Pause, regroup, take stock

I've now been self-employed or run my own business for over a decade. That means I've spent longer working for myself than I have in all of my previous in-house roles combined. That is quite a milestone, and it's flown past.

When I founded Bold Wise I had an opportunity to re-think the work I did, how I did it and why I did it. The biggest change was shifting the balance of the work I do from design into consultancy: working to make brand and digital projects run more effectively and smoothly and helping clients to spot opportunities and to focus their time, energy and budgets on the right things. However, I think I missed a huge opportunity myself.

For me, a big advantage of being employed by someone else isn't the pay check or 9-5 hours. It's the appraisals, the promotions, the CV updates and the interviews. These may seem like a chore (well, perhaps not the promotions), but, from my perspective now, they are a huge opportunity. They are semi-enforced chance to test yourself and be tested, to benchmark your performance, and to gain an understanding of how you, and your expertise, are growing and changing over time. This is something I've missed without realising it in my own working life.

I started thinking about this a little while back when a handful of projects prompted me to realise I was doing work I hadn't previously thought myself capable of. I've realised that, in my head at least, I'm pretty much the same person with the same skillset, expertise and experience who set off as a freelancer back in 2010 — and that is not only untrue, but perhaps a little dangerous. Underestimating capability can be just as damaging as overestimating it.

I haven't got all the answers, but I have a lot of questions. How do you benchmark your own abilities? What do you benchmark them against? How do you know how good you actually are at something when there's little meaningful data to go on? How do you silence the little (or not so little) voices of imposter syndrome?

Something I am doing is taking more scheduled breaks to take stock and regroup. I'm also writing more. I find that noting down what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and my thoughts around projects, work, life and the world in general, really helps show me not only where the gaps are, but the terrain I've already covered. And last, I'm pushing myself to find more suprise twenty minute runs — opportunities to push myself, to quiet those little imposter syndrome voices a little.

How about you? How do you measure your growth and progress?