Why turning down new clients is great!

The title may seem odd to you, but that's exactly what I am doing. I currently shoe horses as my full time job, which is fine as it pays the bills for me and my family.

My busiest time of year is from March - October when people start showing their horses again. Starting in March I always start getting calls to take on new clients and start getting super busy, I've already turned down 3 since March 1st.

This is the time to make more money and pick up new work. This year however  I've decided not to take on any new clients, in fact I've let 6 horses go in the last month, and the reason is simple. Right now I'm putting in 21 hours per week studying and learning Ruby on Rails and loving all the progress I am making.

Who wouldn't love to make more money right? But more important than that I want to be a full time Junior Rails developer and I don't want to get caught up in making more money and slowing down my progress. I want to keep my 21 hours per week of study (I'd love more) even as we start to move into my busy season.

I say all that to hold myself accountable and to hopefully encourage others who our learning to not get discouraged by a little temporary short term pain for long term gain. I think if you work on being good at something versus how much money you can make, you will never be broke, in my shoeing practice that way of thinking has never failed me yet.

I absolutely love learning to code and am beginning to think like a programmer. I find myself day dreaming while driving from barn to barn thinking of how to solve something, an idea or a crazy product idea.

I feel like I'm about to experience a whole different way of life than my current one. Like I'm strapping in to a roller coaster that's about to take off, soon I'll start climbing the hill and hear the 'click clack' as it gets steeper, then a rush of adrenaline as everything accelerates!

Right now It's imperative to my future to not get too busy I need as much time to study as possible....my goal is closer, I can see the roller coaster, all I have to do is strap myself in. - Josh