Knowing you, I don't think it's a Sophie's Choice at all. Number two has it. That you're asking the question so explicitly shows the time may be right. I would rephrase some of those items though. Think about what sorts of things people hire consultants to do, more commonly, that use some of those skill sets. And list those types of projects.
I say go for 2-- just make sure to leverage the contacts that you made while working for the corporate machine. That's the decision that I've made right now-- I don't know if I'll stick to it, but I'm soo much happier now that I'm in control of what I work on and how often.
I think the tricky part in ABQ is setting your billing rate so that you are actually earning a fair wage for your abilities, while still compensating for self-employment expenses. Feel free to contact me if you want to talk about it more.
Thanks for that offer, Sasha! I think a lunch soon might be really helpful!
Sounds good! I don't know if you can see the email addresses attached to these comments, but if not you can ask Maggie for mine.
It truly is a no brainer. Meaning, you're asking because you know what you need to do. Not want to do, need to do. And asking the universe for guidance is the first step to owning your life.
By listing your (extremely short) set of attributes, you are in fact asking the universe, among other things; am I up to the chance/risk?
Pasteur said, 'chance favors only the prepared mind.'
You are prepared, my good woman.
The universe knows this.
Does it change things if I still have more I could learn from my corporate situation? With more support than I could create on my own?
Do you enjoy your corporate situation?
It's comforting for my Virgo sense of order.
I think the thing that will be telling is if I'm bored or not. There's no reason to be away from Umea if I'm just killing time. As long as I'm learning something or feeling useful, I think I could stay quite happily.
Can you cut your hours down but still maintain health insurance? I think at our corporate gig you can arrange to do that for as little as half-time work. Might be worth asking - only enough hours to keep you engaged in what you want to learn, while also maintaining your health autonomy, as it were... and freeing you up to pursue more creative projects with the rest of your time. (Since having a newborn doesn't make you busy AT ALL, of course...)
But in general, I am all for #2. Of course, I understand that voting for #2 means that I need to be crafting my own letter of resignation right now. Sigh...
One major reason I should join you in #2: corporate internet blocks the Haloscan plugin at my office, so I am only able to comment at home when I remember to, like right now, eating a late breakfast and playing hooky for the first hour...
xoxoxo
How long do you have until you have to decide? I think its pretty hard to actually stay engaged in projects if you are only working part time. If the projects at the corporate gig are really interesting to you then it might be better to try to go out on your own, and just get the company to contract work out to you. Maggie & I had a coworker who did that pretty successfully. You then don't get benefits of course, but you can set your billing rate to account for that.
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