More stability, less stress

It’s been eight years since I started my consulting business. Two of the things I love about having my own business are the stability and the reduced stress. This may sound like a joke, but I’m completely serious.

Having a business is ostensibly less stable and more stressful than having a salaried job, but at a deeper level it can be more stable and less stressful.

If you are an employee, you have one client. If you lose that client, you lose 100% of your income. If you have a business with a dozen clients, losing a client or two at the same time is disappointing, but it’s not devastating.

As for stress, I prefer the stress of owning a business to the stresses of employment. My net stress level dropped when I went out on my own. My sleep, for example, improved immediately.

At first I never knew where the next project was coming from. But I found this less stressful than office politics, questioning the value of my work, a lack of correlation between my efforts and my rewards, etc.

If you’re thinking of striking out on your own, I wish you well. Here is some advice I wrote a few years ago that you may find helpful.

5 thoughts on “More stability, less stress

  1. One hundred percent completely agree. It’s the hardest and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, and it’s like leveling up in life.

    It’s true that one trades an old set of stresses for a new set, but they are ones much more under one’s own ability to manage.

  2. Congratulations on eight years. After watching my own own work-induced stress grow over the last few years, I can now imagine how self-employment can be less stressful.

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