2023 was the year of ‘Who will this force you to become?’

2023 was the year of ‘Who will this force you to become?’

From 2020-2023 I was working as a UX designer. A career inspired by reading the books and admiring the work of Steve Jobs and Jony Ive. I wanted to be a designer and use technology to create change. However, having always pursued creative endeavors combined with the desire to control the decisions and projects I worked on, I knew working for someone else wasn’t sustainable for me.

In February of 2023 I was blessed with the opportunity by my employer to either take severance or relocate to the HQ in order to continue working for them. The answer was obvious, but sooner than I expected.

The main reason I decided to go out on my own and answer this question living in the back of my mind is because I wanted to see who this experience and journey would force me to become. When you go out on your own, you become entirely responsible for the outcome of your decisions. You can’t hide behind someone else, you can’t just delegate the work to another individual, you can’t blame anyone else, no one will push you to work, you have to pull up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, learn the things that you never thought you would, and go through processes you otherwise thought would take years to learn.

Like most people, I was filled with self-doubt. So, I created a list. A ‘worst case scenario’ list, a list full of what’s the worst that could happen as well as all the hesitations and doubts in my mind:

- you won’t be profitable in your 1st year.
- you might not even make money for a few years.
- people will copy your idea.
- real cinematographers, videographers, content creators, vloggers, will enter the space.
- you will get lazy. You’ll want to re-use content, take a shortcut.
- I’ll eventually be 40 and have less than 100K subscribers. Not making enough money from the pursuit yet having spent 6 years doing it.
- would it be successful?
- who really cares about what you make?
- what do I know about it?
- other people are doing something similar.

The list goes on. I realized that despite those becoming true, it didn’t matter once I got started, once I was doing it. You’re too busy to worry about it. And once you create momentum for yourself, you end up overcoming most of those doubts anyways. Most of those doubts are created on the extreme end of the spectrum as our minds naturally gravitate towards negativity. But in the practice of doing, they become smaller. And those doubts eventually turn into wins.

If the thought of pursuing your own path/idea has been sitting with you, keeps you up at night, and it’s all you can think about while you’re around other people, then I hope this inspires you to take the step I did.

Life is entirely way too short to live someone else’s dream. To live every day letting yours slip away.

Figure out what you want and work backwards from there. The more clarity you have, the more tangible steps you can create and the more possible it all seems.

Happy holidays and happy new year.

brian