Solo consultant reflections: Insights and affirmations from six-month-old crumpled butcher paper
I’m staring down a crumpled piece of butcher paper. I’ve attempted to unfurl it and revive the adhesive strip, now dulled by rug fibers. Yet here it is, slowly peeling off my wall. Illegible scrawl in bright colors — thoughtfully color-coded, bulleted, numbered — lessons learned and reflections from July 2021. Maybe the biggest lesson from this as I review it in January 2022: truly, not everything is urgent.
Midway through last year, I took a beat to reflect on what I learned through my communications consulting practice over the year. July 2019 I started freelancing. July 2020 I shifted my work into Constellation Communications, and in July 2021, I looked back at the year under that umbrella and what I’d learned and wanted to build on. So much has changed since that marker, but maybe more than change, I realize that these points gained deeper importance, and are more embodied in the way I conduct and contain my paid work.
Clearly given the six-month lag, the reflection exercise was enough for me, but this crumpled paper may have some insights or affirmations for other people going it on their own, so while it still sticks to this wall, here are a few highlights…
Where to be flexible, where there is a boundary. Do, ask, or pass? In solo consulting you are your own boss, protector, advocate. I have to be the one to name my own time and energy limitations, and to be honest with myself about them. After 13 years working in nonprofits, foundations and agencies, where managers and leadership hold a significant amount of power, for me it has been a huge mental and emotional shift to step into that power myself. It’s an ongoing practice to determine if something is a yes or no (and to say that!) or to find a different solution that offers me more time or asks for help or support in some way. Because I do not know or do everything, nor do I want to…
Owning what I do and passing on what I don’t. In many workplaces there’s a “fake it ‘til you make it” ethos. It’s a societal norm, really, to have an opinion on things before you have the information, to say “yes of course!” to a boss or client before actually knowing what the thing is you signed up for. Surprise! I am not an expert at all things. Not surprised? Me either. Curiosity, co-learning, and experimenting is one thing, and is done with the transparency that it’s a learning area for me. But, feigning expertise not only puts a wild pressure on me, but it denies the skillsets and people that are indeed experts and should be leading that work. And, when it comes to work for justice, that’s a potential harm that I do not want to perpetrate.
Don’t be shy about defining, and redefining, success for myself. Breaking old habit is hard. For years in my career I’ve celebrated new clients, new grants, new offices, new programs, money in the door, bigger team — growth, growth, growth. But, in my consulting practice growth is not the goal. This continues to be the hardest conditioning to break. I started working for myself in order to create space and flexibility in my day, for dance class, for travel without a laptop, to do work that is meaningful and that is right-sized in my life. Success in the beginning was paying all my bills working with clients I felt good about, nervously tracking hours and income. Now it’s more about my well-being and finding harmony doing paid work that my heart and values align with — tracking days off and creative time away from my work.
Play into the different types of energy and focus my brain is ready for. Early in the morning, before coffee even, is when I do my best writing. After coffee, after meetings, my editor switch flips on and its pretty hard to find that flow. Sometimes I need a quick productivity hit, so I’ll let my brain run with that energy— I’ll update calendars, sort emails, do expenses — in short, check some boxes and give myself permission to do quick logistical things.
It’s not always possible, but leaning into the type of energy and focus that feels most present has been a really important practice during the pandemic, when I know my brain is already running too many programs at once. Rather than spending extra energy trying to get focused on something I’m just not ready for right now, if it can be shifted I shift it, and do what feels most natural.
You have to fill the cup in order to pour from it. This has been said in so many different ways, and the last year really hit it home for me. For me, my “cup” of energy and just trying to stay human right now means time away from work to connect with loved ones, have an at-home dance party, mask up and go to the museum, listen to music, walk in the park. Because we are people and not machines, personal and work are connected. When I don’t take the time to do this, it can feel like I’ve wrung my whole creative sponge dry and have nothing new or exciting to offer my clients. And, then I’m not energized or excited about the work either. As long as we are stuck in capitalism, which seems like we will be for a minute, I’m hoping to keep some excitement about my paid work and know that’s a luxury to have.
Gratitude for the people I get to work with — and the expansive version of team. My team is dope. And that team is expansive.
Working solo the term “colleague” takes on a whole different meaning, and expands to a new set of people. My friends, loves, and all versions of family anchor me. My therapist shared this version of anchoring that I love: “like a palm tree, not seaweed,” to be flexible and rooted for whatever comes up. Two years ago I was terrified jumping into independent consulting that I wouldn’t make rent, and my best friend said, “in few years we’re going to say remember when…” Luckily, she was right.
This year brought great collaborations with colleagues in communications — thinking, commiserating, dreaming what could be possible and figuring out a way. Some of this happened in the context of work with clients, but also over cocktails, backyard hangs, WhatsApp calls and monthly Zoom check-ins. This year has also been expansive in that I’ve met new people by naming my limits and identifying experts in the things I don’t know. I’ve learned a lot from them, and been in awe watching them work.
Finally, working independently has allowed me to embed in client teams in a different way. It has been pretty amazing to feel the sense of trust and partnership with my client teams, learning and problem solving together, supporting each other in a way that I missed by not being in house. So much of that has to do with honesty, transparency, and having that shared sense of why we are in this work underlying all of it.
What is ahead?! Great question.
Since I wrote these reflections there are a few new things cooking that focus on repairing harm of white supremacy culture and systems. That looks like material ways of redistributing income from my communications work, and developing new practices to repair harm done through language and communication. It’s my goal to write and share more about this in the coming months. That may happen, or I may just carry it out in my work, and build up a new pile of crumpled butcher paper under my couch.
