Help a webmaster with her professional mid-life crisis and loss of confidence

Hello,

Hope this is the right place, I'll try to keep this brief. I'm 26 and I've been involved in web design & marketing for nearly 6 years now. I've accumulated most of the knowledge I have for the first part of these years by reading books and online. I basically know and do a bit of everything from design, html, css, usability, content writing, seo, link building, affiliate and even though I feel my knowledge of each individual field is quite superficial, I have somehow managed to made it work.

I now own and run a few websites which allow me to live comfortably and save more than the average person. Monetization is done via adsense, affiliate and direct advertising deals. The bulk of the work for these websites was done 4 years ago and they've grown organically. But I have never taken them for granted and I know they'll go downhill at some point without serious work. For personal reasons, I haven't been that involved in them for the last 3 years so I did not add much content or do much promotion for them and yet revenue is quite steady, even growing a bit.

I have always worked on my own because I felt it suited my personality but I've now moved to London from Eastern Europe (on my own) and I feel like I've now reached a crossroads and I'm interested to know if other webmasters have felt something similar at some point in their lives.

With me, it's a combination of factors, I guess:

1. Because I haven't done all that much in the past 3 years and because I also stopped reading and gaining knowledge around the same time (because that's all I was doing, there simply wasn't time left to put it into practice) I feel I've missed the boat when it comes to the web. I don't know what works these days and the volume of information has become so massive that the thought of trying to get myself up to date with everything seems impossible and daunting! Years ago knowing a bit of everything worked, these days, people are far more specialized and the web will change even more dramatically as time goes on.
   
   
2. I have lost my confidence in my abilities and yet my results over the years indicate that I probably know more about web marketing than I think I do at the moment! But I feel that as more time passes, I know less and feel even less confident.
   
   
3. I feel bored, I don't know if this (e.g. web marketing) is what I want to do for much longer, but then if I don't do this (which earns me good money now so it seems silly to give up) I don't know what else I can do for a living. I've never been an employee so I don't know how regular jobs work. I've been considering getting a 'real' job but after years of being my own boss, I don't know if I can adapt to its constraints.
   
   
4. I've been thinking of specializing and becoming a consultant in a specific, more manageable, area of web marketing which I would find it easier to stay on top of. But then I've never been accountable to anyone but myself so having clients would be a major shift. Plus, I don't know which area I could go for and don't all areas interact with each other so I reckon I would need to be up to date with everything, regardless.
   
   
5. While I've always worked on my own and felt comfortable spending long hours/days on my own (even when I was in a relationship), with my move to London I now feel the need of a social working environment because I've been also going through some personal changes which have brought out my sociable side. This is partly why I've been considering getting a job. I'm also considering some shared office space or a co-operative of sorts (if that concept exists) but being new in London, I'm at a loss where to look.
   
   
6. Because money has been coming in steadily (but not in massive amounts), I've become too comfortable and laid back. I have savings to last me for 2 years at my current lifestyle. So, I don't have the same incentive to make more money that drove me years ago. My brain was buzzing with ideas and I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to start work.

Because I've been feeling all of these things, I'm now looking at the clock every 20 minutes and waiting for the 'working day' to finish and inevitably, I feel cross with myself at the end of the day for not being productive.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Any tips on specific resources/groups to look for in London would also be appreciated.

Thanks for reading

 

Mid-Life crisis...You're 26...And my mother laughed at me when i called her from school feeling old.

I'm 20, she called it my quarter-life crisis...It's just the world these days doesn't have the longevity I used to think it did.

The only real way to get immersed in Internet businesses is to live it daily. This becomes an unsupportable pain and leads to disinterest and over-stimulation/overwhelming.

I'm where you were 6 years ago, just really starting out on this Internet entrepreneur path and you are not kidding when you say things have exploded recently with new information.

I too have thought back to even a few years ago when I was still in high school; how easy it seems to have started something then than now. So many of my more computer inclined friends then had little projects going and were making steady income doing what they loved and getting in on the new types of programs like referrals/affiliates/consulting.

What I've learned in my short time is the basics do work.

Writing WELL has always been a marketable talent, and always will be.

I think our problem stems from the fact that we think there are "industry standards," but this is the Internet, where paradigm shifts can come from teenagers that change how the world does business.

Innovation and crazy ideas are key in this electronic wild-west.

My current status is needing to get a BS job just to gather a lump-sum of funds to invest.
I've done wonders with the little I have, but because of that I've never had any line of credit and don't exactly know how all that works. Funny how so many problems go away when given a large amount of money at once instead of getting it incrementally.

I think you and I really are the same here; first wanting to start up something by ourselves and then getting an itch to branch out and provide more direct, personal service to others.

It's all very exciting, especially when we consider how far ahead we are of even the others who are just figuring out how to utilize Facebook or figuring out WHY Twitter exists (jury's still out). Our limited knowledge can help others tremendously and as things become more digitally oriented, we will be able to provide for others that are on their own uncertain paths a potential job. We're here to help others in the most efficient way we can.

 

Your focus should be on what you love.

As for what works today.. I would say focus on creating quality content that provides value to its audience. Each website needs to focus on what is relevant to itself.

Then all you have to do is figure out how to monetize the site efficiently. It can be tricky and there is a lot to know about site monetization. If you're still looking for some help, send me a PM and i'll tell you what to do.. we can talk about payment after you see results.

 

Wow. You've just won Necro thread of the day. Congratulations.

 

Oops. I didn't even notice haha.