No one to blame but yourself
Owning your own business can be exciting and fun but it’s also challenging considering no one will pull you out when your head’s underwater. To keep it blunt, you did this to yourself and it’s your responsibility.
KISS (Keep it Simple Silly)
Take a look through social media; there seems to be a new app for invoicing, CRM, etc, popping up every day. Another subscription to tack on the expense list, use it for a week and realize it’s too expensive or it just sucks to use. I’ve gone back and forth and finally came back to what was simple and most importantly FREE. I strongly believe, that until you gain traction and start earning comfortably (not sweating every month for income) use as many free/low-cost resources and leverage your paid resources.
Here’s a list of what I use:
Notion (Free plan): project & task management
- Notion Calendar (Free plan): calendar overview of tasks and meetings. Syncs with Google Calendar.
- Gmail: contact email and use it for all my business accounts
- Google Meet: video conferencing with clients
- Dropbox (Free plan): asset delivery for clients
- Adobe Creative Cloud (Paid): Illustrator, Photoshop for design projects and Premiere Pro for content creation.
- Adobe Portfolio (Included in Adobe Creative Cloud): my website
- Pages & Numbers (Mac): used for invoices and contracts
- Grammarly (Free plan): I’m not the strongest writer, so it’s nice to have a little help.
Marketing yourself is part of the gig
The thought of sharing my work and my identity online had me in a chokehold for the longest time and until I got out of my own and settled into my confidence as a graphic designer, I wasn’t going to build my network and/or find clients to work with. Getting comfortable on camera is nerve-racking but with practice, filming and producing content gets easier. Marketing is just part of the job.
There’s a lot of self-doubt
Once the honeymoon phase passed, it was clear to me that this was going to be challenging. With family and friends questioning my decision to work for myself, the self-doubt started to peak. When self-doubt peaks like this it’s enticing to abandon ship and pivot, but keep steady, and make adjustments where they can be made. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Take a break
The first month of my business I was racking up the hours. Working from morning to night, with little breaks in between. I was obsessed. While it’s great to take care of your work, it’s also just as important to take care of yourself. It can be something as light as taking a walk around the block. Try not to dwell in your office dungeon.