I received an email recently from a freelance writer who was having trouble keeping “on track.” The person lost their job last year and decided to “work from home.” The person was seeking advice on how to make their writing career a success. When I did have an opportunity to chat with the person, they told me that they were “really trying.” But, they had trouble finding writing work, and when they did it was “not the type of writing they saw themselves doing.”
My first reaction to them was that they were not trying hard enough. In my corporate career and also my freelance career, I hear people use the excuse “I’m really trying my best” to make up for delivering lackluster or downright poor performance. My response to people who tell me about trying is a quote from Jedi Master Yoda: “Do or do not, there is no try.”
If you say that you will “try” or that you “tried,” one of the possible outcomes you are ready to accept is failure. Yes, successful people do fail from time to time, but that is never their intention. They have egos that don’t quit and don’t accept failure as the outcome. Those egos don’t have to be nursed. By saying “try” you are bracing yourself for not succeeding.
Truly being successful requires more than blunting the impact to your ego, it involves what I will call “bending your will.” In order to make your career as a successful freelancer work, you must bend your will. That means that all your pistons should be firing and your focus must be laser sharp.
When you bend your will, you do a few things:
1. You can accomplish anything. You will always keep on track. You don’t let yourself have negative thoughts about your venture. You keep inventing and reinventing yourself until you make it work. Your goals become a reality.
2. Others notice. Have you ever seen someone who seems like they have it all together? Do you think that is an accident? The truth is that they may not have it all figured out, but they resonate with positive energy and purpose.
3. You believe in yourself and so do others. Positive energy is contagious. If you believe in yourself, they you will believe that you are worth what you are billing. You may take lesser priced work, because you need to eat, but ideally you will have the ability to work for more later on.
Okay, you are saying to me, “this is all well and good, but you don’t understand my obstacles or what I have going on in my life.” You are right but honestly we all get dealt cards we don’t like or there are other priorities. Bending your will could be applied there, too. For example, family obligations come first, always! But, are you willing to sacrifice an hour of sleep or TV watching time to be successful in your own business.
I have spent many late nights completing work that needed to be done. The kids went to bed by 10 pm. I have a pad and pencil to a local park at lunch to organize work, while I was working full-time and freelancing part-time. I’ve edited work at my kids’ soccer games. You find a way to make it happen.
There will always be places to find work. You just need to bend you will to make it happen!
Happy Freelancing!
This economy has not been kind to many. With the recession and unemployment reaching 10 percent, there are not many jobs out there. Certainly, there will not be enough all those that graduated this past May. When one in ten Americans are out of work, presumably with experience, the new grad might not stand a chance. Or, worse still, they will get lost in a sea of resumes.
