Knowing when to change

When change is needed and necessary, red flags appear. An essay reflecting on this.

Jenn Chen

28 Aug 2024 — 8 min read

Chicago's Garfield Conservatory in April

Knowing when to change

I’ve spent the last month of newsletter posts writing about coffee careers, before and after. It was necessary, but I need to step a bit away from the “all about the business of coffee” article set to something more general, cultural, and creative.

I have deliberately vaguely defined the title of this, but I’m speaking about change in the creative practice sense, not the structural or systemic sense. I write about knowing when to change from the perspective of someone who does a lot of internal reflection (aka anxiety).

As a freelancer, I’ve evolved my services and industries several times, usually for the better. The indicators—insights gleaned only after I’ve gone through the pits of despair— often reflected burnout symptoms, but the root causes differed.

If I start feeling (more) jealous of other people’s successes or accomplishments, I use jealousy as a sign to explore what I’m actually jealous of because it’s rarely about the person.

If I procrastinate far more than usual, and the reason is because I’m dreading the task. I spend my off hours worrying about something out of my control, and the worry is not accompanied by excitement.

If I resent the work I’m doing. Resentment itself is an indicator of a relationship souring, no matter what kind of relationship it is. If this resentment continues to build and take up brain space.

If things start spilling over into my personal life. The boundaries are getting blurred, my self-care routines are getting left in the dust.

If I spend a majority of my work time buried in things that are not inspiring, and this is not a temporary state of affairs. I know it’s bad if, at the end of the day, I feel like I accomplished little and I don’t want to go to bed because that means I’d wake up the next day doing all the same things again.

If I find myself Googling random careers that I have no ability or interest in doing. For example, I once thought I could be a massage therapist, because my fingers are strong from years of piano practice. I looked up how to become one and learned quickly I did not want to pay the admission nor go through all that training and schooling (Did I want to memorize the human muscular and nervous systems? No. And I knew this because I did this already with four different animal groups for a college anatomy class). Also, it’s such a physically laborious profession that I’m sure I would also need massage therapy. What I actually wanted was more freedom in my schedule, more hands-on creative work, and more career skills development.

I think it’s also important to know what burnout is and what a collective sign of needing change is. When you’re in burnout, it may be that your boundaries are blurring or you’re overworked, but deep down, you are still interested in your career or industry. On the other hand, needing a change in terms of your service offerings or a rebrand is a big upheaval. You don’t care that much about your work anymore, nothing is inspiring you to move forward, there are no goals that you’re working towards.

A natural progression happens when you offer services. You start from the hands-on part (for me, it was social media management), then graduate to strategy (designing digital strategies for companies), and then coaching (offering support to companies, may include strategy, but does not include execution). After coaching for a while, you may offer paid items, like courses or e-books, for that elusive passive income.

I think hitting a wall, as a freelancer, is not unusual. If you freelance for long enough, you will hit a wall of some kind. When that wall comprises all those if-statements above, I know a change is needed.

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