Year One Reflections

It’s been over a year since I posted my first blog, which highlighted my journey to grounding myself in a love ethic for the work that I do. At that time, I also started working as an independent consultant for the first time in my career. I have reflected on my experiences this past year and have some observations to share.

Loss

When I stepped into independent consulting, it was after 35+ years of working for other people within organizations. Like a good student, I did my homework to prepare for what I was about to venture into. I read articles and connected with colleagues and friends who were actively working as independent consultants. While I had a pretty good intellectual grasp of what I was about to step into, I was not at all prepared for the embodied experience.

Thanks to my amazing community, I did not have to hustle to get work when I started out, which was an absolute gift! Although I did not have to worry about securing work, I still struggled mentally and emotionally those first few months. I had anticipated that the change would be hard, so I framed my struggle as a byproduct of adjusting to the change. In retrospect, a key reason why I struggled so much is because I went into independent consulting seeing it almost exclusively as a different means of generating income and had not fully appreciated how much it is fundamentally a different way of working. Ultimately, those first few months, I was grieving the way of working that I had lost.

While I am extremely grateful that I do not have to deal with organizational politics and dysfunction on a full-time basis, I wholeheartedly miss being part of a team working on a common cause and mission. I genuinely enjoy working with others (most of the time) and while I continue to do that in my consulting work, the frequency is not the same as being in a full-time position within an organization. There are other aspects of independent consulting that are unique to it that I have had to acclimate to or keep in mind, such as wearing all the hats and feast/famine financial cycles. But without question, the part that I continue to adjust to (and occasionally grieve) is not having colleagues and not being part of an institution.

Monetization

Another aspect of working independently that I was totally unprepared for is how frequently I think about monetizing myself. Clearly, the notion of monetization is not unique to this work. Every time I pursued job opportunities, I filtered them based on what I thought was fair compensation. I also engaged in conversations about salary increases and bonuses. However, something that I used to think of only when I was job hunting or during annual salary reviews is now part of my routine work.

I think about monetization whenever I revisit how much I should be charging for my skills and expertise. I think about it as I pull together proposals and scopes of work. I think about it as I structure payment terms on contracts. I think about it as I forecast the amount of financial runway I have before I need to start pursuing additional work. I think about it as I contemplate whether to incorporate a hazard adjustment for certain types of projects and clients. I think about it as I consider how I can make my services available to a wider range of organization types and budgets. I think about it as a Black Puerto Rican woman who knows there are folks who will balk at my quote and not think twice if a White man gave them the same exact quote. In other words, I think about monetization A LOT.

I am privileged to have a set of skills and expertise that our capitalist society has deemed worthy of a higher level of compensation. However, as someone who does not believe in assigning differential value to human beings, I find myself incredibly challenged by this part of independent consulting.

“Work”

The bulk of my work has been based on an hourly rate, which means that I usually bill for the hours that I “work” to complete agreed-upon tasks and deliverables. I put work in quotations here purposefully because as a knowledge worker, the hours that I bill do not fully reflect all the time that I spend thinking about the work that I am contracted to do. For each hour I bill to write a report, develop a meeting facilitation guide, or draft an interview protocol, I spend additional hours thinking about the work during random times of the day - when I’m cooking, washing dishes, out walking, or getting ready for the next day.

I practice mindfulness, so I work to redirect my thoughts to the present moment whenever possible. However, when my brain is clearly in the midst of sense-making or revisiting a decision or direction I am taking on a project, I tend to follow my thoughts. I do not currently monetize these moments and am not sure if I even want to do so. However, I do want to recognize that these moments are an essential part of doing the work and I would love to hear how others account for this in their work.

Freedom and Flexibility

I had a sense that independent consulting would bring freedom and flexibility, both in the ways in which I work and the types of work that I do. What I know now is that although I had pockets of freedom and flexibility, none of my full-time gigs ever had the level of freedom and flexibility that comes with working independently. To avoid the downsides of scope creep and missing deadlines, I do have to be more diligent and disciplined. The increased effort is worth it, though, as this level of freedom and flexibility suits me well.

Spaciousness

This last observation might just be a result of this moment in time. However, I do want to mention it because I believe that spaciousness is something that we should all have, regardless of work (or overall) environment. Currently, I find that I have spaciousness to examine my relationship to work. I have spaciousness to interrogate why I do the work that I do. I have spaciousness to shed oppressive conditioning. I have spaciousness to explore different ways of making the world a better place. I have spaciousness to more fully live into my being.

As I think about the characteristics of independent consulting that lends itself to creating the conditions for spaciousness, it's likely the combination of shorter-term engagements and multiple clients that creates the space and time to reflect more frequently and intentionally. I believe these conditions can be recreated within an organization by embedding and prioritizing authentic reflective practices at the individual, team, and organizational levels that serve both the organization and those who are doing the work.

Overall, as I reflect on this past year, I am grateful that I persisted through those rough first few months and resisted the urge to jump back into a full-time gig. As the saying goes, the only way past is through, and I was able to make it through with love and support from my husband, therapist, and community. During that rough patch, I tried my best to recognize that although I was feeling like absolute trash, I had to feel my way through and ride the wave until the light returned, because the light eventually returns. And as it always does, it did.

Reflection Questions

What does spaciousness entail for you? How can you create more spaciousness in your life? What would you explore if you had more spaciousness?