Freelancing in Self-Care
For anyone who freelances, the ideal vs. reality is something you probably think about… often. It starts from when you wake up in the morning — ideally, you wake up, maybe meditate, make a healthy breakfast, exercise, and shower, all before say, 10am? You’re sitting at your desk, wherever that may be, taking calls, answering emails, working on proposals, writing articles, and leading a generally productive workday. You submit invoices and get the money. Life is good, ideally.
The reality sometimes, is that you wake up a little too late because you stayed up late the night before watching a docu-series about one specific type of salt that can only be found on the shores of Japan. You wake up to find yourself inexplicably without appetite. You grab your phone the moment your eyes open to check your emails, Instagram, newsfeed, and whatever other apps you’ve learned to mindlessly engage with. Breakfast may or may not happen until around noon, when you realize you’re finally hungry, and a shower might not even cross your mind because, well, you’re not leaving the house today. Exercise can come later, once you’ve managed to find more energy.
I often struggle with the latter — despite having successful days where I am productive and able to manage a workload after taking care of myself, I sometimes find myself putting the work first, and not considering myself. I’m sure people talk about this all the time. My friend Ludmila once made some art about this on Instagram. It’s common enough, and yet, a challenge that requires baby steps, patience, and lots of self forgiveness in order to combat.
There’s a phrase I’ve said to myself often since I started freelancing, which is: “Freelancing is a commitment and investment in self.” You can probably understand why I’ve chosen to make the connection to self care. When I started freelancing, I said this to myself at a low point, to help me grasp what it was I was embarking on. This phrase helped me understand that if I expected people to invest in me and my skills, I’d have to be my biggest cheerleader and, in the words of my boyfriend, my own “#1 supportive bae.” To really invest in myself, I needed to consider the ways I treated my body and mind on a day to day.
So how do you achieve this? Self-care is huge, a buzzword that my millennial generation and the internet seems to love, with good reason. Sometimes it’s thrown around in ways that make me question the meaning behind it, especially when it comes to other people’s involvement in self-care practices. An example: manicures at salons and spa days. I love manicures and having my hands taken care of, and I do believe that going to a salon or spa with the intention of getting pampered, is a great way to take make myself feel good. But maybe before doing that, consider these options with yourself first :)
- Morning check-ins, when possible, are good. A stand-up with your team of one (for those who work independently), is a great way to see where you’re at. Talk about the things you’re working on not only in a professional capacity, but in a life capacity. I like to think of the ways I talk in a team, and apply the same language to myself. “Yesterday I worked on… today, I’m working on… these are the things that are stopping me from moving forward with what I’m working on today.”
- Keep track of emotional and professional progress in a journal or whatever means you have to keep track of your day to day. This one probably doesn’t have to be explained as much. I know folks who use Trello for personal reasons, and I think that’s really neat. For folks who like to be organized, journals can be a really methodical way of keeping track of your own mental and emotional data.
- Think about and vocalize what you’re grateful for. I do this at the end of my days, but it can be helpful to start your days with this, as a way to remain intentional and mindful of what you’ve accomplished/the good things happening in your life. Remember that gratitudes don’t always have to be rooted in positivity either, they can come from negative experiences.
There are more tips, but I’m honestly not sure that anyone will even read this, so I’m writing the first things that come to mind. The last thing I’ll say, is that if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably chosen to freelance so you could pursue something that drives you creatively insane (in a good way) — writing silly stories and creating art in different capacities, is easier to achieve when I don’t have to be tied to a desk that I don’t own, all day. Freelancing allows me the mind space to write fiction, to draw silly pictures of cat-woman-creatures, and DJ in the evenings. Some people have all the bandwidth in the world — I do not.
All that said, I’m still learning a lot everyday, and love hearing tips from other freelancers especially. Don’t be afraid to leave a comment below if you feel so inclined!
