Bodysuit – Thistle & Spire / Denim – Sanctuary (similar here, and here) / Bag – Prada / Boots – Zara (similar here) / Necklaces (1, 2) – Wanderlust & Co.

Wow, it has been quite a little while since I last posted on my blog! This is probably by far the longest that I’ve ever been away from the blog, and it was completely unplanned. I wish that I could say that I scheduled this little hiatus into my life, but it happened all on its own and I’m a little bit happy about it. Early last year (end of January 2018 to be specific), I quit my full-time job as a marketer at a start-up to pursue my blog full time, and it’s safe to say that things worked out because I’m still here, and not currently hunting for a new job! We can all let out a collective sigh of relief—I know that I definitely did.

Making that decision was probably one of the hardest ones that I’ve ever had to make in my life (excluding the decision to uproot my life in Ottawa and to begin anew in Toronto many years ago), and it’s another one where I have zero regrets. Little did I realize that becoming completely dependent on myself would be one of the most difficult tasks that I would ever undertake. In the past year alone, I’ve worn more hats than I ever had (ie. accountant, debt collection, photographer, art director, consultant, project manager, sales, the list could go on) and it has really worn me down. I massively underestimated how much work would go into running my own business (successfully) and ended up being very burnt out towards the end of the year. These past few months of the new year have truly been a time of reflection for myself, and I’ve also taken the downtime from work to allow myself to relax, recuperate, and to strategize for the next year to come. It’s safe to say that I’ve learned quite a bit about both myself and the business within the past year since I quit my full-time job and I want to share some of these lessons with you in case you’re also in the same boat and thinking of making the leap.

1. You’ll wear many different hats regardless if you want to or not.

As you begin the journey down the road of entrepreneurship, you’ll quickly realize that there are many roles that you’ll have to take on which you have no previous experience in (ie. accountant, debts collecting, project management). As a one-woman show (mostly), it’s my responsibility to take care of every aspect of my business. I sometimes begin a project as a Sales Lead (I have to cold pitch to a potential client) and then morph into the role of a Project Manager once the contracts have been signed. From there I take on the roles of Model, Photographer, Art Director, Editor, etc., before finishing up the cycle as an Accountant sending off invoices. Who said you need an accounting degree? Just become an entrepreneur! I’m completely kidding here, please look into getting an experienced accountant once your business successfully takes off. I truly hate continuously following up with clients who aren’t abiding the payment schedules, but someone’s got to do it or else my bills won’t get paid.

2. Work smarter, not harder.

This is a phrase that I’ve heard from so many successful entrepreneurs and it is definitely something that I firmly stand by. Once you go down the road of working full-time for yourself, not only will you have to take on many more roles to ensure that your business is a success, but you’ll also begin to commit much more time to your business. In order for any business to successfully grow, it’ll be important to continue pouring more and more time into it. But as a singular person, there is only so much time that you can commit to each task everyday. It’s important to realize what your strengths are and to parlay off the other tasks to individuals who are more capable of completing them. Work smarter by hiring individuals who are experts in fields that you aren’t, so that you can alleviate your stress and not work harder.

3. You’ll sleep less and work more.

That being said, in the process leading up to learning how to let go of responsibilities and delegating them to others, you’ll end up sleeping less and working more. The number one lesson that many other successful entrepreneurs relayed to me was that I’d actually end up with less time to myself. In my head, I had assumed that leaving my full-time job would allow me to reclaim those 8 hours each day back to myself to focus on things that I wasn’t able to before (getting more sleep, going to the gym, cooking healthier meals)—I can attest that this wasn’t the case.

Instead of spending more time on things that I thought I would have time to do, I diverted myself to spend more time on my business. In the end, I ended up actually sleeping less because I was unable to separate myself from my work.

4. Be protective of your time.

With the additional 8 hours that I got back each day from quitting my job, I ended up accepting invitations to many more events, and even had some days where I would attend upwards of 4+ events—when I had previously never attended more than 2 events a day max. I quickly learned that party-style events were not my vibe, events with 100+ people were not my vibe, nor were events where consumers were also invited alongside media. It became important to me to identify which events made sense for me to attend in order to become protective of my time. I was spending more time attending events and less time focusing on growth of my business. And while sure, attending events is fun and all, many of them never turned into leads for potential work or relationship development down the road. I’ve now begun to turn down many events and have successfully been able to take time back for myself.

5. At times you may feel extremely lonely.

The first few months of working for myself were the loneliest that I had ever felt. I stayed at home by myself all day long and felt completely isolated. I went from an open concept work place where I would chat with people all day long, to sitting by myself in my den working completely alone at my computer. It felt strange not being able to casually talk to others whenever I wanted, and I yearned for the presence of others. This also contributed to my over-commitment to events in order to surround myself with others. It’s a weird feeling to be craving being around the presence of others, and it’s definitely something that you’ll have to learn how to adjust to.

