So, a few weeks since I set up on my own and I've been enjoying it so far. Work has been quite sparse, but thankfully not non-existent and there have been encouraging signs following the various people I have spoken to about my work. It's quite frightening that I don't have a regular income any more, but I've been quite good at limiting my spending and am way under budget, which is nice.
The other thing that's been nice is to just have the time to work on my own projects and development. A few days ago I posted a work-in-progress of my self promo, and it's coming along nicely. I've been able to interact with the design community much more now that I have a freedom to set my own schedule, and although I've got a long, long, long list of skills to learn and tutorials I to do, I've enjoyed being able to get through a good chunk of learning without stressing myself out by allocating the 3 hours between finishing work and going to bed to doing extra work in the hope of getting to the level that I want to be at.
That's the tricky balance for me as a motion designer, I'm constantly feeling as though I must do better, I'm very aware of the fact that there are many, many people out there better than me so I'm always pushing myself - I know I'm not bad but sometimes I can feel quite inadequate as a designer. I think that the most important thing is that I continue to do this for the right reasons, the reason I started in the first place - because I love doing it, and one day I might be as good as the designers I look up to (although I am fully aware of the fact that once I get to the level I think I want to be, I'll no doubt want to be even better). But that's part of the fun of of it
I'm relieved that I'm not quite as lazy that I used to be, I used to be very aware of the fact that I had to work very hard to fight my laziness, but I think that part of me has been beaten into submission - mostly due to the fact that when I get stuck into a good project I just can't stop, and those times keep me going when I'm lacking motivation. I think I'll be OK.