Freelancing

To succeed as a freelancer, make yourself uncomfortable.

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uncomfortable bicycle for freelancersI was talking with a freelancer the other day who explained how he was working with just two clients who had been giving him almost all of his work over the last 3 years.

In one sense, that feels like a dream situation for any freelancer. He has a constant, reliable source of work, every day. He doesn’t have to spend time marketing his business. He doesn’t get stressed about finding new work each month.

Perfect!

Not so fast.

If you think about it, he’s actually in a horribly vulnerable position. I have had clients like that myself. Sometimes they stay with you for a year, or maybe 3 years, or even 5 years. But they’ll never stay with you forever. Companies are bought and sold, key staff change positions or employers. And so on.

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Monday Spark: When procrastination is a good thing.

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when procrastination is goodProcrastination is a bad thing, right?

Well, it certainly can be. It can be a real productivity killer.

You have a deadline, it’s getting closer and closer, and you still haven’t closed your Twitter page and got started.

Some people argue they work best under pressure, so procrastination is a positive thing. I’m not sure about that. Sounds like a clever, or not so clever, rationalization to me.

All that said, I know there have been times when I have been procrastinating for what turned out to be a pretty good reason.

For example, in one instance I was due to send a prospective client a proposal for a substantial writing project. We had agreed on the scope of the engagement and I had told him I was going to submit the proposal by a particular day and time.

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Mental toughness for freelancers.

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mental toughness for freelancersAbout fifteen years ago, when my youngest son was still playing baseball, we were gathered around before a game, listening to the coach’s pre-game pep talk.

The opposing team came from a low-income part of the city. Our team’s coach warned our players not to be fooled by the fact that the other guys didn’t have nice uniforms or fancy equipment. If I remember correctly, he told our team, “If they beat you, it will be because they have greater mental toughness.”

I don’t even remember who won that game. And I think it was a generalization to suggest that all kids from low-income families necessarily have more mental toughness than kids from middle-class families.

But his point was a good one, and I tucked it away in the library of my mind. Because mental toughness matters.

In fact, I think mental toughness is a freelancer’s best friend.

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Monday Spark: Why taking on a CHALLENGE may be more powerful than setting a GOAL.

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goals and challengesIn many ways challenges and goals are similar.

Both are about achieving something important at some point in the future. Both can give us a sense of purpose and direction in our lives, and in our work. Both set the bar a little higher and drive us to perform at our best.

But I think there is an important difference in how we perceive challenges and goals.

First, let’s look at goals.

A goal often takes the form of a written description, with a deadline. “I will publish my first ebook by the end of this year.”

There is nothing wrong with setting a goal like that. Apply a little self-discipline, set a schedule and you’ll get that ebook written and published.

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Integrated social media: The next opportunity for online writers and copywriters.

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social media integrationSocial media marketing is, thankfully, coming out of its trendy phase and moving into its business phase.

For those of us who have been online for a while, the trendiness of social media has been somewhat irritating. The web was social before the web even existed. In other words, the Internet was social before the first web browsers appeared. Back then we connected with one another through Listservs and the like. It was 100% social.

Services like MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook didn’t invent social media. They simply made it more popular and improved its functionality.

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Monday Spark: In fact, you CAN do it yourself.

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learned helplessnessWe just returned from a resort vacation in Jamaica.

Only for a week, but we had a great time.

The resort was divided by a fairly busy road, and the lady in the photo was one of a team who used their stop signs to help visitors get safely from one side of the resort to the other.

The process was fun to watch, because drivers clearly considered stopping to be optional.

Anyway, after a few days I walked to the side of the road, and found that the ladies with their stop signs weren’t there.

Just for a moment I wondered how on earth I was going to cross the road without them.

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