Is Self-Employment Right for You?

Self-employment suits anyone who puts in the effort — here’s why

Becoming self-employed is terrifying. I feel like when I made the decision to work for myself, I had no idea what I was doing. And even though I’ve learned along the way, I still have a lot to learn about self-employment.

Failure is scary — if I fail in self-employment, I risk disappointing my son, my girlfriend and those who matter to me. But I feel like the risk of failure is present in any job, and how I approach it dictates my success.

The risks of self-employment include not finding any work and losing all my clients at once. On the other hand, the risks of a traditional full-time, in-office job include feeling miserable about myself and limiting my personal and professional growth.

For me, I feel like being self-employed is the right choice, regardless of what anyone else says. I feel like the biggest risk associated with being self-employed — failure — is present both in self-employment and in a traditional full-time, in-office job. Although I cannot prevent failure, I can control my work approach and do everything possible to limit the risk of failure.

So, if you want to become self-employed, here’s my suggestion: accept failure and all that comes with it. You will fail at times in self-employment or anything else in life, and failure sucks out loud. However, you control your response to failure. If you embrace failure and learn from it, you can avoid making the same mistake twice.

One final note: if you want to succeed in self-employment or anything else, do the work. I feel like anything that’s worth doing deserves to be done right. If you do the work in self-employment, you can feel good about what you do. In the end, you may also find that you’re a successful self-employable.