I have experienced the same. I finally made the leap after wanting to be self-employed since my first "job" as a research assistant. But fear has been holding me back and I always had "good reasons" as to why I couldn't. The truth is that I was also too exhausted from my day job to be creative...despite what so many "hustle gurus" promote I simply couldn't get anything creative done in the tiny bit of time I had because in the back of my mind there was always my job...plus I was simply to exhausted to have enough brain power for keeping a side project going long enough. Thanks for this great reminder of the benefits of self-employment.