When I was working my 9-to-5, I had a very clear picture of what my life would look like once I quit.
I would wake up in the morning, have a beautiful cup of coffee, work on my art, go for a workout, eat healthy and slowly build a body so beautifully toned that people would wonder what my secret was.
My secret would obviously be that I had quit my job.
Because apparently, a job was the only thing standing between me and my dream body.
Anyway, it’s been exactly 54 days since I left my job.
And I have news.
I have not developed a beautifully toned body.
I have, however, developed an emotionally complicated relationship with food.
I may have gained 10 kgs. I say may because I haven’t gathered the courage to investigate this situation scientifically.
So basically, I quit my job and hired myself as a full-time emotional eater.
No benefits. No pension. Terrible career progression.
And the worst part? I am my own manager, so I can’t even complain to HR.
The four-month experiment nobody prepared me for
Here’s the thing about leaving your job to build an art business.
You don’t just leave the job.
You leave the predictable salary, the routine, the familiar identity and the comforting knowledge that, regardless of how your day went, money would eventually show up in your bank account.
And you replace all of that with a dream.
A dream that, in my case, comes with a four-month runway.
Four months to build something that I’ve been trying to figure out for over three years.
Four months to turn my paintings into a business that can bring in at least $3,000 a month.
Four months to prove that leaving a perfectly good job wasn’t just an elaborate way of giving myself financial anxiety.
No pressure, then.
And when I imagined this experiment, I don’t remember factoring in the part where I’d have to spend my days wondering whether I was doing enough, whether I was doing the right things, whether I was making any progress at all, and whether four months was even a reasonable amount of time to expect any of this to work.
Because four months sounds wonderfully generous when you’re imagining your new life from the comfort of your old one.
Four months sounds significantly less generous when you’re living inside them.
Turns out, I brought myself along
I think I had this unconscious idea that leaving my job would somehow transform me into a different person.
A more disciplined person. A healthier person. A person who would wake up excited to paint, know exactly what to do with her business, make smart decisions, exercise regularly and eat meals that didn’t involve negotiating with her emotions.
But I brought myself along.
All my fears. All my insecurities. All my old habits.
And now, instead of worrying about a presentation at work, I worry about whether anyone will buy my paintings.
Instead of wondering whether my boss thinks I’m doing a good job, I wonder whether I’m doing a good enough job at building a business.
Instead of having a bad day at work and looking forward to going home, I have a bad day building my business and realise that I am already home.
There is no commute to decompress on.
There is no office to leave behind.
There is just me, my paintings, my laptop and a brain that apparently offers unlimited customer support for anxiety.
And somewhere in this beautiful arrangement, food has become a very convenient way to feel better for five minutes.
Followed by the guilt of not eating better.
Followed by the guilt of not working out.
Followed by the guilt of not working on my business while I was busy feeling guilty about everything else.
It’s a remarkably efficient cycle. I should probably turn it into a subscription model.
What if four months isn’t enough?
This is the question I keep coming back to.
What if four months isn’t enough time to build a business from almost scratch and reach $3,000 a month?
What if I work hard, do all the right things I can think of, learn a ridiculous amount, make some sales and still don’t reach that number?
Does that mean the business failed?
Does it mean I failed?
Or does it mean I gave myself four months to figure out something that might take longer?
I genuinely don’t know yet.
And I think the not-knowing is the hardest part.
When you’re employed, you can work hard and still have a fairly clear idea of what the next payday looks like.
When you’re building something of your own, you can work hard all day and have absolutely no guarantee that the work will translate into income.
You can spend hours making art, talking to people, showing up at events, working on your website and trying to explain why anyone should care about what you create.
And then you can come home and wonder whether any of it is working.
The difficult part isn’t always doing the work.
Sometimes it’s carrying the uncertainty that comes with it.
And doing that while trying to remember that you’re a human being, not a small business that must demonstrate monthly growth to justify its existence.
So, am I regretting it?
I don’t think so.
Ask me again after I’ve looked at my bank account. 😂
But seriously, I wanted to give this a proper chance. I wanted to find out what might happen if I stopped squeezing my art business into the leftover hours of my life and actually gave it my time and attention.
I knew it would be difficult.
I just don’t think I understood that the hardest part might be learning how to live with myself while I figure it out.
The fear. The impatience. The second-guessing. The urge to measure every day against a goal that is still months away.
And the occasional desire to eat my feelings instead of processing them like a sensible adult.
I’m 54 days in.
I don’t have a perfectly toned body.
I don’t have a perfectly established routine.
I don’t yet have the monthly income I’m working towards.
What I do have is an art business I’m trying to build, a lot of things I’m learning, and an uncomfortable amount of evidence that having the freedom to do something doesn’t automatically mean knowing how to do it.
Maybe this experiment is about more than finding out whether I can make $3,000 a month from my art.
Maybe it’s also about finding out who I become when there is no boss, no guaranteed salary and no neat little checklist telling me whether I’m doing life correctly.
I still want the business to work. I still want the income. And I would very much like to fit back into my clothes without having to negotiate a peace treaty with my waistband.
But I’m beginning to understand that building a life you want doesn’t mean you’ll feel confident living it every single day.
Sometimes you’ll feel bold.
Sometimes you’ll feel terrified.
Sometimes you’ll make a brilliant business decision.
And sometimes you’ll open the fridge for the fourth time in twenty minutes, hoping the answer to your existential crisis has materialised beside the leftover cheese.
I’m not sure what the next few months will look like.
But I haven’t given up.
And 54 days seems a little early to declare the experiment a failure.
Even if my waistline appears to have launched a competing business.
P.S. If anyone knows how to build an art business, manage existential dread and develop a toned body simultaneously, please write a book. I clearly need professional development.
