I Murder The Myth Of ‘Working Harder’
How I Killed The Myth Of‘Working Harder’ So Well Serial Is Going To Have To Do A Podcast About It
When is trying harder not the right answer? As a freelancer this is hard to answer.
If you’ve ran an online business, been a freelancer, or worked at a job you couldn’t leave you’ve encountered situations hard work couldn’t fix.
So what answer makes sense as a freelancer? Here are my suggestions.
Freelancer Suggestion 1:Hire out help
If you have never hired help it can feel weird when you do. When I first hired help the negative voice in the back of my head kept whispering,
‘You’re wasting money. You are admitting you are stupid. Paying for help is lazy.’
It is hard to pay for help. You feel responsible for your work so every time you hire out it feels like you are admitting defeat. Nothing is farther from the truth. Hiring help means you can spend more time doing what you are good at which ultimately increases the value you can create.
In my last post I explained the systems I used to help me pull the trigger on hiring help. Hiring help is the right move when done with parameters both as a business owner and a freelancer. The only catch is you can’t always pay to make an issue go away.
Freelancer Suggestion 2:Give up
From an early age we are drilled into never giving up. We are taught that only losers give up. Giving up is hard. We get invested emotionally and worry about what other people will think of us. We say things like,
‘They’ll say I failed and i’m not a REAL freelancer’
‘I’ll have to live the rest of my life knowing I couldn’t make it work.’
‘I guess what they say about me is right. I am an idiot.’
My advice is don’t be afraid to give up but don’t give up to early.
Ask a military general and they’ll tell you that being supple and giving some ground to ultimately win everything is worth it. Giving up can be a powerful growth motivator as a freelancer and remove barriers keeping you from growth.
So when should you give up on something? Here are the parameters I use:
*I tried to make it work, researched the problem, and sought help from others but couldn’t move forward.
*I constantly find reasons to do something else when I’m supposed to be working on the project.
*It makes me anxious and I’m losing sleep.
Freelancer Suggestion 3:Get help or a new perspective
When I started as a freelancer I sucked at writing proposals.
The clients I wanted to work with didn’t respond to me. The jobs that did respond to me I took and hated every minute of it. What if you didn’t have to hate your clients though? What if you never has to find yourself in the same situation again? You know what I’m talking about.
You set your sights on exciting projects and end up taking small fixed priced projects so you can pay the bills. I call this the sucky client cycle.
The Sucky Client Cycle
The sucky client cycle really sucks when you finally get the courage to quit templates and write proposals. You find jobs you want and write proposal after proposal-spending good time to make them right-only to never hear back. After two weeks without getting a response you give up and delete your freelancer accounts and software subscriptions. You get disappointed and that fire inside goes out.
I faced the same issue when I started.
For months I didn’t get a single good booking. It was frustrating. Everything I tried failed. I nearly gave up. Most freelancers won’t talk about this but I do. In the Freelancer Success Summit almost every speaker shares a similar situation.
You aren’t alone. When you feel like giving up completely understand that we have all been there. I was right on the edge of closing up. I held off. Why? Because I made myself a deal. I decided to try one coaching call. If I didn’t get results I’d quit. The coaching call changed everything.
The call helped me clarify key details I wasn’t getting 100% right. The things I changed made my proposals 5% better.
That 5% increase in quality led me to my first four figure months at $1367 (a 91% increase in earnings from the last month). Think about that. How much more would you have made last year if you did everything 5% better, 10%?
The time has come to find your 5%.
How To Find Your 5% Advantage
The secret to getting ahead is hard work and learning from others. The problem is knowing who to learn from. To help you cut through the noise and get the help you need I brought together 23+ experts in:
*Branding
*Freelancing
*Micro-Agencies
*Business Design
*Pitching
*Networking
And got them to share how they went from starting their career on the side to leaving their job to developing six figure incomes year after year. If you are interested in getting access to this event be sure to check the weekly email I send.
I’m launching the project December 1st and have a live FB hangout, call in slots, and more set up! So stay tuned!
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And get your 5% advantage and be the first to know when the summit goes live!
Originally published at livegoldrich.com on November 2, 2017.
