Reflections On The Year Of "Spotlight"
Photo by Eric Smart on Unsplash
At the start of this year, I decided that my personal theme of 2019 would be "Spotlight". I'm a shy and quiet person but I knew that I needed to put myself out more to be successful as a self-employed person. That's one of the reasons I decided to work on a podcast. Launching a podcast has stretched my abilities in ways that I would have never expected. I never thought I would be able to read a book and then reach out to the author to have a conversation. But I have done that for several guests that ended up on the podcast!
When I look back at 2019 I feel genuine pride in what I've accomplished. I have accomplished a lot in other years but this is the first year that I feel I can have pride and stake my identity to something. I am happy to tell others: "My name is Kevin Joseph, and I am the host of the Talk Burnout podcast." There's a level of ownership and self-satisfaction in that phrase that I can't say I've felt before.
This was the first year I've been fully self-employed and I would say it's been a mixed bag of good and bad. I liked being able to work on the projects that I think are the most important and follow the leads that I think are most interesting. I like the flexibility to pivot between things as I see fit. I also like being able to set my own hours according to my energy. (If I want to take a nap post-lunch and start working again at 9pm, I can do that!)
There are things that I miss about a "regular" job though. I miss working with consistent coworkers and the sense of teamwork that I had in my earlier job. I also definitely miss having a consistent paycheck. Money is one of the things that trigger my anxiety and the lack of security around money has been tough to deal with. I have enough saved up that I'm not in danger of starving, but this is one of those emotional anxieties that is tough to deal with. I've also found it tough to "turn off" the working part of my brain. I know that's very ironic coming from a guy that frequently talks about burnout! It is pretty hard to set boundaries between work and play when you work from home and that's something I want to work on.
In the end, the most valuable thing I take away from this year may be self-confidence. If you told me a few years ago that I would one day launch a podcast, I would have told you that you were crazy. And yet here I am with 12 episodes of a podcast launched and in the books. That's something I can hang my hat on and draw internal strength from in the future.
There's a quote I'm trying to keep in mind: "It takes 10 years to become an overnight success." Success is never guaranteed, but if I keep working at it I believe that someday it will pay off.
How was your 2019? Did you take steps to get through burnout? Email me and let me know!