think

Exactly what it says. I’ve done the self employment dream before so I was well aware of what I needed to do, but you forget that it includes the fact you need to be your own salesman, your own marketing executive, your own accountant (to some extent), your own business manager and also the only person to execute the work. That is A LOT of responsibility that I think people forget about before they start and actually down the line too.

Put in the hours, but don’t go over the top

I’ve worked agency world for years prior to this. I’ve done the 12, 14, 16 and 18 hour days on regular basis. It isn’t normal and it shouldn’t be expected to be normal. The same goes for working for yourself. You are your own boss, so treat yourself like you would treat an employee — with care for your health and wellbeing. Working all the hours god sends is not the way to do that.

Sure, occasionally you might need to pull a late one here and there. Just don’t lose sight of the fact you still have a personal life to live. I did this a lot earlier on in my journey and quite frankly it sucked.

Have fun!

I forgot about this part for a while, and recently having reconnected with a lot of friends I realised just how fun it is to let loose a little. You aren’t invincible, and I am certainly not, and sometimes the fragility of a hangover or the tiredness from a late night hanging out with friends can remind you that you’re only human — and we all need R&R.

I guess that’s it really. This is more a post to share just what I have learnt — you may not care much about it but I think these small tips in themselves, had I learnt them from the start, could have certainly helped me better manage myself and be a better Son, Grandson, Brother, Uncle, Nephew, Friend and Person to some important people. Not just that, I’d have certainly had a lot more fun along the way — but it’s never too late to start.