Just a few years ago, I was convinced that I’d never want to pursue self employment. My aversion for the notion of being solely self employed was rooted by my father’s failure to bring in a sustainable income through entrepreneurship, and his tiresome lifestyle of constantly working. Family vacations were ruined by his being at his cell phone’s beck and call. His clients were demanding and and the market was volatile.
I even wrote a post about this; I didn’t want to work for myself, and reading back, I had some solid reasoning. I still enjoy those things about working for a company. It’s been two years since that was posted, and probably more like two and a half since I wrote it, and I’ve changed my tune a bit.
I’m writing a rebuttal against my own post. I think almost all of my reasoning for not wanting to work for myself are valid, but fear based. There are so many things that I want to do with my life that I’m just not able to do when I’m chained to a desk for 8 hours (plus commute) per day.
Leaving Work at Work
I have never really bought it when people said things like “do what you’re passionate about and you’ll never work a day in your life!” because I’ve always subscribed to the thought that if you rely on something for your income, it will become work, regardless of whether or not you were passionate about it. Then, your passion for the thing becomes less of a passion. Of course, this doesn’t apply when it comes to creating passive income streams.
I still think this is true more often than not, but not all entrepreneurs work 24/7. I’ve met plenty of people who have work/life balance even though they are self employed.
Having discipline and setting a schedule can be helpful for this.
Vacations When You Work For Yourself
My father was a terrible example when it comes to taking vacations and travelling as somebody who is self employed.
He didn’t do much of this to begin with, and certainly not outside of his comfort zone of Western Canada, but when we did go anywhere, he always incorporated his business into it somehow. He’d be making us wait in the hotel room while he ducked out for a mid-day meeting with a client, or a lovely family picnic would be interrupted by an obnoxious phone conversation.
When you work for a company, you can take scheduled vacations and be completely free from work. I’ve realized that just because it’s more difficult to do so when you work for yourself, doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.
If you are committed enough to taking vacations, travelling, or taking time off, you’ll do it regardless of your employment status.
Working with People
I still love having co-workers, despite that they can be challenging. Depending on the business you start, you could be working with people every minute of every day.
I enjoy the consistency of having the same co-workers that I can get to know, but it’s not the strongest argument against working for yourself.
Stability
This is the thing holding me back the most when I consider starting a business and becoming self employed.
Stability is important to me; knowing where my pay is coming from and when it will be deposited into my account is important. I also love the benefits, pension, and routine of going to my 9-5.
Working for myself would then become a fear, because I fear instability. Should I let my fears hold me back? Probably not.
Instead of working solely for myself, I am partially self employed online, and am also employed full-time by an organization. I work over 70 hours per week (which is funny, since that’s one of the reasons I was nay-saying working for myself), which means that I can’t take vacations anyway, since I’m always bringing my online work with me.
The thing is, I don’t mind bringing my online work with me when I go on a trip or go home from my day job. When you are working for yourself, and making money for your own benefit and not for a faceless company, working a lot (and hard) it’s much easier to swallow.
I’m not quitting my job – that won’t happen for some time – but my husband-to-be and I have been dreaming about doing a major lifestyle switch to get away from the daily grind.
I want to be able to be location independent. I crave the option of working from home, should I choose to do so. I want to be able to turn down projects or clients that I don’t want to work on/with. I would love to be able to do things a little differently; to get out of the rat race.
It’s funny how things can change so drastically in a matter of a couple of years. I’m not making any drastic moves but it’s definitely food for thought.
Are you interested in self employment?
Love this! This is the attitude that sums up working for yourself to me — the idea that everything’s flexible. You might stay with your job, but you have the option to work for yourself in the future if you want. And if you tried it and didn’t like it, you could use those skills to jump back into the working world.
There are some serious pros and cons to both sides (which I’m still discovering daily as I get into my 8th month self-employed). As long as you seriously consider all of them and go in with your eyes open, the opportunity is yours for the taking!
I feel the same way. When I first started working, I never thought I would want to be self-employed. But 2 years after working for a corporation and I could see myself doing just that. The challenge is saving up enough reserves and finding your niche. I’m saving up reserves, but I still haven’t found my niche.
I’m with you on all those points, and even though earning a full-time income from blogging has been interesting and challenging, I think I’m still meant for the 9-5 grind. I just want to be around people and work in a team, this solo work would totally suck if I didn’t have school.
That said, having full control over your whole day and the work you do is amazing. Hard to top that freedom.
I love working for myself. It definitely takes discipline but I am able to handle it. There are very few times when I can’t do something other than work. For example, today I went golfing and loved it. I am able to do so as long as I work smart enough to get the things I want to get done ahead of time. It’s nice to not have to do things just because you are at a job. I can leave when I want and still get the work done.
Working for yourself is SOOO much better, if you can get motivated. And there ate a bunch of tax benefits too.
