One year ago today, I resigned from my day job. Working full time while building a business had taken its toll. I had been there 3 months shy of 6 years. I had given my employer a 60-day notice in order to assist with finding my replacement.

I don’t remember much of what happened that day, but I do remember when 5pm rolled around. I punched out for the last time, hugged a few co-workers, and walked out the door. As I walked out of the building, my eyes welled up with tears. It had less to do with “WTH am I thinking?” and more to do with the fact that honored my passion. On New Years Day 2016, I stood on the observation deck of One World Trade Center, overlooking the city skyline. I told myself that 2016 was the year, and May 31st would be the day I’d leave my job to go into my consulting business full time.

Yes, it was cheesy, and when I left the observatory deck, I felt at peace. I had given myself a deadline several times before, and each time I wasn’t ready. This time, I was. I didn’t know how it was going to happen. I just knew it was going to. I had submitted proposals to several organizations for consulting gigs, and was either turned down or didn’t receive a response. Not too long after making my intention, two of those organizations who turned me down had changed their minds and offered me contracts. A few other organizations reached out to me, including an executive director of a local organization, who specifically wanted to work with me because we went to the same grad school.

Everything fell into place, and the past year has been an eye-opener. Here are 10 lessons I’ve learned in my first year of full time consulting:

It’s uncomfortable (but always remember your WHY)

If I had to choose one word to describe my first year in full-time consulting, it would be “discomfort”. When I was building my business on the side while working full time, I had a rhythm. I had only so much time to do client work, create content for my blog and newsletter, and market myself.

However, like building physical strength means pushing yourself by picking up heavier weights, discomfort has allowed me to grow in many areas of my business. After a while, you begin to see progress. Tasks that would take me hours to complete are easier to do, and things I didn’t think I needed when starting my business, I now have a system for.

Even though I knew I could return to the 9-5 world, I held on to my WHY. There’s a quote from Frederick Nietzsche that says,

“He who has a why can endure any how.” 

Running my own business is bigger than creating my own schedule and doing what I want. My WHY was built on the foundation that there aren’t many people doing what I’m doing. My WHY was to ensure that nonprofits, community groups, and agencies are doing right by the women and girls of color they serve. Fine tuning my services down to design thinking, evaluation, strategic planning, and speaking has allowed me to develop a niche within the Reproductive Justice community that I’m becoming know for. On top of that, another WHY has been to show other social workers that there’s more than one way to be a social worker. This applies to any profession. You don’t have to build a career and identity around what your profession expects. You can create a career on your terms, and when you know your WHY, it’s easier to persevere.

It’s a HUGE mindset shift 

I’ve felt like giving up at least once a week. I’m a one-woman show, and when you’re used to having someone dictate how your day goes, you begin to miss it. Also,  I suddenly had more time than ever, and it became overwhelming.

Outside of making money, strengthening my systems, and getting clearer on who I want to work with, I’ve learned that transitioning from employee to entrepreneur is just as much of a mental game as it is a physical one. You think you’ll be anxious to turn in that resignation letter, but that’s the easy part. One of the biggest benefits that an employer provides is structure. You know when to get up, how long you have 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. When working for yourself, you have to build a 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, and one day I realized that it’s ok to not work from 9 to 5. While I do have office hours, I like working in the hours where I feel most creative (and if I have any client meetings, lead calls, or site visits to make).

Your people will always look out for you

Your people will always look out for you. They may not know exactly what it is you do, but I guarantee they’ll come across someone who may need your expertise.

Many client opportunities I’ve had have come by way of a mentor, friend or colleague. At times where I experienced a client drought, someone would forward an email to me of an opportunity they think I’m perfect for. When I allowed myself to be open to opportunities from a variety of sources, I started to get an abundance of opportunities. Some of those opportunities didn’t pan out, but it left me with the realization that there’s always more where that came from and to trust that you’ll be ok, no matter what. Also, I’ve embraced paying it forward more than ever. When I come across an opportunity that speaks to a skillset of someone I know, I send it their way.

Always show up

Consistent is key, as entrepreneur Angelina Darrisaw said in a recent interview:

“Consistency is very important. How you show up creates a perception and helps set an expectation for people.”

I’ve made the decision to show up, even when I didn’t feel like it. (But if I’m having a bad day, I allow myself a self care day). I’ve made the decision to show up, even in those times where I felt that it didn’t matter. It’s easy to get caught up in how many people comment on your blog posts, how many likes, retweets, and shares you get, or how many people open your email newsletter. Even if people do none of those things, your consistency will be remembered.

Consistency is one area of your business spills over into other areas. You’ll want to show up more, and it feels good. As I’ve built up my consistency in the past year, it’s surprisingly increased my productivity and my desire to avoid procrastination. Also, more people reply to my newsletter, blog posts, and interact with me via social media because I have more of a consistent presence. I feel accomplished finishing work and submitting reports and proposals weeks in advance, and I’m someone who routinely waits until the last minute to do stuff. Procrastination is fun when you’re in school as it increases that adrenaline rush, but this doesn’t work for clients AT ALL, and it sure doesn’t work when you’re submitting proposals.

