What I learned after an anxiety attack, 2 weeks of holidays and reducing my MRR from €4500 to €250
Here is what I realized after having an anxiety attack, going on holidays and reducing my MRR from €4500 to €250.
I burn out when I chase a goal and feel everyday behind it.
I enjoy life when I'm relaxed and focused on the every day process and on creating cool things.
How did I make myself feel relaxed?
· Reduced the amount of projects I am working on
· Extended my runway
· Stopped being terrified that I will end up with no money
I started having more FAITH in myself and stopped listening to others.
I focus on showing up and doing my best.
I push myself to feel happy with the progress I've done WITHOUT measuring all the time, if it's enough or not.
I realized I've been the worst boss I could ever have and since I had the anxiety attack I started changing radically.
Truth is that once we learn how to control and understand our mind, we can control our life and start experiencing more happiness as well.
On top of these, I also improved my sleeping habits and stopped drinking coffee every day. I am sure these had some impact as well.
That's all!
Entrepreneurship has been tough but the personal growth I've experienced the last 1 year has been incredible and I wouldn't change it with anything in my life. ❤️
If you are new to my journey, on June 2020 I quit my job with a year of savings (32.000€) to chase my dream of becoming a full-time IndieHacker. I had no specific plans or project ideas to work on. Only a goal, some savings and my skills. Since then I share every week what happens behind the scenes.
Feel free to join me on my journey, and to check all the updates I 've published so far!
Is the reduction temporary, because of holidays? Or something you need to build up again because you've walked away from certain things?
Basically, I'm curious about the practicalities.
Also, how do you stop feeling terrified about running out of money? I'm not there yet, despite, in reality, having many options! 🙃
Glad you are feeling good/better, sending virtual hugs. 🧸
It's a temporary reduction until I start making revenue from the right projects.
In detail I was freelancing as a designer, designing the iOS app of a sneakers marketplace and working 12 hours per week for them. But at some point I realized I hate it. Because of their team and also because of the overall process. I felt like a busy employee with design tasks again, and didn't have the energy to focus on building a business with multiple customers. I was just working as a designer, smth that made me feel sad since this is not my goal.
So I quit this project and now I have no clients and income on purpose. I have a runway of ~ 6 months and in this timeframe I am planning to build a productized UX service that is focused on coaching and user testing (more here https://twitter.com/JimZarkadas/status/1410274262770872321)
I realized that I love sharing my knowledge and helping others grow through great UX. I don't enjoy being hired to fix everything for them. I want to switch to mentor and focus on designing my own software products (thinkoutloud.io)
This format of working with people will be more fun cause I won't find just a client and sell my soul to them. I will work with multiple customers and will create a very scoped amount of value for them in a very scoped amount of time :-)
On top of this I am discussing with http://interaction-design.org to join them as a part-time freelance bootcamp mentor.
Regarding the being terrified that I ll run out of money it's a real struggle I have. This time I decided I won't let it control my action and my emotions and I decided to take the leap of faith and believe in myself that I will make it work and find meaningful profitable projects in the next 6 months.
One thing that helped is that I cut down my monthly expenses from 3.2k to 2.2k and I now feel more relaxed and in peace. I feel I have the time and energy to focus on building the right things and that I don't have to live up to some specific expectations.
Hope this helps, and sending virtual hugs back! 🧸
Isn't running out of money mostly an issue of "how long until I run out of money?"
I tend to think about it as this: Let's say I have living expenses for X months in my bank account. That means I can spend X-6 months on my business and if that fails, I can find freelance contracts or a job.
So yes, I'm afraid of running out of money, but the downside is capped. There's no way I'll run completely out of money.
Good to hear that you are doing well! I was just about to message you the other day to see how things were going, but got caught up with life and forgot.
Haha thanks man and no worries!