In life we are always faced with decisions that determine our further path. As a self-employed person, Janna was offered a full-time position – how did she deal with that?
Protocol: Narimaan Nikbakht
The decision:
Janna, 39 and mother of 6-year-old twins, works as a freelance marketing consultant. Things have been going well so far, but for a few months she has also been feeling the consequences of the energy crisis. She has to worry about orders and feels increasingly uncomfortable. A small start-up is offering her a permanent full-time position. At first glance, more security – but is she really ready to give up her laboriously built freelance existence?
The backgrounds:
“A little over a year ago I moved with my family from Hamburg to Meppen, a small district town in Lower Saxony – back home. Before that I had worked for years in the best advertising agencies in Germany – a job with prestige. But it also meant working until late at night to work, often 50 hours a week. When I was in my mid-twenties, that was okay. But now I was a mother and rushed through life: rushing to the shops, fetching the children, doing the laundry. I also put myself under pressure in the agency, still working structured – always with the goal in mind of being able to drop my pen by 3 p.m.. After all, I didn’t want to find my children desperately waiting in front of the daycare center.For this, I often got wry looks in the hipster office – the others were sitting again there until 10 pm I felt exhausted and drained.
Then came the day when I was supposed to look after a brand of cigarettes. I suddenly realized that all too often in my career, meaning had fallen by the wayside. But I wished for that. So I started my own business. It was frightening and tempting at the same time. Would I find enough customers? Were my contacts sufficient? Was I made for the solo number? But everything went well. I enjoyed working from home, dividing my time freely and choosing my customers: yoga teachers, nutritionists, café founders. I supported them to become more visible on the internet. Built their homepages – and found it more fulfilling than marketing cigarettes. I earned even more. And in the afternoons I could go on excursions with my sons. That’s what it was all about: spending more free hours with the family despite your job. In Hamburg it became too cramped for us in our terraced house. So we moved back closer to my parents for more space.
Do you want to give up your freedom, everything you’ve built up until now?
Then came the energy crisis and orders dropped noticeably. I started to worry – even though my husband earns a good salary as a permanent employee. When I heard that the start-up “Greenflash” was looking for freelancers, it made me curious. I liked that the company is fighting to put solar panels on huge roofs of companies. I was impressed by the enthusiasm of the young colleagues. When I was asked if I wanted to work part-time as a marketing manager, I accepted – and continued to work on a freelance basis. But now I have an offer for a full-time position. On the one hand, I like the idea because I tend to work more than planned and agreed anyway. I’m kind of bad at distinguishing myself. And it’s a meaningful job too. But then these voices come back: But do you really want to give up your freedom, everything you have built up so far? I’m torn…
The expert:
Ragnhild Struss is a psychologist and founder of Struss & Claussen Personal Developmentone of the leading career consultancies in Germany, says:
“The most important thing is that Janna asks herself better questions and directs her inner dialogue towards getting creative. At the moment she’s going into a rigid decision-making process with ‘whether’ questions, ‘either or’ and ‘yes, but’ statements. Instead of asking, “Do you want her to go all the way?”, she could start with a how question. For example: “How can I transfer the advantages of self-employment to permanent employment?” With this formulation, your mind will search for creative solutions and automatically ask follow-up questions, e.g. E.g.: “Which aspects stress me and tie up an unnecessary amount of energy?”, “How can these be minimized?” or “Who do I work with particularly well? And why?”
Those who live in harmony with their personality are happier in life. Since our values and needs are constantly changing, it is important to look at them again and again and to ask ourselves what you want, need and how you want to live. When Janna became a mother and moved away from the big city, her needs changed too. As soon as she becomes aware of them, she knows how to organize her job so that it suits her.
A little exercise in clarifying values:
1. Read through a list of values. On the Internet you will find countless pages, from A for adventure to Z for reliability.
2. Now choose five positive values that you spend a lot of energy on in your own life.
3. Question why these values are so important to you. What consequences do they have for your life? The answers show you your personal ideals that drive you inside. Alternatively, it also helps to ask yourself who you want to be. In the case of Janna z. B: Do I want to be someone who does everything for a company? Putting family first? Defined by success at work? making the world a little better?
She also thinks she has to give up part-time work because she has trouble setting boundaries. Here she should be aware that she will also have this problem in any other situation – whether full-time or as a freelancer. Even when she used to leave the office on time at the advertising agency, she couldn’t mentally distance herself from the lopsided looks of the others. The solution therefore does not lie outside, but inside – i.e. learning to differentiate yourself better – perhaps with the help of a coach. However, this ‘supposed weakness’ should not have any influence on their decision.
The conclusion:
“The approach with the how-questions opened my eyes: The advantages that I have as a self-employed person could perhaps be transferred quite well to the new full-time position. The start-up relies on the ‘New Work principle – with flexible working hours and flat hierarchies. Since I’ve been working there part-time, I’ve noticed how good it is for me: The boss treats us as equals and lets us decide when and where we want to work. If I feel like it, I stay at the Home office or I drive to my colleagues in the office and work there It is exactly this exchange that I missed as a self-employed person.
And the clarification of values showed me fundamentally what is most important to me right now: finding time for my family and meaning in my job. But also freedom, security and a career. My work at ‘Greenflash’ is always meaningful – after all, we all know why we get up in the morning and what drives us: we want to implement the energy transition. The career opportunities are also great, because as a full-time marketing manager I can put my own team together. However, that would not be for my own brand, but for a company. Admittedly, that scratches my ego. I’ve also dreamed of opening my own advertising agency, but I found out that the demand here in Meppen isn’t as great as I thought. So I scrapped the idea, which sometimes makes me sad.
Still, I tend to say ‘yes’ to permanent employment. My job in the new company already feels better because I work a lot on my own. The boss also gave me the go-ahead to continue looking after my former regular customers on a part-time basis. And since in future I will only work 38 hours instead of 40 to 50 hours as I used to, there is still a little room for improvement. But then maybe I should also tackle the topic of demarcation… But first things first.”