June 2026
Three Months Self-Employed: The Emotional Rollercoaster I was warned about but didn’t appreciate.
Three months.
That's how long I've been self-employed. People often ask how it's going, and the honest answer is that it's been an emotional rollercoaster.
For years, my stress was tied to funding bids, safeguarding concerns, young people's welfare, supporting colleagues through difficult situations, navigating legislative changes, and carrying the weight of responsibilities that genuinely mattered.
The irony is that the anxiety hasn't disappeared.
It's just changed shape.
Now it's cash flow. It's sending a quote and wondering if they'll accept it. It's sending a quote and immediately panicking that you've charged too much or not enough. It's being ghosted after conversations that felt really positive. It's refreshing your inbox more often than you'd care to admit.
It's spending a Tuesday afternoon wondering whether you should be working, networking, marketing, resting, planning, or whether everyone else somehow knows the answer and you've missed the memo.
One of the strangest adjustments has been learning that "work" doesn't always look like work.
Sometimes work is attending a ladies' lunch. Sometimes it's a networking event. Sometimes it's having a coffee with someone you've only ever spoken to online. Sometimes it's spending an hour talking to somebody with no obvious outcome. Coming from a world where productivity was measured by meetings, reports, deadlines and outputs, it has taken some getting used to.
And yet, those conversations have changed everything.
In January I attended a networking event I'd never been to before. I stood up. I spoke. I was myself. No corporate script. No pretending to be someone else. Just me. By the end of that event, I had been asked to host one. I hosted that event and was then booked to host another event in November.
A few weeks later I was invited to a private dining experience for women in business. I knew one other person there. Again, I left with a booking to host an event in December. Earlier this year I met a wonderful woman on a course. We connected and she immediately booked me as a keynote speaker at her company conference. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
The lesson?
Sometimes the opportunities you are desperately trying to create arrive through conversations you almost didn't attend.
Of course, it hasn't all been positive.
One thing I've really struggled with is not having a proper workspace. I underestimated how much I relied on having an office. Not because I need corporate furniture or a fancy building, but because I need my environment to work with my brain. I've tried co-working spaces. ome of them were absolutely fabulous.
But I realised I don't just need a desk.
I need my stuff. I need post-it notes stuck everywhere. I need visual prompts. I need half-finished ideas scribbled down. I need the reminders, systems and random pieces of paper that help keep me on track. At the moment those things are scattered around my house in various corners and piles. It works, but only just.
Thankfully, that's about to change.
In a couple of months I'll be moving house and for the first time I'll have an actual office.
A real workspace.
I genuinely cannot wait.
The other thing nobody really talks about enough is loneliness. About six weeks into self-employment, it hit me quite hard. I missed the people. I missed the conversations. I missed the random chats between meetings, problem solving, collaboration.
I miss being part of a team. When you've spent years working alongside people you genuinely like, going from that to working alone has felt surprisingly isolating.
So I did something about it.
I started planning my calendar differently. Instead of hoping social interaction would happen naturally, I scheduled it. Said yes to a couple of networking events, coffee catch-ups, ladies' charity lunches and business events.
Conversations with people whose company I enjoy. I treated connection as something important rather than something optional. And it worked.
Not only did it help with the loneliness, many of those conversations led to opportunities, collaborations and friendships I would never have expected.
There are still people I haven't seen nearly enough since leaving employment.
People I care about and genuinely miss. That is something I fully intend to remedy over the coming months. Because while self-employment has taught me a lot about business, it's also reminded me that success means very little if you don't have good people around you to share it with.
Despite the challenges, one of the greatest gifts of self-employment has been freedom.
Not the Instagram version of freedom. The real version.
The freedom to take a week off without asking permission, to not have a conversation about annual leave, to simply decide.
I've spent more time with the children. I've done more school pick-ups. I've been more present. I took them both to Ribby Hall, we have been paddle boarding, axe throwing and I took the lad to Wembley to watch BWFC. I went to watch JAMES with my good friend and next we are off to see HARRY STYLES......
And perhaps one of the biggest indicators that this might actually be working is that I have planned and paid for a second holiday this year. The first holiday was booked and paid for last year as a safety net, just in case the business was a complete shit show. But it isn’t.
The second holiday? That feels pretty special. It is the same reason I have bought a third Shihtzu. (due to us in July)
There's another strange contradiction I've discovered.
I currently have more money in the bank than I've ever had in my life. A younger version of me would look at my bank balance and assume I'd made it. The reality is slightly more complicated. When you're employed, you know roughly what's coming in next month and the month after that.
When you're self-employed, that money has a different job to do. It isn't just this month's income. It's next month's security.
It's the safety net if work slows down. It's the buffer if a project gets delayed. It's the thing that helps you sleep at night when you're waiting for invoices to be paid. So whilst I'm incredibly proud of what I've achieved so far, there's always a little voice asking, "Yes, but how long does that have to last?"
If all my work disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't be enough. If work continues at the rate it has over the last three months? Well, as Del Boy famously said, "This time next year, Rodney... we will be millionaires."
Whilst I won't be a millionaire, I would be financially secure. And that feels like a pretty good ambition to have.
There have also been moments of recognition that I never expected.
This year I won the Women of Influence 2026 award. I was also awarded the honorary title of Lifetime Wingwoman by a women's mental health charity. Both were completely unexpected. Both left me feeling incredibly grateful.
But if I'm honest, neither achievement compares to the feeling I get when I see my clients succeeding. There is probably a more professional way to say it, but the truth is this:
I absolutely love watching my clients kick ass.
I love seeing people grow in confidence. I love seeing organisations achieve things they weren't sure were possible. I love watching brilliant people realise just how brilliant they are. And I love knowing that something I said, challenged, encouraged or supported helped them get there. The feeling I get when I watch others succeed with my support is difficult to put into words.
It's not taking credit. It's pride. Pure and simple.
Three months in, I still don't know exactly what I'm doing. I still have moments of panic. I still wonder where the next piece of work is coming from or how long the current ones will last. I still occasionally question whether I've lost the plot entirely. (only because I bought another dog!)
But I've also learned that opportunities come from showing up. That confidence grows every time you do the thing that scares you. That people buy from and with people. That authenticity matters. And that building something of your own is simultaneously one of the most terrifying and rewarding things you can ever do. Speaking of rewarding I've been able to use my skills to assist raising £900 for charity through one of my comedy nights.
BUT , there have been negatives.
I've felt lonely.
I've worried about cash flow.
I've questioned my pricing.
I've struggled without a proper workspace.
I've missed colleagues and friends.
But I've also had more school pick-ups, more freedom, more opportunities, more confidence, more holidays, more recognition and more joy than I expected. Three months ago, I took a leap. And everyone who sees me says I look happy and I really am. I am also tired, grateful, occasionally terrified, incredibly proud, and more convinced than ever that it was the right decision.
The positives outweigh the negatives by a country mile.
Ask me again in another three months.
