What got you here won’t get you there

You need to change if you want things around you to change. Here are some thoughts on how I'm rewiring myself to thrive as a self-employed person.

Bonjour everyone!

To make radical changes in your work or life, you have to change what you choose to focus your attention on, and rewire behaviours that used to work well for you.

You need to change if you want things around you to change.

I see this all the time in the solopreneurs and start-ups I work with when they decide to kick off a project that’s meant to transform their business: they need to start talking to different people, experimenting and taking on new risks.

It’s also essential for sabbatical-takers who want to make the most of their break: the best thing they can do is replace their ‘worker’ mode with an ‘explorer’ mode.

It’s also exactly what I’m doing now as I transition to self-employment — so I wanted to share some thoughts on how I’m rewiring myself in the process.

Given that it’s Election Day in the US, I thought this might help keep you grounded as you’re waiting for the results 🗳️

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Learning corporate behaviours

In 2010, I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed analyst in a consultancy in Paris. How did I end up in a senior leadership position at a FTSE 100 company a decade later?

Simple. I learned to thrive in structured environments where my role was clearly defined and my performance was clearly measurable. Same as school and university but with a corporate spin.

What mattered most for success was solving problems, making decisions, delivering quality outputs on time, caring about being of service to everyone around me and not just my seniors, and working long and focused hours when needed. I also learned to always be on, sometimes at the expense of my personal life, and that I had to take on performative tasks to make myself look good in the eyes of people who could accelerate my career.

Some of those behaviours came naturally to me e.g. wanting to solve problems, caring about being of service, delivering quality outputs. Others I had to learn, like how to make decisions quickly and well.

Slowly I morphed myself into the shape that had the highest probability of being promoted up the corporate ladder and into more senior roles.

That worked well for a while, but eventually, I started feeling constrained. And when I went on a career break in 2022, it felt as though I could finally stretch my arms and legs outside of that corporate mould.

From ladder to labyrinth

My sabbatical tasted like freedom — from any external structure or expectations. It was the opposite of the predictability of corporate life. Of course, that came with a healthy dose of uncertainty that the voice inside my head kept reminding me of, in the form of lines like “errr what do you think you’re doing?”

Ultimately, it gave me a taste of what self-employment might feel like: no mould to fit into, just space to navigate, and no guidance apart from the one I want to give to myself.

Now that I’m fully self-employed, progression doesn’t feel like climbing a ladder anymore. There’s no obvious ‘up’. Instead, it feels like a labyrinth. Not the scary kind where the Minotaur could be hiding behind any corner, but one full of more or less inviting, interconnected paths to explore. Any direction is the 'right' direction as long as it's both aligned with what I truly want to work on and provides me with enough freedom, money and connections to live the life I want.

The ‘ladder’ mindset isn’t the only thing I’ve had to let go of.

I’m unlearning the corporate expectation to ‘always be on’.

I’m my own boss, so the only work I do now is what I set out for myself. I could choose to mimic the corporate world, creating a never-ending list of urgent tasks and falling into the trap of busyness. Instead, I’m trying to be more intentional, focusing only on what truly moves the dial in the direction I want.

Yet, some days, my old corporate habits catch up with me, and I find myself doing lots of things that might look like they’re useful but aren’t really moving the dial.

When I catch myself doing this, I feel like this guy — and take a break.

I’m also letting go of the idea that my work has to be confined to a particular role.

In the corporate setting, my value came from delivering specific objectives that were tied to my job description.

If I wanted, I could reproduce this now by deciding what I’m going to focus my attention on, and forgoing unrelated opportunities when they come up. But if I did this I’d be creating a new ‘job’ for myself. So instead, I’m keeping an open mind, allowing myself to explore opportunities as they come up, and occasionally narrowing my focus — only as needed.

Building new habits

Thriving on the self-employed path doesn’t just require letting go of old corporate habits that are doing me a disservice. I also need to learn new habits if I really want things to change. Interestingly, most of those are relevant in any Big Transition, not just the transition to self-employment.

For example, I’ve started experimenting more, whether it’s to test new product ideas, marketing approaches, or ways of working. 

Many corporate leaders hate failure. It doesn’t look good on their track records, and they’ll only forget a string of failures if it ends in a bonus-boosting innovation. 

As a self-employed person, failure is part of the job because it’s the only way to uncover what really works. It’s not easy, though. It took me a day to accept that a thoughtfully curated email I’d sent would not result in a conversation. It also took me three weeks to get over an unsuccessful product launch a few months ago — and it still stings today.

Experimenting is useful, but it isn’t enough. I’ve also had to make space for my curiosity and trust that it would lead me to good places. 

In my old corporate roles, every single minute of my working day was allocated to tasks and deliverables relating to my official responsibilities, leaving little space for exploration. There was no room for my curiosity to express itself.

The thing is, curiosity is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it gets atrophied. And now that I’m in the self-employed world, I need to be curious about the world around me if I want to thrive. It’s through reading, podcasts, conversations and the curiosity to explore the unexpected that new ideas and opportunities unfold. Being curious is not a nice-to-have, it’s a necessity.

Finally, and perhaps most challenging of all, I’m learning to cultivate patience. 

Before I left the corporate world, I’d been operating in it for fifteen years. By that point I knew how to get things done well instinctively and I was really good at what I did. I sometimes felt like a master at the corporate craft — or at least like I was on the way to mastery.

Today I have very little self-employed experience and therefore very little instinct about what is going to work or not on this path. The corporate master has become a self-employed noob — and some days, that’s a hard truth to accept. I liked being great at what I do.

One day I’ll be a master at marketing and selling my wares but for now I have a lot to learn, despite knowing I have brilliant products and services on offer. 

Your turn

If you’re finding yourself in transition right now, remember that unlearning is just as vital as learning when you’re moving from one environment or one phase of life to another. You can’t take the tools from your previous context to the next and expect them to work in the same way.

What got you here won’t get you there. Accept that, and you’ll be much closer to seeing the changes you want.

And remember it takes time.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, says it takes more than 2 months for a new behaviour to become automatic — 66 days, on average. 

I’ll add to this that in times of transition, when you’re building multiple habits at once, it may take longer for some to be fully in place. I didn’t climb the corporate ladder in 66 days. It took years. Self-employment will require patience, too.