Why Keeping Busy Can Stall Your Freelance Career

It’s something that happens to all freelancers, a vicious cycle that starts out pleasant enough but can leave you spinning in circles and wondering where to turn next.

I’m talking about the feast-famine cycle, the one where you’re working one moment and then all of a sudden the work’s complete and there’s nothing. No more work to do and no more payments to receive.

You’re left standing alone, scratching your head and trying to figure out why you feel like you have to start over. I should know, it’s happening to me right now.

I’ve been busy with various things, paid work for clients, working on other projects, the kind that will bring in money down the line. Which is all great but it has one detriment,  I’ve abandoned what’s already working for me and now I’m paying for it.

Other freelancers do the same, they stop working on what’s bringing them their clients because, well – it worked and now your attention has to shift to giving them priority.

Know Your Enemy

I say: Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle. – Sun Tzu

The fact that all successful freelancers go through the exact same thing is a comforting thought though. Enough to make me realise where I’ve gone wrong that is – and that’s half the battle won.

There’s just one problem.

Fighting Back

When you’ve been neglecting something it’s easy to fall into the procrastinating trap. It’s understandable, you haven’t been keeping up, you may even have fallen behind, you have a lot of catching up to do and that’s an incredibly daunting thought.

The whole process of marketing yourself and your services is another daunting prospect many freelancers would rather ignore. So what can we do to get out of the famine stage (and hopefully stay out).

Here are 3 things I’m doing:

• Find your motivation. The same motivation that got you to freelance in the first place, that got you your first client. Hell do anything to get you motivated. Personally I’ve been listening to some rock anthems.
• Accept your limitations. You’ve been out of the game, your skills aren’t going to be up to par. How can they when you haven’t been practising? Getting back into the flow will be difficult but it’s not impossible.
  I haven’t been doing a lot of writing lately and now it’s something of a chore for me but it doesn’t mean I cannot write.
• Start now. Do something. Anything. The longer you put it off the worse it’ll get.
  I’m not too proud of this post. For one thing it’s taken far too long to write, worse is knowing I can do better. Instead of worrying about it though I’m just going to carry on writing, proofread it then hit the publish button.

Conclusion or Long Story Short

If nothing else the important thing to take away from this post is this. Keep doing whatever it is that got you your clients., that made you busy enough in the first place to abandon it.

When you’re busy don’t risk stalling your freelance career.

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