Managing chronic illness and a corporate life became a struggle, so my husband and I decided it was time for me to transition into self-employment. As of writing this, I’ve been involved directly in some way with self-employment and entrepreneurship for over 5 years and managing chronic conditions since birth. The word ‘success’ is defined by each person differently, but this combination and a lot of research has given me a perspective on self-employment and chronic illness.
With both self-employment and chronic illness, you need to grow certain skills to succeed; such as:
- Shift in Mindset from employee to business owner
- Organization and Focus
- Management of time and money
- Self-motivation and Determination
- Willing to adapt and learn constantly.
Succeeding in self-employment with chronic illness is not much different than working for someone with chronic illness. Depending on your health needs and your personality type, self-employment might be a seamless transition for you. Then again, it could take some time to adjust and find your groove.
I’m more of a social introvert if that makes sense. I am capable of working well on my own. I thoroughly enjoy making my own schedule accommodating my health needs, but I really do my best if I have a small collection of people to talk to, brainstorm with, and collaborate with on a semi-regular basis. I just don’t need the social interaction one gets from a typical workplace, I’d rather work alone.
Skill sets that contribute to success as a self-employed chronically ill worker.
Shift in Mindset from employee to business owner.
This is applicable to both managing chronic illness and being self-employed. As an employee we’re used to being told what needs to get done and a deadline to do it, followed by reviews, corrections and approvals. We ask for permission to take a break, go to lunch, and take a day off or vacation. Heck, some of us even have to ask or beg to take time off because of being sick, doctor appointments, therapies, and just to go home early or come in late.
This doesn’t happen when you’re self-employed. You ask yourself for these breaks, vacations, and sick time. Regardless if you have a chronic condition or not. You have to be able to transition to not feeling bad for taking the break, telling yourself no when needed, or being lazy because you have the freedom.
That’s a different perspective of duties, responsibilities, roles, risk, and so much more that it can be overwhelming at times, especially with a chronic illness as your co-worker, but having organization and staying focused can make this process 10x easier.
Creating a system for organization that works for you and staying focused.
We’ll talk about time and money management next but to do this you need to create a system to help you keep up with the finances and time spent on both personal and business activities. Same as you have to manage your chronic illness on a budget and in an allotted time frame.
I personally use a filing cabinet for quick access to current year tax documents, receipts, invoices, and records. Copies are uploaded into two separate backups and the papers are moved to a binder for the year, once taxes have been filed.
I also use receipt accordions and a letter size accordion to organize receipts throughout the month into categories so it makes quicker entry into the accounting system at the end of the month. I have one for each business and one small receipt envelope to keep all of the checks we deposit via remote capture until the bank’s recommended retention time is up.
Management of time and money for success
Let’s face it. Money leaves our hands everyday. If we don’t tell it where to go, it’ll go anywhere and everywhere…and quick. A few things we’ve implemented that have helped us drastically are listed below. A lot of which we used to get us out of debt before 30, even paying off our mortgage.
- We have a monthly budget that we review every quarter to make sure we’re on track.
- We created a bill checklist with due dates to easily see what is still due that month in comparison to account balances. And so my brain fog wouldn’t forget to send payments or send them at the wrong time anymore.
- I created a list of meals that uses the same 30 items and a list of meals including 5 other items (like shrimp) that we don’t eat all of the time but are a nice treat.
- I planned out our meals for two weeks and grocery shop with a list to stay focused.This also helped us stay on a healthy eating plan that was helpful to my conditions instead of processed foods and eating out.
- We use a credit card for the benefits but pay every week so that we aren’t carrying a balance. This is a must because we never know when our next hospital, urgent care, or specialist appointments will be. It also translates to being self-employed because you never know when you’ll need new software, a tool, or repairs that month.
- Credit card debt is the easiest, fastest, and most mindless debt to accumulate so we don’t use the credit card if there’s not money in the checking account to pay for it.
- We also write all of our expenditures on the card in a register and keep it balanced to the bank just like an account. It keeps it from getting out of hand.
Managing money well reduces the stress of being self-employed dramatically, thus also aiding in reduction of symptom flares in my chronic illnesses. We live off less than our income so we are always sticking back for a rainy day, week or month(s).
