Career Setbacks Are Inevitable When You're Carving Out A New Path (P.S. I Have To Postpone That Course.)
If you're starting your own business or occupying a new & unique position within one, you're in uncharted territory and sometimes things just aren't gonna work out as planned.
If there’s one thing you need when starting a new business (or just a new position in general,) it’s consistency. If there’s one thing you cannot have with a chronic illness, it’s also consistency. This essay was written over many many hours because of my brain fog due to Long Covid/CFS/Whatever this is, don’t actually know yet. Anyway, I’m gonna have to postpone my course due to a chronic illness flareup and I apologize a great deal but it was unavoidable and unpredictable (and the course will still happen at later weekend dates I will disclose ASAP.)
Every single person I know who’s tried to blaze a new career path has been met with unexpected setbacks. Just this morning my partner realized he was overpaying his taxes due to hidden *company that hosts content for patrons* fees. Going your own way means having the courage to make mistakes in order to learn. It also means dealing with problems outside of your control, and having the wisdom to know the difference (and not blame yourself!) You will probably also have to be your own advertiser which not everyone is comfortable doing. Plus, your audience may not be readily apparent for a long time. Look, if you’re walking a totally new path, you’re gonna have to keep doubling back to find it. That’s ok. Normal, even.
The two things you can actually do wrong when navigating uncharted career waters are beating yourself up unnecessarily or refusing to learn from your mistakes. The ones that are yours, not circumstantial (or ones that aren’t yours but are due to circumstances that will likely reemerge.) I will probably have another flareup of whatever this is before I figure out what’s wrong with me health-wise, let alone how to treat it. While I think the interactive aspect this course will be very valuable when I can eventually lead it, I think after I postpone and hold the first one (which will teach me a lot too,) I’ll have to create evergreen online courses that probably do have a Q&A component, but aren’t completely interactive and therefore don’t rely on me to be healthy and cognizant 24/7. I can answer questions via email during pockets of clarity if I’m having a flareup. That’s more doable. And it’s more doable after I get the feedback I need from postponing and holding the course as is first. It’s a compromise between what I want to do ideally and what’s realistic for me to do for now.
If you actually chose to go your own way job-wise and it wasn’t foisted upon you, you did so not just to accommodate an untapped niche or clientele, but yourself. If it was foisted upon you, your previous work was likely not doing accommodating you, nor tapping into your full potential. People carving out their own businesses or positions tend to be super hard on themselves and forget the ‘accommodate yourself’ part of the equation. They forget that people who work regular 9-5s aren’t constantly working from 9-5. They put the weight of the economy on their guilty shoulders as well as their own necessary or unavoidable errors. Sometimes, a personal business becomes someone’s entire identity and when some aspect of it inevitably crashes and burns, instead of learning and pivoting, they have an identity crisis. Even if you’re creating something totally new, something with your personal ideals and needs in mind, work is still just work. Just one aspect of your life. And you’re gonna fuck it up. Everyone does.
You chose the road not taken, and chances are after a lot of strife and error you’re gonna end up in more or less the same place as your old corporate colleagues- just a bit wiser, stronger and more gratified.