I never imagined that I would become self-employed, thanks to the technology! I was working for almost 3 years in a company here in our City, but it really made me feel sick for leaving daily my daughter with my mom. So I decided to stop working and to be a full time mom, thankfully virtual assistant exist nowadays! 🙂
I used to work for a company, loved my position and the income and never did I dream that one day, I’d become self-employed, working from home. Until health issues had to get in the way and I was forced to an early retirement. What I did not realize is that I would enjoy the extra time I now have working from home even if the income is not as great. I didn’t know that I missed a lot such as the time I get to spend with my children now. Still, this could all depend on each situation. To begin with, I am a mother and this whole thing could be different from a man’s perspective.
Wow, these thoughts fears and struggles hit me to a tee. I started out an entrepreneur, ended up like your dad, fell back to job to enjoy life, but now slowly working my way into entrepreneurship in a very methodical and deliberate way. I think most people make the mistake of assuming that entrepreneurship is glamorous. It can be, but most of the time isn’t. If takes deliberate design of the world you want to live in to make it successful.
Self employment is not for me at all. Like you said I enjoy going to work and leaving it there. I love blogging and freelance but would never want the added stress of it being a ”job” for me. I like doing it at my pace as I want. A huge reason I chose hygiene over dentistry is the hours. I can work and leave, there will never be a ”hygiene emergency” so-to-speak. I make good money and can work fulltime, partime or just do fill-ins as I want. Also i am totally autonomous so could be self employed (ie open a mobile clinic or hygiene only clinic) if I wanted. I have a lot of options I guess is what I’m saying but I enjoy collecting a paycheque without worrying about the stresses of everything that goes into business management.
I am starting to change my mind on it too. I always thought I’d be a nonprofit lifer, but now that I’m getting a taste of freelance, I love it! I know it would be challenging, but setting my own schedule would be great. I’m a night owl, and I’d prefer to sleep in and do work later into the night. I also like the creative aspect of writing, blogging, and the freedom it presents. Keep us posted on your plans 😉
Yeah, we’re taking vacation next week and I’ll be doing a little work. I can do just a little bit at night though and it won’t interrupt our daytime activities. Not a big deal. You just have to set some boundary.
While I’m not totally self employed, I do make a solid portion of my income from blogging. I wrote like mad before my last vacation to get things set up and scheduled for the time I was away, and while I was good about enjoying my free time, I still would check in occasionally, and definitely devoted one or two nights to sitting at a European cafe responding to comments.
I completely understand what you mean about getting away from the daily grind. I’ve been thinking a lot about starting up a business that I could work part time and slowly grow it into a full-time job. I struggle with the fear aspect of it as well. It would require some financial investment and I fear failure too. So much to think about!
Sometimes I think there’s more stability working for yourself than for a company, because at least when you are self-employed, you are responsible for getting work, whereas working for a company you are completely dependent on the company. I’ve just seen a lot of layoffs happen lately and it just goes to show being an employee isn’t that stable either.
I have had the exact same reaction – but backwards. I always thought I wanted to work for myself but the more I think about it the more it scares me. I am not sure I could give up my fixed salary, employer paid benefits and pension. However, I would love to work from home. I could definitely live without the office life.
I’ve had a taste with sort of self employment by being a personal trainer and haven’t had much success with it. Mind you, I was only doing it for about 8 months before I gave up. I was relying on that job as my main source of income and I found it to be very frustrating. The erratic, flexible schedule wasn’t meant for me.
I think I am a more regular schedule type of person, but couldn’t deal with a job that is strictly a desk job. The thought of staring at a computer for 8 hrs/day would drive me nuts. I also couldn’t work from home either. I like the idea of leaving the house to go to work and then coming home to relax. Staying at home most of the day would also drive me nuts. Lol.
I probably sound like a picky job princess. 😛
I agree with all of your points. Especially when you take something you’re passionate about and then have to rely on it to pay your bills, it’s work not a passion anymore.
There are just as many down sides to self employment as there are upsides. It seems like everyone only wants to play up the positives so I definitely appreciate you making all of these points!
I couldn’t imagine working for myself. I’ve come to realize I am one to need major security. I am not opposed to making a little on the side, but it definitely won’t be my main bread and butter. I like employee benefits like health and dental, pension match, nearly six weeks of vacation. I also like having so ethereal to go. If I worked from home I would work all the time, and not have a good divide between work and life,
For me, being a self employed is a way better rather than going to the office daily. Especially now that I have a daughter, it’s really good that even if I’m working, but I still have time to take care of my daughter.
Working at home was quite a challenge for me. I was used to working in a company since I was seventeen and deciding to work without workmates actually and being by myself was quite tough and challenging. But being a mom, I took the challenge very well because I cannot stand leaving my small kids with a nanny while I work.