- I spend 40 hours a week working for someone else for a salary but what I would love is to work on my own projects and earn financial freedom instead.
The way I read is, is that you want to work for yourself and become happier. Don't focus on the money, it is just a means to an end, which I guess for you means a stressless life living on a nice salary. Don't expect to get an idea from the magic inspiration factory, making something in a month and then waiting for the cash to flow in. It's not gonna happen. Working for yourself requires a resilient mentality, being able to deal with stress of not making money and working more hours than a week can hold. With freedom comes responsibility.
For me, doing stuff leads to inspiration to do more. Learning new things and facts about the world is what makes me come up with new ideas. When I encounter a new idea or phenomenon, I always ask myself what it could help me with. Is there a way to turn it, bend it, spin it so that something new can be done with it? Can it be better?
- Don't expect to get an idea from the magic inspiration factory, making something in a month and then waiting for the cash to flow in. It's not gonna happen. Working for yourself requires a resilient mentality, being able to deal with stress of not making money and working more hours than a week can hold. With freedom comes responsibility.
Good point, I come from a family of self-employed people where I am one of the few wage-slaves. While they do certainly work very hard and have stressful jobs I still feel a lot of the same stresses when working for other people... There is a lot of similarity from what I can see.
I think the bigger question might be what you want out of life. The 40hr routine might provide enough stability for you to do other fun activities. Maybe you're looking for more challenge? You might be able to talk to your boss about more difficult work. Working less hours. What if you had more money now, how would you use it? Are there different ways of achieving that goal?
My point is that it's too easy to just settle on 'I want more money so I want to turn my life upside down'. There's a Dutch idiom which can be translated to 'there are multiple ways to Rome': there are always other ways of getting where you want. Think about all the routes and destinations before you make a drastic change! If you don't know the landscape of possibilities, you'll encounter mountains of problems you didn't forsee.
- I think the bigger question might be what you want out of life. The 40hr routine might provide enough stability for you to do other fun activities. Maybe you're looking for more challenge? You might be able to talk to your boss about more difficult work. Working less hours. What if you had more money now, how would you use it? Are there different ways of achieving that goal?
OK so I think we have wandered away from the actual question I asked but lets continue anyway :) At some level I am asking this because I feel that while what I do is important and it benefits others lives it is always under the control of others. What I want out of life is a difficult question and not one with a single answer (at least not one that provides any level of detail). Your point about the 40hr work week providing stability is true but at some point stability is not enough. The work I do is very challenging but so what, does the fact that it is difficult mean it is more worthy than easier work? Hardly.
The goal of my post is to find out what you want, what's wrong with what you have, so you can build from that and get yourself a goal to achieve.
I did get the impression from your unedited post that you wanted to know break from the slur and make money, and I just wanted to get your mind off the money part, as it shouldn't be the focus.
- The work I do is very challenging but so what, does the fact that it is difficult mean it is more worthy than easier work? Hardly.
Well, there are different kinds of challenges, and it depends on what you mean. If work requires me to think creative, requiring the most of my capabilities, I get much more gratification out of it. Work that's just doing stuff, while the actions might be difficult for the untrained, will soon get menial and unrewarding. While your work might be 'worthy' because it means a lot to other people, your work should still be rewarding to yourself. Otherwise you're just doing what others want you to do. I'd get sick of that pretty quickly.
- it is always under the control of others
Since you mention freedom often, I think that's what's behind all this. Maybe you're missing a sense of agency in your worklife, that you work because you want and chose to do so, not because you have to follow some boss. Being able to pass on boring projects, like you said in your opening post.
- I only have so many keystrokes left in my fingers, I seem to spend a lot of them on things that benefit others which is a good thing, but I'd like to spend some that will benefit me also :)
What gave me motivation recently was this great Zefrank video on how much time we still have left. Our time on this beautiful world is only so much, and I feel like I need to make use of it to the best of my possibilities. If that means changing my life, switching jobs, finally ditching friends I didn't like, then so be it.
Being altruistic is good, don't get me wrong, but it shouldn't govern your life. Life's too short for that.
It took me a year to reply to this, your post stunned me that much :)
I hear you though and I think when I posted this I was looking shake things up and find something I could get excited about, a new project perhaps. And into that I somehow attached secondary things like the possibility it would make me rich and free which are both ridiculous and superfluous. I want to find something that excited me a little and would provide a level of gratification.
thanks for the video.