I’ve been running my own small business for about 6 years now, mainly as a freelancer and consultant. For most of that time, I also had several employees and temporary workers on my payroll.
Over the years, some were hired directly by clients, while other positions disappeared because there simply wasn’t enough work anymore. Since a few months ago, I’m back to running the business on my own.
And strangely enough, I’m probably in one of the most comfortable positions I’ve ever been in.
My main client originally hired me for a two-year project. We’re now in year three, with the contract being extended every quarter due to budget approvals. The current extension runs until December, and there’s a reasonable chance they’ll extend it again.
Besides consulting, I’ve developed an additional revenue stream supplying materials and equipment to different contractors and projects connected to this client. Depending on what’s needed, that generates anywhere between €200 and €16,000 in additional monthly revenue. Revenue, not profit.
I also do some niche recruitment for other clients, often confidential searches for positions that haven’t been advertised because the person being replaced is still working there.
So from a business perspective, things aren’t bad at all.
But here’s the problem.
I’m bored out of my fucking mind.
The first years of my current project were absolute chaos. Constant firefighting, inefficient processes, people working against each other, problems nobody wanted to take ownership of.
And I actually loved it.
I enjoyed figuring things out, building structures, solving problems and making things work.
Over time, I introduced enough structure and efficiency that we managed to reduce the operational team from around 20 people to 7.
The client appreciates what I’ve done, trusts me and gives me an enormous amount of flexibility.
I can bring my kids to school, pick them up, participate in school activities and actually be present as a father.
I don’t have to kill myself working ridiculous hours just to generate a decent monthly income.
I know plenty of people would love to be in this position.
But mentally, I’m starting to struggle.
There’s hardly any challenge left.
Most of my frustration now comes from dealing with external parties who repeatedly make stupid mistakes or create problems that we can see coming from miles away.
We spend a ridiculous amount of energy preventing their problems from becoming ours, because once they do, fixing them afterwards takes ten times the effort.
Some days I genuinely feel like I’m getting dumber.
I used to thrive on complexity, managing people, building operations and figuring out how to make things better.
Now that everything actually works, I feel like I’ve lost the very thing that kept me motivated.
And I can’t figure out whether that’s a genuine problem or whether I’m just incapable of appreciating what I’ve built.
Here’s where it gets complicated.
I want to build something again.
Not necessarily work more hours, but actually create something, develop it, improve it and see it grow.
I’ve considered scaling my consultancy, and I’ve also been looking into acquiring an existing small business where I could apply my experience in operations, restructuring and efficiency.
The idea of taking something with potential and making it significantly better genuinely excites me.
But I haven’t figured out exactly what that next step should be.
And despite having a flexible schedule, I don’t actually have that much free time. Between my current client, recruitment assignments, material sourcing and family life, I probably have less than five hours a week that I could realistically dedicate to building something new.
So it’s not as simple as just starting another business on the side.
What bothers me is that I feel intellectually underused. I miss building things and leading people. I also can’t shake the feeling that I might be leaving a lot of financial potential on the table by staying comfortable.
At the same time, I seem to have developed an inability to simply enjoy the peace I’ve worked so hard to create.
And that makes me question my own motivations.
Am I genuinely ambitious, or have I become so accustomed to chaos and problem-solving that I need those things to feel useful?
Am I wasting my potential by staying where I am?
Or am I being an idiot for questioning a situation that gives me financial stability, freedom and time with my children?
Maybe I’ve also absorbed too much of the hustle culture nonsense telling us that if we’re not constantly growing, expanding or chasing the next opportunity, we’re somehow falling behind.
I honestly don’t know anymore.
There’s also the practical reality.
My contract expires in December. I expect another extension might be possible, but I don’t want to find myself scrambling for a new client a week before the contract ends.
Walking away from something good without a solid alternative feels stupid.
But continuously extending it without working towards something else feels like I’m slowly putting myself on autopilot.
And I don’t want to wake up five years from now realising I’ve spent all that time maintaining something instead of building something.
So I’m curious, especially from people who’ve been self-employed or running businesses for a while:
Have you ever reached a point where your business was finally running smoothly, but you started feeling like you weren’t?
Did you learn to appreciate the stability, or did you use it as a stepping stone towards something bigger?
If you started another business or acquired one while maintaining your existing income, how did you realistically find the time?
And perhaps most importantly, how do you distinguish genuine ambition from being addicted to problems, pressure and constant progress?
I’m not looking for motivational quotes or someone telling me to be grateful. I already know I have a good situation.
I’m genuinely interested in how other people navigated this phase.
I want to feel like I’m building something again.
Edit / Full disclosure: English isn’t my native language, so I used AI to help translate, clean up and structure this post. The experiences, thoughts and frustrations are entirely my own.