Almost 3 Years as an Entrepreneur - Woohoo 🎉
May 24, 2022
Happy Tuesday, friend!
Work is such a big part of our lives. On average, people spend 1/3 of their life working. I used to hate my job. So, I belonged to 50% to 85% of people who do the same.
These are the reasons why I hated it:
- gossip
- politics
- spending tons of my time doing things I didn't want to do (e.g., meetings)
- not enough time doing things I wanted to do (e.g., teach what I want to teach, be myself, be creative, etc.)
- negative health impact (the amount of stress I've experienced from the interpersonal conflict was impacting my mental and physical health), and it didn't make any sense to me that I would get health insurance to mitigate work stress - kind of - backward!
- not enough creativity (again, stress-related)
- micro-management
- not enough freedom - in my schedule, how much I work, how much I get paid, etc.
- not enough "baby time" - I don't want to sit in meetings when instead I could watch my kid learning to walk or talk. I guess it's priorities!
- I couldn't make many decisions and choices.
- My values didn't match the company's values.
I know that I am not alone. And I've already worked with a number of clients who felt the same.
Here is what I can share from my almost 3 years of experience working for myself. Btw, 3 years ago, I couldn't even pronounce the word "entrepreneur" (it's still a struggle sometimes 😂 English is my 2nd language.)
The step of going solo is NOT easy. I didn't have an entrepreneurial background. But I have learned - and still learning. I have taken enough business and marketing classes in the past 4 years to consider myself an MBA graduate. And I absolutely love it.
It's not easy for these reasons:
- you do not get rich overnight (in my experience)
- so many things are new, so it can and it does get overwhelming
- you must hold onto your WHY to keep going - I had so many WHYs. And during the hard days, they helped me make one more step. I didn't want to go back to working for someone else.
- you must develop a completely different mindset around work and money (bye-bye qualities such as being a victim, indecisiveness, procrastination, perfectionism, being non-authentic, self-criticism, being critical of money, and not valuing your time, etc)
Entrepreneurship is an amazing path to self-development and stepping into your biggest potential. In my experience.
It brought up all the shadows in me - everything I didn't have the capacity to look at when I was working for someone else. And gently (and sometimes - not gently) - invited me to evolve.
Now, I have everything that I wanted a few years back (and more!) And, this is what I have learned:
To have the work of your dreams, you must evolve. Your employer won't give it to you. You must give it to yourself first.
Really, it's like everything in life. When you keep asking others to give you what you want - it never happens. Until YOU yourself start taking responsibility for your life and creating the life of your dreams.
It's amazing to me that every pain, every tragedy we face in life is an opportunity and an invitation to choose, evolve, take responsibility, forgive, and embody what you desire for yourself and for the world.
- How can you help the world?
- Help yourself first!
This has been my experience not only in work but in everything: romance, interpersonal relationships, work, health, etc. Life is an amazing adventure for sure. And it keeps getting better and better.
With love,
Mariya
P.S. Be on the lookout for a new course that's coming up "Connect to Spirit." It's my heart's baby: the content and tools I share in this upcoming course are what have helped me through every challenge and brought it to the next level. We begin in June.
P.P.S. Even more exciting news - I'll have 3 scholarships available for that course. More info to come 🙂 Stay tuned.