6. Separate work and personal life.

Since the den in my condo became my office, it became extremely easy for my work time to blend into my personal time. I still to this day frequently work until 1 AM instead of stopping at 5 PM like clockwork if I was to work in an office for a company. Because my work is in my home, it’s easy for my personal and work lives to blend together. I quickly learned that that shouldn’t be the case and that it’s important to create a separation between the two or else you can very easily become all consumed with work. The lack of separation between the two led to me developing unhealthy work and sleeping patterns and at one point, I even got quite sick and unhealthy from my irregular sleeping patterns.

7. You don’t get to pick your vacation, your vacation will pick you.

When it comes to working for yourself, your workload is entirely dependent on the industry’s demand. If there is a lack of demand, then there’s a lack of work for yourself. The holidays seem to be the busiest time for me, so while many of my family and friends were taking time off all throughout December, I found myself frequently working overtime and overworking myself. I quickly discovered that although I would love to also be on vacation with my loved ones, I just wouldn’t be able to, unless I gave up doing any sort of work.

The strange part was that the following 2 months (January & February), the advertising and marketing industry tends to wind down a little bit. So while all of my family and friends went straight back to work after the holidays, my own holidays began. These past 2 months have been the slowest of slow for me, but I’ve learned to embrace the downtime as a holiday handed to me on platter, because when it gets busy, oh boy does it get busy!

8. Appreciate the down time.

Similar to what I just mentioned above, I learned that it’s extremely important to appreciate the down time. While it may be easy to fixate on the idea that lack of work directly correlates to lack of relevancy, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes clients have completely wrapped up their budgets for the quarter, or I don’t fall within the focus demographic for a specific launch. They say when it rains it pours. There are also times when I’m expected to produce triple and even quadruple the quantity of work in a short time span, and this causes me to turn into a stress ball of tension, which also isn’t healthy. After riding the roller coaster of the ups and downs of the industry, I have learned to embrace the down time, because right around the corner is always going to be another truck load of work waiting to unload.

9. Always set goals (short term vs. long term).

When you first find success, it’s easy to suddenly dream and fixate on lofty long term goals, such as making $1 million, growing your team to 20 employees, launching a brand new product, or even landing your dream clients. And while it’s great to have dreams to work towards, I’ve also learned that it’s extremely important to ladder up to those long term goals with shorter ones. Not only will these short term goals help to keep yourself accountable to meeting the requirements to achieve your long term ones, but they provide a sort of guided path towards the final item to be checked off the list.

I’ve also often found that we too frequently focus on the long term goals, and in return become frustrated when they don’t materialize quickly enough. Yet we don’t allow ourselves to celebrate the smaller successes while on the path to the final goal that it hinders us to only think negatively.

Recently, I began creating short term goals that sometimes range from daily ones up to monthly ones. Not only do I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride when I’m able to cross off items from my list of tasks, but this method also helps me to understand how I am climbing up the ladder and one step closer to my final goal with each item that is crossed off.

10. Don’t wait for work to find you, go find your own work.

You are never too go to show a little bit of humility. Yes, once you’ve made a name for yourself and a mark on the industry work will definitely find its way to you, but a little bit of cold calling never hurt anyone. If I was to completely build my income off of work that has found its way to me, I would be living with about 50% of what I have today. If you’re starting out as a content creator, it’s important to remember that this is an extremely saturated market, and you can’t expect clients to know who you are without someone putting you on their desk—this could be either a recommendation from a personal friend, a referral from a partnering business, or you presenting yourself to them. If your clients don’t even know that you exist, how can you expect them to hire you?

Through my years of cold calling, I’ve found that it is just as lucrative as waiting around for clients to approach you. However a few benefits of cold calling also include, creating your own storyboard for campaigns, dictating how much work you really should be doing, dictating your rate of pay, and dictating your production schedule. Typically when a client comes to me, they already have 95% of that figured out, which makes it difficult for me to negotiate and to get the client onto my terms. And the same works in reverse. If I approach a client with a pitch in mind, it makes it difficult for them to refute certain requests. Go out there and find your own work!

Throughout the years, I’ve discovered that the hardest decisions have been the ones that have been the most rewarding, and the practice of taking risks that resulted in success has further encouraged me to take on more risks without fear.

And there it is! A quick summary of everything that I’ve learned within the past year of quitting my full-time job and transitioning to working for myself. It’s been quite a scary year to say the least and there have been many times in which I’ve doubted myself. I’ve spent many hours pouring out my thoughts to Peter and to justify why the decision that I made was the right one. At the end of the day, I’ve begun to understand that it was an opportunity of a lifetime and definitely something that I’m proud of doing. I’ve been asked a few times if I ever regretted my decision and if I would do the same thing should I have the chance to go back in time—my answer is always the same, no. I regret nothing. Though the journey of success hasn’t necessarily been an easy one (it’s been riddled with ups and downs), it has been an ever enlightening one, and I’m ridiculously excited to see what this next year will bring me.

Photography Credits: Allure of Simplicity