All set for a self-directed career? Are you sure? I'll tell you why I ask. Consider what occurred on my fourth official day of business on my own, a day not unlike the many days that followed. (You could also consider this to be my sixth official day by counting the weekend, which, immediately and apparently forever, has become part of my work week, indistinguishable from family life.)
Anders the carpenter and I have just installed the "window of opportunity" that leads to my office upstairs. This may be the highlight of the day, or the most productive thing that happens. Nothing else is going right. The FedEx man didn't leave an important package this morning because I was in the cellar with the plumber and didn't hear him at the door. I can't find the Word Perfect manual amid the mess downstairs. Piles of books and displaced household treasures are cordoned off by temporary phone lines, which lead to some phones, but not to the two cordless look a likes one for business and one for the family. We haven't yet learned one phone's ring from another, so when one goes off, everyone runs. Eventually, we all reach the bottom of the stairs just before realizing with relief that it was the fax machine. No action necessary, or possible: It's a note from my printer to say he can't read the diskette that carries the design of my long-awaited business cards and stationery. Now, what was I talking about?
Are you sure this is for you? I was sure it was for me, but I also couldn't imagine the hundreds of tiny challenges awaiting me as I made my move (and forevermore). I spent a good chunk of a recent morning trying to print envelopes successfully on the laser printer. It can be done! Was it on my list of projects that would take hours? No way.
"Even with the most meticulous planning, it's normal to feel overwhelmed at first by the minutiae of commerce, both in the start-up phase and after your business is established," says Bill Radin, author of Breakaway Careers (Hawthorne, NJ: Career Press, 1994).
You may feel, as I did, that you're not too important to attend to all the details of your work-to make the computer do what you need, keep track of expenses, balance the checkbook, clean the toilet-whatever. But being willing is only the beginning. In fact, these innumerable little projects take loads of time just when you're dying to get going on the substance of your work.
Or is there some avoidance going on here? Hmmm ... I do have a need to have systems in place for my resources to be well-organized and accessible around me, before I set fingers to keyboard on the creative part of my work. Am I using all the minutiae of getting a new business started to help fend off moments (hours, weeks, years) of truth when the rubber better meet the road, when I really have to produce, on my own, without a net, no colleagues with whom to commiserate, my whole new career riding on doing well right out of the gate?
The Eight Stages of Entrepreneurship must include one for the quiet wave of panic that ebbs into the late afternoon, when few of the day's goals have been met, while others have surfaced anew-when the kids are home from school and everyone else's activity seems to be peaking except mine-when almost all seems lost.
Stop, Reflect and Go
That's the time to take a deep breath and remember what a self-directed career is all about. It's about learning, meeting big and little challenges head on, stretching your capabilities in ways both courageous and, sometimes, menial. You make the coffee as well as the money-and the mistakes are all yours, too!
"This is a way of life," Tim DeMello, founder of Wall Street Games in New York City, told Inc. magazine. "It's not a job, it's not a career, it's a way of life. I started a business for the sense of accomplishment, period."
Traditional jobs offer fewer opportunities to truly stretch personal capabilities in learning, decision-making and meeting unexpected challenges. Self-directed workers get into this kind of hot water every day, and learn how to stay cool and become good swimmers very quickly. But the water is deep. It involves confronting yourself in entirely new ways.
Byron Reimus, the communications consultant believes the self-directed career removes the last shred of distinction between our professional and personal lives, and therefore puts into sharp focus our unproductive or even counterproductive behavior patterns that are less obvious-or somehow written off-when our lives are separated into personal and professional categories.
The self-directed career, he observes, forces the complete integration of the personal with the professional, highlighting problems in either camp. For example, full support from your spouse is often cited as a key ingredient of entrepreneurial success. But the issue might better be described as full and successful handling of all your personal blessings, challenges and shortcomings whatever their source. For the self-directed, it doesn't matter anymore whether the issue is personal or professional. Both parts of your life are equally important for success and equally affected by weakness or failings.
A Florida woman tells a very personal story that goes beyond careers and illustrates how personal issues are ever-present: "Twelve years ago, I was in an unhappy marriage where I recall accusing my then-husband of not making me happy (for all sorts of reasons). It never occurred to me that not being happy might be my problem. I've matured a lot since then and have come to realize that I alone am responsible for my own happiness. One should expect to be treated with love, kindness and respect by loved ones, but happiness must come from within one's self. If I could give others a little advice from my years of struggling, I would say to get out a sheet of paper and write down everything you can think of that you feel would bring you happiness. These things do not have to be drastic: One thing I do for myself is to try to take a half-hour walk after dinner each evening all by myself... A year ago, I returned to college just for the fun and enjoyment of learning!"
The bright side here, as usual, is opportunity: every day's promise of a chance to improve and even excel, personally and professionally. True, not everything on the list gets done, and it's even easier for the unexpected to overrun you when you're on your own. But I like the quality of the items on the list. Each one has the potential to measurably contribute to success-even cleaning the house and home office for the next visitor!