You can’t work with everybody

This ties into my first lesson, but speaks specifically to knowing who your ideal client is. I developed a practice for reflecting on my work and relationships with short-term and long-term clients, and in the process I’ve become clearer in who I want to work with, who they provides services to, their commitment to reproductive, racial, and social justice, and the kind of work relationship I want to have with them. I’ve also learned along the way that some of my clients just weren’t my ideal clients.

For example, a good portion of my work has centered around program evaluation. Starting out, my focus was on taking on any client who wanted to work with me. It was a bonus if it was something related to reproductive, racial, and social justice. But as I started to grow into running a business full time, I noticed I was working with clients who wanted me to be more task oriented and left little time to work on their organizational culture around evaluation. Educating clients on the benefits of program evaluation, exploring evaluation theories, identifying ways to make evaluation more collaborative, and using engaging ways to collect data and actually use it wasn’t a priority for them. I wanted more of this, and set an intention to work with more evaluation clients that not only wanted data collection, but also wanted to build their capacity and culture of evaluation practice in the process.

Now, I’m working with clients who are more aligned with my new evaluation goals, and I’m coming across proposal opportunities that specifically state this is what they want. Getting clear on who you want to work with not only forces you to niche down, but it also saves you time and headaches.

Be grateful for every client experience 

While I’ve become clear on who my ideal client is and have recognized that some of my past clients weren’t the best fit for me, I am grateful for every client that I’ve worked with throughout the past year, and in the years of building up my business. Working with a variety of clients has allowed me to witness organizational culture and staff dynamics. I’ve also learned that I don’t deal well at all with micromanaging clients.

In the process, it’s forced me to screen potential clients better.

Dealing with non-ideal clients forced me to honed in on who my ideal client is and refine my systems related to invoicing and payments, lead generation and client management. Also, every client interaction has played a role in refining my process. I love becoming better at what I do, so I always encourage clients to share their feedback once our relationship is over. Fortunately, each client that has filled out my client feedback form has provided useful advice on how I can become better, and what they enjoyed about the experience.

Get comfortable with saying NO

Turn down opportunities that aren’t a good fit for you. Financially sustaining yourself is important, but who wants to get paid doing work with a client that’s not a good fit? The red flags are always there, and you don’t realize them until you’re knee deep into the client interaction. It’s scary to turn down opportunities, but it opens up the door for more aligned opportunities.

There’s an ebb and flow to all things

There were months where I was extremely busy, and months were I looked around and wondered where my next client opportunity would come from. This is the scariest aspect of working for yourself, and I realized that this is a fact of life for many self-employed people. There will be times where it literally feels like nothing is happening, and suddenly you’ll receive an overflow of opportunity. I dealt with the ebb by documenting my policies and procedures, focusing on the client work I wanted to bring in, blogging and creating my newsletter, working more on independent projects, and becoming clearer on creating a business around the life I want (instead of creating my life around my business). This helped me with the anxiety and worry that I wasn’t doing a good job. Find ways to maintain your sanity and stability, in spite being in an ebbing period. When the flow comes (and it will), it will be exciting and (maybe) overwhelming. Find ways to be better at time and project management so that you create a good balance between client work and your own projects so you won’t burn out.

Be kind to yourself 

You’ll make some mistakes along the way. But spending time dwelling on those mistakes gets in the way of figuring out a game plan to move forward. What you didn’t do well with one client can serve as motivation for doing it better for the next client. Every new client experience builds upon the former.

Also, there will be times where you’re just not here for it, and it’s more than ok to take a self care day. Or a least turn off the computer for a few hours and take a nap or go outside for a walk.

Everything is figureoutable  

One of my favorite pieces of business advice comes from Marie Forleo:

“All of this is honestly figureoutable. You just have to be willing to use your creativity and think outside the box.”

A scary as it was to leave my job, I had to believe that anything and everything I wanted to do with my business and life was possible. Be willing to think about what could be possible, and try it.  When I’ve gotten into tough spots in my life, I had to figure it out. When I had no clue how to start a LLC or how to figure out my hourly rates, I figured it out by reaching out to people who have been self-employed longer than me. When a client asked me a question and I didn’t know the answer in that moment, I told them I would figure it out. When you challenge to figure it out, you become open to solutions that you otherwise  wouldn’t have noticed.

Marie also said, “If we start to think of our creative challenges, of our life challenges, and of our collective challenges in this way that everything really is figureoutable, it all starts to change…Because there will be moments in your life when an opportunity is presented to you to do something, say something or change something. Make a promise to yourself that, from this day forward you won’t waste one more minute, one more day, saying to yourself, ‘I don’t know how to do that.’ Or ‘I don’t know if I have what it takes to be that.’ Because you and I know, in our heart of hearts, yes you do.”

There have been many time I questioned my decision to leave my job. But when I made the decision to leave, I knew that I would figure it out. And I’m still figuring it out. When things get rough, it’s easy to forget this. When you open yourself up to finding creative solutions, it builds your confidence and you realize that everything really is figureoutable. If you can’t find the solution, someone else may have the insight you’re looking for.

Here’s to Year Two and beyond….