I recently hit my financial goal for the year and realized I might even manage to pass it since there are still three months remaining in 2017.
For my first year as an entrepreneur, I feel like that’s a pretty big win. Admittedly, hitting my financial goal has taken some of the pressure off and helped me become more accepting of how I arrived here instead of being embarrassed by my journey. Now, because of my balance sheet, I feel like I have credibility.
I’ve previously written about how the company I worked for closed at the end of 2016. Though I shared that information here, this blog is still a safe space since no one reads it. While I have always wholeheartedly believed closing the company was the right decision, I was still embarrassed by the fact that the company I worked for closed and felt it was a reflection of me and my abilities. Every time someone new asked me how I ended up working as an independent consultant, I spun the story so my former employer’s closing became a passing detail.
Part of owning my story now is acknowledging that deciding to try this on my own was more of a shrug than an active, well thought out choice. I needed a way to make money and had homeless clients who still wanted to work with me asking if I could help.
Sure. Yeah. I could help.
I told people being on my own was a long-term solution, even though I figured that after six months I would again settle into a more traditional full-time role somewhere.
Eight months later I’m still standing.
I wish I could write that the success I’ve experienced is because I’m awesome and did everything right in order to create opportunities for myself…however that would be a lie. The timing was serendipitous.
What’s the saying? Luck is when preparation meets opportunity? Well, I had almost 15 years of preparation and was presented with the opportunity. I’m forever grateful to my clients who trusted me when I said, “Yes, I can do it.” And because I was able to get it done for those clients using new teams and new ways of working, I was empowered to say yes when new clients who had never worked with me before came my way.
There have been lots of moments (sometimes days) of self-doubt. There still are. But over the past four months, I’ve built enough momentum to feel like this isn’t a happy accident I’m riding as long as I can. Somewhere along the way, my vision started to focus. I’m no longer stumbling around until I can regain my stride, but actively, deliberately taking steps forward since I now see where I want to go.
Photo by Rowan Heuvel on Unsplash