Two and a half weeks after quitting my job and I am finally starting to settle down.
The pressure I put on myself to start making an income ASAP and then realizing my ideas were going to take much longer than I expected had me up to my eyeballs in anxiety, and when I could no longer keep it bottled I had a little meltdown the end of the first week. Which was a surprise to me….I’ve never had trouble finding plenty of work and usually need to turn down projects when I reach a saturation point. I also don’t usually follow the concerned advice of others to not do something I set out to do*, and of course with 22 percent unemployment here in Spain, people think I am totally insane for quitting not only a dream job, but quitting a job, period.
Halfway through the second week I decided – enough with the stress. While it may be a scary decision, the opportunities that await me now are opportunities I would not be able to pursue if I stayed working for someone else. Things will work out, they always do. I won’t neglect the rest of my life just because I have a lot to do. So last week, I went for a few long bike rides (even sunburned my arms on one 3 hour ride-I can’t remember the last time I sunburned my arms-a sign I really did need to get out more) and made sure to meet up with others at least once a day.
And so far things are coming together. I picked up a journalism/web project for a team in the CEV (Spanish championship), I am making headway on no less than three of my own websites for various businesses of my own (I’ll link them here when I muster the courage), I met with SoloMoto got set up to test ride again for them this year, and I’ve put myself out there for instructional design contract work.
The best thing is that I am enjoying all of it – meeting with various people in the moto world, taking time to meet friends, working from home with my tailless, water obsessed cat for entertainment, but especially -and most importantly- working on my own projects, all of which may or may not be successful, but I’m willing to take the risk to see them through.
*for example selling my house in 2010 despite no fewer than ten people telling me “it’s a bad time to sell right now, you should wait” and then proceeding to sell within two months of putting it on the market. Or leaving my job in Italy despite the whole of Europe saying “you are lucky to have a job, why would you quit?”
Britt at Large 