If you, noble and intrepid reader, have been following our journey, you’ll know that Daniella and I are closing out our fifth month in business together.
And it’s been a good month. We’ve worked hard since the start of this year to get here and we saw it coming.
Things started out pretty rough back in January, but business revenue has steadily increased each month since then. Today I’m excited to share that we finally hit that “big month” we’ve been working towards.
No, we’re not going on vacation or buying anything fancy. We’re going to pay our quarterly taxes and maybe put a little money back into our savings account. Such is the life of the self-employed.
We’ve got momentum
The word I’ve been using to describe where we’re at these days is “momentum.” We’ve got it right now.
We’ve got some new and awesome clients. We’ve got a queue of work. And we’re starting to dial in our processes as a team of two for maximum efficiency.
So, like, yay, right? That all sounds really good. And it is. And I feel lucky to be in this place.
But I still don’t feel successful
Well, maybe like 10% of me felt successful for about two minutes.
But for the most part I just worry about things like:
- Can we actually keep this up? How can I be sure it’s not just a fluke?
- How will we make our deadlines on all this work we’re signed up for?
- Are we really going to meet the expectations our new clients have for us? With two of us working at this, we’re supposed to be like extra-super-good, right?
- How are we going to find more projects once the ones we’re working on are finished?
I don’t have answers for any of these questions. Just my personal resolve to go out there and keep doing my best.
Maybe if we turn our good month into a good year I’ll feel successful, but probably not.
Success is weird
I believe success is highly personal. It means something different to everyone.
When we started on this journey, I defined success as being able to sustain our livelihood by running this new business of two. I even said that in the podcast we were featured on. But here were are basically doing it, at least for a little bit right now, and it doesn’t feel quite like what I thought it would.
Maybe success is just a state of mind – like happiness. It’s something many people chase, but few hold on to for very long. (Sidenote: I do feel happy, even if I don’t feel successful.)
Or maybe I’m just not comfortable with success. I’m scared that if I let myself feel successful I will become complacent, and I don’t want to rest on my laurels.
Funny enough, I think whatever success I’ve earned in my life has come as a direct result of not feeling successful, and striving to get there. I feel most comfortable on the cusp of success. Close enough to see it, but far enough away to keep me motivated.
So for now I’m going to focus on my laundry list of worries noted above, because that’s what makes me comfortable and that’s how we’re going to keep our momentum going.
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