Thursday, February 28, 2013

Days 10 thru 13 - 2/23-->27/2013

I slept alot again today, I'm not feeling particularly depressed though, the rainy day just seemed to call for it. I was reading and then all of a sudden - ZONK! - unconscious.

I hate doing that because it feels like wasting the day, but it may have been that my mind just needed to shut down for awhile. I know being freelance may seem bad-a**, but (for me at least) having no set work schedule makes it less like a stay-cation than an everyday I'm hustlin' situation. I can't tune out anything, because the way I see it the next phone call or email or job posting could be What's Next trying to find me, so it's hard to relax or treat any day like a day off. Here's what the last few days have been like...

I worked for the catering company all weekend - around 8 hours on Saturday and 11 hours on Sunday.

Monday I did some writing and drawing, sent out a resume (cover letters can be so hard to compose when you really really want something), went on a 6 mile yog, met friends for trivia at a bar, and went shopping for groceries. I've been making almost all of my meals at home to save money, so cooking and dishes are thrown in there a few times a day too.

Tuesday I worked on 2 spreadsheets for personal budget and income prediction (I'm not f**ked (yet*)), emailed with a few contacts in NYC + Nola for networking purposes, discovered :30 bunny adaptations of movies (an excellent way to work around my giving up the long form versions), watched TED Talks by Richard Branson and Jane Goodall, read some of this fantastic book that you should read too if you think you'd like a "monumental new work" that "tells the stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children but also find profound meaning in doing so," and went to an awesome show at the Mercury Lounge -- keep an eye on these boys, they're gonna go far.

Today I wanted to try to take the equivalent of a day off because honestly I can be overwhelmed with what I think I should be doing (not NEED to be doing). I just won't give myself permission to sit still if I can be writing, sending resumes, emailing people, making phone calls, yogging, etc. but I made an attempt anyway. I got back into my book on Shambhala for awhile, then felt guilty and popped online to build a profile and portfolio on a creative industry job board that a friend told me about. That took awhile because everything you do when you're freelance has to be thoughtful. Social and other networking sites need to match and make sense and be the best representation of me because I am essentially selling myself as a brand. I'm thinking my new tagline should be - NOW WITH MORE AWESOME! (how can they tell, amiright?!) If it hadn't been raining kittens & puppies I would have left the house to have an adventure out of reach of my laptop to prevent such distractions, but it was, so I settled back onto the couch to read some more and promptly fell asleep. That's one way to relax I guess...at least when I'm napping I'm not actively freaking out about what else I could be doing...and it's probably better for me than drinking and watching back-to-back episodes of Arrested Development (though debatable, for sure). New tagline for life - NOW WITH MORE NAPS!


* One of the things I've found really interesting on this path is that when I talk to people that are gracious enough to grant me informational interviews (usually fueled by coffee or cocktails), most of them inevitably ask me some form of this question at the end - "So, um, enough about what I do...how the hell did you get the courage to quit your job?" To hear this from people I am seeking guidance from was surprising at first, but it kept happening and now I totally get it because it rings true for me too. You can be good at something and speak intelligently on the subject or industry, but those things don't mean you like where you are. One person actually said I should stop looking for work and teach a class on how to quit your job if it's not right for you. Maybe I will...in the meantime these are 5 things that worked for me that I would tell anyone who wonders the same thing:

1) Put $100 into a savings account every time you get a paycheck. If you can't do that much, put away $50 or $25 or whatever is possible. It adds up, slowly but surely, and will hopefully give you the freedom later to take some time off when you realize you've hit the wall so f**king hard that thinking about your job causes you to cry in the steam room of a fancy spa (#truestory).

2) Be nice to EVERYONE, just in general, but this really pays off when you are looking for work. Seriously, the interns and assistants you interact with may someday be the people that can hire you or send you a job lead because they remembered that you're not a d**k. All of the interviews I've gotten so far have been through industry or personal connections, no companies have called me yet from any of the many (many) online postings for job opentings I have applied for. Scary but true.

3) Leave with grace. Tell supervisors and those who may report to you why you are leaving, but don't be mean or crazy about it. Your soon-to-be-former coworkers still work there and for them it may be the right place to be even if it is no longer for you. Again, you need good references and who knows what jobs they may hear about and/or be able to recommend you for. Some people return to work for employers again too, so don't burn bridges if that seems like a possibility down the road.

4) Once you've weighed your options, done the math and quit your job - make a budget and stick to it. If you go over, don't beat yourself up, but know that you did effectively shorten the life-span of your "transition" period because you just had to have those Uniqlo sweaters. Then get your smartly-dressed self over to the computer and get aggressive by following up with contacts that haven't gotten back to you yet (be polite though, people with jobs are busy, remember what that was like?).

5) Lose the ego, it's not cute. When a friend first asked me if I wanted to do coat-check for a catering company she worked for occasionally, I hesitated. I felt like it was beneath me. It's not. When you need to work, no task is beneath you so take any job -- and the 2nd just as important part of #5 is -- as long as you don't get stuck. I went in for an interview for a full-time job and mid-way through I knew I didn't want the position. Thankfully it wasn't offered to me, but if it had been I was ready to decline. That may seem like a stupid thing to say, but I'd take random gigs like coat-check that I can walk away from at the end of the night with no remorse over a 9-5 that I don't want any day.

In all these instances, know your limits to being true to yourself on every end of your spectrum. These apply to mine, yours may be different.

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