I want to be my own boss! I want to work from a beach, live on an island and do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whoever I want.
Sounds familiar?
If yes, you’re one of those people suffering from “entrepreneurititis”. In other words, you want to work your own hours, your own way (either that, or you have a really serious authority problem). But let’s assume you’re just a natural born entrepreneur.
The Misleading “Breaking Free” Pattern
I am one of these people. I am an entrepreneur for more than 17 years and yes, I work my own hours. Most of the time.
I also do it my own way. Kinda.
I get to choose my own clients. Well, every once in a while.
Hmmmm…
As you can see, the more you dig into this, the more nuances are emerging.
If you look at it from the outside, the picture is gorgeous: running a successful business, living en empowering life, enjoying balanced relationships. All this opposed to the mainstream status quo: working whatever you have to, in order to put food on the table, living a frustrated and sad life, without a supporting spouse, or, even worse, entangled in complicated and energy sucking relationships.
Why don’t you break free, then? Just leave. Quit. Leave the past behind. Now! You know, every journey starts with just one step (insert a gazillion of crappy motivational quotes here).
The “breaking free” message is very powerful. It touches people at a very deep level and triggers very powerful emotional responses. Who doesn’t want to live without constraints? Who doesn’t want to travel around world? Who doesn’t want empowering and supporting spouses?
Everybody is yearning for that and even more.
But, when you really make the choice and get to it, when you start to look at this image from the inside, you realize that freedom always comes at a price. Something’s gotta give. And the abundance of self-help blogs preaching the “quit your job if you don’t like it” mantra is not really useful.
The message that you’re somehow entitled to enjoy a good life just by giving up is deeply illogical. It doesn’t really make any sense, if you really think at it.
But emotions and logic don’t go well together, traditionally. Those quitting messages are not directed to your rational side of the brain, but to the one easily impressed, moved by feelings and looking for instant gratification.
Any message along those lines should be taken with a little bit of salt. Ok, wit a lot of salt.
A Typical Day At Work
Let me share a bit from my slice. Like you may already know by now, I manage a coworking space called Connect Hub. And it’s not easy, you know. There’s a lot of operational stuff to be taken care of: sales, accounting, suppliers and so on. And that takes time and it gets difficult, sometimes.
It’s not that I don’t like doing these things. I like them. I enjoy talking to the residents, eating together, I enjoy supporting people to have great events, I enjoy seeing a community growing under my eyes. But I don’t really love the tedious stuff that I have to go through each and every day.
I would rather stay on a coffee shop and code great apps, like @zentasktic. Or I would write blog posts or books. Or I would simply run for hours. These are things that I love to do. I really love doing them.
But, you see, my schedule is a bit different.
Every morning, when I get to the hub, I start with what I have to do. I do the invoicing, the accounting, I make sure the place has what it needs to in order work, from water to toilet paper, I look over the numbers to see how we’re doing financially, I talk to the people in my team and so on and so forth.
Almost every day, almost without realizing, it’s way past noon and I feel I didn’t really do something for myself.
And I actually didn’t. Because I did what I had to.
It’s only after that, after I did what was scheduled for the day (and sometimes even more, when there are emergencies) that I can relax and start coding, or writing, or go out for a run.
And I like it that way.
You know why?
Because I learned how things are really working. How reality is working.
If You Do What You Love, But You’re Alone, You’re Not Gonna Last Much
That thing, that you gotta love what you do in order to be happy, well, it’s not entirely true. It’s very important to love what you’re doing, don’t get me wrong.
But it’s way more important to do something relevant, for you and for the people around you, no matter how much pleasure you get from that thing.
Take a second to read that again. Because it’s important. No mater how much please you get from that thing.
We define ourselves only in connection with others. We’re relevant only if we are useful to other people. We cannot exist in isolation, we influence and we are influenced in the same way by people with whom we get in contact.
Because of that, it’s fundamentally necessary to create a web of support, a layer of safety surrounding us. Being it emotional support (made by us being emotionally available to other people when they need company) or being it financial support (by us doing things other people will pay us for).
That’s from where the fuel for doing “what we love” really comes. Without having a firm foundation, without being sure the things are taking care of, we simply cannot dedicate to what we love to do. And that foundation, that safety, come only when we are useful to other people.
That’s the fundamental layer of reality. At least in my experience.
The More You Do It, The Better You Get At It
And then, on top of this layer, there’s another one, even subtler.
It’s the power of habit.
Like a muscle, our ability to perform better increases when we face resistance, not when we’re cruising ahead without any opposition. You don’t get stronger by avoiding to do your pushups, you get stronger because it’s harder for you to do them.
So, as a result of you doing more of what you have to do, you become better at it. And you do it in less and less time. And you do it better and better.
And, eventually, that translates in more and more time for?
Of course, for doing what you really love.
So, every time I stumble upon an article about “quitting that humiliating job”, “living the dream”, “being the best version of you” - without taking into account the responsibility part that comes with this decision, well, I kinda blink. At least once.
Sometimes even twice, and then move forward.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