A few things I do to help us manage our time well:
- Every night I try to write down my next day’s to-do list and sit it on my desk to be seen first before brain fog and distraction takes over hours of my day.
- When brain fog is crazy or there’s things that are vital to get done, like sending out tax payments, I’ll time block it into my calendar and set an alarm on my phone if needed.
- Trello works well for helping me manage a ton of our needs in our business and personal life, there’s features like due dates with alarms and a sync to the calendar available too.
- I keep a dry erase calendar and week meal list on the refrigerator
- Most importantly, hubby and I talk ALL THE TIME. Literally, we communicate our ‘must do’ schedules, our ‘we would really like to do this as soon as possible’ schedules, and ‘if there’s any time at all in the near future this would be cool’ schedules.
Self motivation and determination when self-employed with a chronic illness.
There will be days when you’re in immense pain, extremely fatigued (totally different than tired), and weak physically, mentally and emotionally. You might question if you can do this, how you’re going to keep going, and if this is what failure looks like.
Congratulations, every entrepreneur asks themselves the same things. Yes, our circumstances are different, but that doesn’t make it any less real or acceptable to question these things. Take the time to learn to realize what senses awaken you, what kind of lighting or colors inspire you, what office essentials give you a better quality day, and what tools help you keep going when brain fog and pain are on high. Write these things down and keep them in practice.
Also, learning what does the opposite needs to be realized and staying away from those things are just as important!
Self-motivation for me is remembering my why in choosing to be self-employed and what it will feel like when I reach my goals! Same as remembering my why to rest when needed but to keep pushing through the hard days of chronic illness and what it feels like when I have really awesome weeks, days, hours, or moments with my husband!
Determination is steamed from your why. When you know deep down in your heart and soul why you are doing, or not doing something, it inspires you to stay motivated in keeping true to yourself, which is strengthened by your determination to not waiver because your why is THAT important to you!
Willingness to adapt and learn constantly
So, when you choose self-employment (or it chooses you lol) you can throw ‘job description’ out the window…right alongside ‘normal’ when you’re managing chronic illness.
With chronic illness we have to learn to adapt to changing circumstances and willing to learn constantly how to better manage and push through our chronic illness symptoms, struggles, and frustrations.
Petty example but I love food so here ya go. I loooooooove salsa. Like sit down and eat the whole jar kinda love for salsa…and spaghetti, and chili, and BLTs….are you getting the theme here? Apparently with my autoimmune conditions my body has recently decided tomatoes are toxic to me.
Kind of like how my body decided the stress, schedule, and environment of the corporate life was toxic to me.
I had to be willing to step back, evaluate the situation, learn more about the situation, then decide to adapt. I was talking about the salsa there, but that applied to the corporate life too! What about self-employment? We’re always taking steps back to evaluate, learning more, and adapting or changing or improving what or how we do things.
Honestly, if you’re able to master this section because of your chronic illness, you might just make a successful entrepreneur or self-employed person. I feel like this skill is what ultimately drives the first four skills!
Making money with chronic illness- related questions
How can I make money if I have chronic illness and can’t work?
There are other alternatives to the standard 8-5 employment option. Understanding tasks that are easier on your health needs than others can help you determine the best route to take. Also, if you have a skill set you could learn or adapt to working from home with, this could be really helpful. A few things I have done myself and/or found when searching are:
- House/dog sitting
- Proofreading
- Editing
- Graphic design
- Selling crafts or handmade items on Etsy
- Turning your hobby into an income using your own website, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and/or Etsy
How do other people with chronic illness make a living?
Simply put, freelancing. The majority of answers I found were that people begin freelancing in their hobbies and skills they’ve developed over the years until finally settling along the way into some form of business that meets a need for their audience and fits their personal health needs.
That’s exactly what my husband and I both did, and are still working on the ‘settling in’ part.
I hope this post has given you an open mind towards self-employment and chronic illness.
Yes, it can be hard. Yes, there are days you’ll question what the heck you’re doing. And, yes, you may even want to quit.
But, I also had the same thoughts when working for someone else. I just didn’t have the ability to rest or do the things I really needed to do for my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs as a chronic illness fighter.