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As a self-employed person, I feel so alone: ​​What should I do?

2021-06-08T09:55:22.753Z


Sandra works as a freelance architect and loves the freedom to design her work independently. But she lacks colleagues and a permanent team. Is there a solution?


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Potted plant instead of female colleagues?

Not always a solution (symbol photo).

Photo: Valentina Barreto / imago images / Westend61

Sandra, 39 years old, asks: »I work as a freelance architect.

I like the freedom to work independently.

However, I often lack a team, the togetherness in an office, and it stresses me to have many different clients.

What can I do?"

Dear Sandra,

First of all, hats off that you have dared to take the step into self-employment.

It is not a matter of course to work successfully freely in this industry - it's great that you succeed.

You are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of self-employment from your own experience: Self-determination and freedom in decisions and time management can be extremely satisfying.

As a self-employed person, you can set your own priorities within your work and develop more individually than is often possible in a permanent position.

On the negative side, in addition to the disadvantages of the missing team that you mentioned, there is less financial security, more paperwork, acquisition pressure, sometimes increased overtime and, as a result, not infrequently a certain psychological burden.

The question, however, is not what the general advantages and disadvantages are, but how they feel for you personally. In other words: how decisive you perceive which aspect to be. If you are considering swapping your self-employment for a permanent position, first consider how you would weight the various arguments.

To do this, write down all the advantages and disadvantages that you currently see in self-employment in a classic pros and cons list. Then go through all the points and assign a value from 0 to 10, depending on how important each aspect is to you. For example, it could turn out that independent work and creative freedom outweigh everything else in terms of their subjectively perceived importance. Or that the points perceived negatively weigh much more heavily for you and therefore speak in favor of (temporarily) leaving your independence. The bottom line is that the knowledge is important: objective pros and cons alone are not very meaningful - it all depends on what appears to you to be indispensable or dispensable in your current situation.

Perhaps it is more a question of “HOW do I want to be self-employed?” Rather than thinking “IF I want to be self-employed”.

Perhaps the simplest solution to your current situation is to continue to work independently while adjusting the areas that are stressing you or where you feel unfulfilled.

Is a combination of fixed and free possible?

Many solo self-employed people lack work in a team and in general exchange and contact with other people.

Various options can be found here to integrate more social interaction into everyday work: make an appointment for a (digital) lunch break with friends and acquaintances who also work in the home office, or make new contacts via a network of other freelancers or entrepreneurs.

The latter also gives you the option of tackling some projects together with a colleague from the subject, so that you can enrich at least part of your working time with teamwork. Perhaps this will even result in long-term cooperation. After all, for many an individual combination model of freelance and salaried work is ideal: How about, for example, if you work permanently in an architecture office two or three days a week - including your team and a feeling of being connected - and postpone your independent activity for the rest of the time ?

If you prefer to remain completely independent, working in a coworking space would still be an option.

You have people around you and can make contacts in a relaxed way, but still remain flexible.

Thanks to appropriate security measures, many coworking spaces are also open during the pandemic.

What exactly would the perfect job look like?

As for your stressor, also mentioned, of serving too many different clients: Get to the bottom of the problem.

What exactly are you trying to do - having to adapt to different characters and demands?

Having to prove yourself with every new client?

Or generally the lack of opportunity to concentrate on just one project?

Work out for yourself the conditions under which you would actually like to work.

Perhaps you can concentrate your orders on fewer clients and, in the case of inquiries, filter out more criteria that are important to you (it is of course also an economic question whether this is possible). It may help if you structure your working day more strongly and separate the individual projects more clearly from one another. If you are generally stressed about negotiating with clients, switching to an architecture office could at least suit you insofar as you no longer have to deal with complicated requests or excessive expectations on your own.

As you can see, there are always creative ways to adapt your working conditions as a self-employed person even better to your needs.

Ultimately, it is important to be aware of these, to prioritize them and to let the consequences follow.

What would optimal work look like for you?

And what screws can you turn to get closer to that?

And don't forget: no decision is set in stone!

Switching to an employment relationship does not prevent you from resuming your self-employment at a later date.

So feel free to try out in which setting you feel most comfortable and can work most productively.

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-06-08

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