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2018 will mark 2 years for me in full-time self-employment. For my one year anniversary in May 2017, I shared 10 lessons learned in my first year self-employment.

Those 10 lessons haven’t changed much since I shared them, but for the next three months in the Ask Nicole series, I’m going to speak about three important aspects of self-employment, from the perspective of a solopreneur.

A solopreneur is a business owner who works and runs her or his own business alone. Different from an entrepreneur (who goes through more traditional means of building an running a business), a solopreneur can choose whether to contract out or outsource certain types of work they may not have the skillset for or the time/patience to do).

Over the past few months, I’ve seen several friends and colleagues make the leap into working for themselves. It’s exciting to see! I’ve offered to share with them aspects of my journey, lessons learned, and tools that are currently working for me.

Five themes have come up when I’ve spoken with my friends–mindset, tools and processes, ways to bring in income, support, and work/life balance–and I’m going to touch on each one this month. Today, let’s talk about what I think is the most important aspect of maintaining your sanity as a solopreneur: Mindset.

Transitioning from Employee to Self Employed

With the exception of one family member, no one in my immediate life at the time had worked for themselves. Plus, I come from a family of employees that stay with their employer until retirement. When you don’t see examples of what you want to do, it’s easy to think that what you want isn’t feasible.

When I started thinking more about building my consulting business, it was with the intention of wanting to make extra income on the side. When I got to the point where I enjoyed working with my consulting clients and getting paid for speaking engagements (essentially #ReclaimingMyTime) more so than doing work that someone else handed to me, I started fantasizing about how working for myself could look like. I also sought out people who were working for themselves. When you see people doing what you want to do, it’s easier to imagine it for yourself.

And as it turns out, handing in your resignation letter is the easy part. Transitioning from employee to self employed is as much a mental game as it is a physical one.

Solopreneur myths, busted (and what to put in their place)

There are lots of myths out there about solopreneurs. Here are some common ones:

“I won’t feel productive working for myself”.

One of the biggest benefits an employer provides is structure. You know what time to get up, how much time to take to get ready for work, how long your commute will take, what meetings and deadlines you’ll have throughout the day, when your staff supervision is, and how long you have for a lunch break.

A common myth for many employees is that they won’t be able to manage their time well. To remedy this, build a routine and structure that keeps you motivated and on purpose.

I started out creating a structure that mimicked a 9-5. I created a 9am-5pm work schedule. Then one day I realized: I don’t have to actually work from 9am-5pm! I could work from 6am-12pm, 3pm-11pm, or whatever timeframe I want. That’s the whole point of working for yourself.

I tried a variety of working hours, and settled on 9am-6pm, mainly due to some non-client related projects I’m currently working on. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Friday afternoons are my “behind the scenes” days where I work on administrative, business building activities like writing this blog post, creating my newsletter that goes out on Wednesdays, and more. Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Friday mornings are for money generating activities like client work and meetings, projects, speaking engagements and trainings/workshops, or following up on business leads. This isn’t set in stone, however; if something comes up, I have the flexibility to shift things around.

What’s the key to building routine and structure that keeps your motivated at on purpose? Getting dressed! 

That morning routine you have right now as an employee is still something you can do once you start working for yourself. When I wake up, turn on my laptop and work from my bed, I’m more lazy and prone to distractions. When I do my meditation time, wash my face/brush my teeth, do a yoga or pilates workout, get dressed, put on makeup and style my hair, eat breakfast, AND sit at my desk, I feel much more proactive and productive. When I’m actually dressed, I feel at my best. I find that I sound more authoritative when speaking on the phone. Also, many of my meetings are now done via Google Hangouts or Skype. If I’m already dressed, I don’t have to rush to do that before the meeting starts. I also take an afternoon nap. Naps are good.

“I’ll always be alone”

A second solopreneur myth is that you have to work alone. If you like the office environment but prefer working on your own, there are countless of co-working spaces popping up in the United States and globally like WeWork. If you still prefer working alone but like being around people but not the office environment, try your local library or nearby coffee shop. If you want to work around people you know, create a buddy work day, where you meet up with friends and work on your individual businesses, together. You can create a structure where you work from home and around others for added support. I’ll do a deeper dive about this in Part Four.

“I’ll struggle to make money”

Another solopreneur myth is that you won’t be able to make much money as a solopreneur. The interesting thing about this myth is that it comes from fearing the uncertainty of being self-employed. When you work for an employer, you have a consistent paycheck. Whether weekly, biweekly, or monthly, you have the expectation that you’ll get paid. But you know what? Someone today woke up, got dressed, commuted to work, and was let go by their employer. While I’m putting it in simplest terms, it speaks to what entrepreneur Sean McCabe says:

“The day job is 100% secure, until it isn’t. You have peace of mind until it gets swept out from under you, and you have absolutely no control over that decision. It’s purely a facade. It’s an illusion for people who don’t want to be the one to ensure that this position continues to exist. It works great, until it doesn’t.”

In simplest terms, a solopreneur is basically a one-person show. In inspirational terms, a solopreneur is a problem solvers. Where some people see problems, we see solutions. That’s coming up later in this series. Your business offerings can run the gamut. For example, I can work one-to-one with a client on designing a program or service that utilizes the Reproductive Justice framework. I can also do a 3-day training on this topic with the client’s staff. Or I can create a program that teaches many people how to do it. That’s three different services I can charge for. And I’ll talk about how to do this later in the series.

Stayed tuned for Part Two

This is Part One of the Keeping Your Sanity as a Solopreneur series. Come back next week for Part Two, where I’ll share some tools and processes I use in my business that keep me on track, get paid on time, and know what I’m doing from day to day.

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