Defining Yourself

We’re defined by our families, our social status, our looks, our ethnicity, etc. Aside from all of the definitions, baggage and expectations put on us by others, who are we?

From Employee to Business Owner

Making the transition from employee to self-employed has been quite a process. My expectations and beliefs about myself have also gone through a transformation. I’ve always been defined by my work, my title, my paycheck -- who am I when those things are not set by some company’s org chart?

If you have a business, you can’t sit there waiting for a manager to tell you what to do next. You have to make the decisions and trust that they are the right ones for you. Some decisions are huge, others may seem less important to the life of the business.

Whether I call myself the “CEO,” the “President" or the “Owner” may not seem like a big deal. Yet, for me it was. I was uncomfortable thinking of myself as a president or CEO. My perception of the kind of person who has that title did not line up with how I saw myself.

How are You Being Defined?

Being independent as a business owner has led to my releasing a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with who I am. “Stuff” that was put on me to define me as a worker in a particular industry, or a person with a certain level of education or income. I didn’t realize how deep those definitions went until I set out to make a major change in my life.

What I’ve learned is that when I define myself, there are no limitations.

There’s a lot of power in that.

Begin Where You Are

No doubt if you have a desire to make a career transition, you want to do it right away. Once you've decided what you want to do, and where you want to go, you're impatient for the change to happen. When I decided to leave IT and go back to being a writer, I was impatient to start my new life. Every delay, every setback, every disappointment seemed timed to frustrate me.

Whenever I read articles about writers who had long freelance careers, or younger writers on their second or third books, I beat myself up. I believed that if I hadn't changed careers from writing to information technology, I would've been much farther ahead as a writer. Who knows how many books I would've written, or how established my career would've been?

Wasted Time

Even after I got a contracting position that drew on my experience as a writer and a technical person, I still reproached myself. This went on for quite a while until I finally had to stop and think. What made me think that my years in IT were wasted? Everything I've been through has added to my knowledge and my skills.

So what if there are other writers with a long list of published work? I've had experiences that are just as valid, and just as valuable.

Another Path

I simply took another path. Not the "wrong" path but my own path. Who says that I'm not where I'm supposed to be? Who wrote the rule book that indicates where anyone should be at any time in their lives?

I think sometimes we focus on the past in order to stop ourselves from dealing with an uncertain future. We never have to face our fear of what can happen if we're always focusing on what has happened. We don't have to deal with the loss of control that comes when we step into the unknown.

In the Moment

It all comes back to fear, doesn't it? Fear that we've lost out by making "wrong" decisions. Fear that we will lose out if we don't make the "right" decision. Instead looking back, I'm going to begin where I am right now. All that I've done has prepared me for this moment. From here I can take one step, then another as I move forward to where I want to be.