When you leave corporate and go out on your own as a consultant, you get to ask yourself many questions.

The questions that were most immediately apparent and alluring for me were:

• What inspires me?
• What am I good at?
• What kind of work do I want to do?
• What kind of work do I NOT want to do?
• Who do I want to work with?
• How much do I want (or need) to earn?

These are all important but are arguably the same questions you ask yourself in a diligent reflection during any job search.

Here’s one you get to ask yourself that’s specific to self-employment:

• How much do I want to work?

Can you think of a question more antithetical to the corporate 9-to-5?

Yes, in a traditional job search, you may seek to scale back from a soul-crushing 80-hour workweek to a more reasonable 40-hour one.

But more often than not, your floor is 40 hours/week, Monday to Friday.

And the presence of that floor means you’re not really answering that question for yourself.

Out on your own, you can get more creative with it.

Perhaps:

• 30 hrs/week, 40 weeks/year
• Mon-thru-Fri, mornings only
• As much as it takes to be able to take 4 months off in the summer

When you remove the corporate 40-hour mindset that’s been drilled into our heads for decades, you open the door to designing the professional life that works for you.

Take your time with it - it’s a deep, profound question only you can answer.

That answer will provide the foundation for nearly every other decision you make when structuring your service and business model.

💡

-Wes