Making Pennies? Make the Most of the Tough Times.

Today marks a pretty amazing milestone, at least for me.

For the first time since I started freelance writing, I’ve had to notify clients, and potential clients, that I have a full workload, and I’m not likely to take on any more work, unless I find the project personally interesting and the budget is equally interesting.

For me, getting to this point has been relatively quick; there are writers who slog at it for years, trying to fill up their billable hours with work, and never quite make it. Suffice it to say, I’m feeling a slight tinge of pride (if you think pride goes before a fall, please fall out of your chair here; nobody ever mentioned whose fall pride precedes).

But my move into freelancing was borne out of necessity, and like all of us I was desperate for work when I began. The desperation to have enough money to feed your family, fuel the car and pay the rent on time causes a sense of panic some would compare to the sensation of suffocating: gasping for more air, and not getting it. Feeling strained and closer to the end of it all by the moment.

Looking back in retrospect over the journey from suffocation to satisfaction, it becomes clear that the tough times are some of the most useful times of a freelancing career. The suffocation is a sense of urgency, an urgency that spurs you on and on to achieve what you need to achieve.

You can’t take a sick day. You can’t take a day to relax. You can’t afford to get distracted by Twitter even for fifteen minutes without feeling like you’ve squandered precious time (though it needs to be said that you can sometimes, if you’re lucky and smart, find clients through Twitter).

Put the sense of urgency to good use. Don’t sacrifice quality by taking shortcuts to get a half-baked result sooner, but do let it spur you on and motivate you. Carry the strength of that motivation with you even when your financial difficulties have passed.

For some, that desperation is fleeting. Once they’ve built a basic client base, even one that barely manages to put plain rice on the dinner menu, they fall back into their comfort zone.

“We’re breaking even now, at least,” they say.

The best thing you can do is cultivate the motivation that is derived from this desperation and make it part of who you are. You don’t want to keep the desperation that comes with it, of course. That just leads to stress. But self-motivation is one of those key aspects of being a great freelancer, like that other principle about how to be the best freelancer.

Don’t become complacent. Not now, not ever. Don’t get comfortable, and don’t get stagnant. Continue to challenge yourself, grow and explore new places and directions.

Most of all, make the most of the tough times and see the excitement and urgency it provides as a bonus, not a negative, because the sheer adrenaline that has you pulling 23 hour days won’t last forever.

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