I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to put into words some of the things that have been going on, and some of the things I've been feeling over the last while, but I'm really struggling. I'm going to try...we'll see how it goes.

I ended up with two projects starting at the same time, and one of the projects turned into a time eating monster for a couple of reasons. The effect of that has been that I've been under quite a lot of pressure to get stuff done, but constantly just been falling behind, and each day just trying to get handles on things and handle them as best I can.

I can see the effects of this playing out in both my business and my personal life. In a lot of ways I'm tired and demotivated - things that I'm normally able to easily overcome.

Outside of getting the actual work done, there are a couple of things that weigh on my mind a fair amount like, what happens when I'm done with this work (long term impact on cash flow)? How do I expand my capacity in a sane way? One of the things that I wonder is whether I'm learning the lessons that I'm paying school fees for at the moment.

Part of it is perspective - it is difficult to have any when you are in the thick of it. Maybe it is a bit like being in the water with waves washing over you and just trying to make sure you get a breath in every now and again - you keep wondering if the next wave is going to be a tsunami, or maybe just the last one in the set.

Part of it is fear - the question of whether I'll be going through this over and over again definitely surfaces regularly. I want better for myself than what I'm in at the moment, and the thought of getting stuck is rather unpleasant.

At the moment the only option that I really see is to push through it and try to make sure I keep as many balls in the air as possible, and somehow keep moving forward.

One of the frustrating things is that I've been getting new enquiries for work (yay!!!) but I've been struggling to handle those properly. Quotes are not a simple matter of pumping out a number, so I feel like I'm keeping people dangling, and probably just making them frustrated.

I'm fully responsible for the situation I find myself in. At one point I decided that I just had to take some risks and push ahead with a few things - the attitude was, "Screw it, let's do it." I was forcing myself to push a bit beyond my comfort zone, forcing myself to go into situations that were not guaranteed success, risking my own ego.

I have no idea, but I suspect that all of these things are probably experienced by most people starting up, particularly those starting as a one man business.

Is it going to get better if I just push through this dip? Or rather, how do I make sure that things are going to get better in the long run?