I am self-employed not unemployed!

I am an author, and have enjoyed managing and promoting events for a living for almost 10 years now, so making the decision to leave my last job in order to become a freelance writer and event organiser should have been an easy one.  Yet the decision proved to be an incredibly difficult one to make and, for a while, live with.

Resigning without another position to walk into was incredibly scary, and felt like a completely irrational action.  Everybody knows it is easier to get a job when you already have one, right?  We had just had our first child though and going back to work full-time just wasn’t a viable option – financially or emotionally.

It didn’t help that the position I was resigning from was one that I loved, in a company I felt proud to work for, with amazing colleagues.  I hadn’t been in the office for several months as I had been on maternity leave, which made walking away easier than it otherwise would have been.  If that had not been the case I doubt this situation would ever have crossed my mind, let alone come into fruition.

Even when I had made the decision and handed in my notice I still felt anxious about it. More than one night I lay in bed questioning if I had done the right thing.  I mean what was I doing?  We had just had a baby.  One more mouth to feed, one more person to clothe and I was cutting our monthly income.  There was so many ways I doubted the decision. I wondered if maternity leave had made me work-shy and I did not realise it, or if I was unconsciously afraid to go back to work after such a break.  I felt like I was voluntarily becoming unemployed, and that I was going to become a drain on my husband, my friends, society.

Then one day it dawned on me.  The constant worry and the sleepless nights were completely unfounded. I wasn’t leaving my job and becoming unemployed, I was going to be self-employed.  I would still contribute to our family income, I would still be working.  Yet this way I get to realise my dream of working for myself, I get to do the work I love, and I can fit it all in around bringing up my daughter. Maybe, once in a while, you do get to have it all.

I know the journey is not going to be easy, but now I can safely say I am looking forward to the challenge.