
For many years I dreamed of working for myself. To find my own clients, set my own agenda and tread my own path. Like a Ronin, the masterless samurai in feudal Japan, I wanted to serve no one particular master. Instead I had a vision of using my skills to help many people and, once each job was done, to walk once more into the sunset in search of the next adventure. Finally, in 2020, I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which I grabbed with both hands and began making this happen.
For the right people, it’s an excellent way to live. A life of freedom, variety and interesting work. But it can be a hard and lonely path too. It’s a life where disappointment can occur with surprising regularity. It’s a life where the knocks come as often as the highlights. It’s a life with as many quiet spells as busy ones.
I think that the greatest learning of all on this journey is how to cope with each of these. To see the opportunities in the difficulties and use them as a chance to grow.
It’s said that the truest measure of our character is how we act when no one is looking. It’s easy to keep busy (or more often, appear to be busy) when the boss is looking over your shoulder every ten minutes. When no one is doing this, it can take a huge degree of self-motivation to keep going.
Quiet times on the “Ronin path” are an opportunity to work on other projects. To get that blog post or even a long-planned book written. They’re also a blessed time for rest and reflection. I know from personal experience how few and far between these can be in a busy corporate role. Making the most of the freedom of this solo journey often means taking the opportunity to think as much as it does to work. Learning to do this guilt-free is quite the challenge.
When life is busy and work plentiful, it feels good. In times where the pipeline is less full and the future more uncertain, it takes a great deal of inner strength to stay the course. But if you set out on this path with a clear sense of purpose and, crucially, this connects with who you are at a deeply personal level, life has a funny habit of making things work just as they should. In turn, we start to understand how to live a life of faith rather than to react through fear. This, my friends, is a wonderfully freeing place to be.
Each time the knocks come on this solo path (and they will, in many different ways) we have to learn to roll with them. To treat them as chances to learn and to begin to understand how they are making us stronger. The truth is that each time we’re hit by uncertainty or disappointment, it only serves to make us tougher. It may not seem so at the time, but just as the coarse piece of iron thinks itself roughly treated in the furnace, the tempered blade looks back and knows differently.
Or to mix my metaphors somewhat, great sailors are not made on a flat, calm sea.
Yes, doing this is hard. Working for yourself is one of the most psychologically demanding choices you can make. But it’s a good life too. One where you’ll learn more about your character than would ever be possible in the relative shelter of employed work.
I definitely don’t have this cracked myself. Writing a piece like this is as much for me as it is for anyone who might take the time to read it. Probably even more so. But equally I have no regrets and love the life I’ve chosen to live.
I used to wake up in the morning with dreary thoughts of “I have to do this or that today”.
Now I’ve learned to reframe those thoughts to “I GET to do this.” To live the life I’ve chosen with all of its freedom, wonder and opportunity.
And this makes me one very lucky guy.
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