I’ve been freelancing now for eight months and it’s been an interesting journey. By no means did I think the move from full-time salaried employment to one where you didn’t know where the next job was coming from was going to be easy. I anticipated that I was going to experience the full range of emotions. Elation when I secured client work, through to niggling self doubt when weeks pass by without any potential leads.
Luckily, I had planned for times like these but how do you actually prepare for the “emotional” journey?
You can set funds aside to cover you during the times you have no income coming in. You can set yourself up with your home office and equipment so that you don’t need to spend anything more. You can have all the tools, templates and checklists that you can use for your own business and you can tell all your friends, family, colleagues and networks of what you plan to be doing but when all is said and done, when you don’t have to in your office cubicle from 9 to 5 day in, day out and suddenly you have all this T – I – M – E, what do you with it to ensure that you are maximising it?
Early this year, I realised that I needed to treat myself like “a business”. I had no employer who could pay my fortnightly wage; I had no manager who could direct and supervise my work under a watchful eye; I had no team whom I could work with, have a joke with or delegate some tasks.
As the freelancer, you are the business – marketing, sales, human resources, operations, finance – you do it all.
My second realisation was that my 24 years in a corporate service function in private and public sector organisations learning and development departments, did not serve me well to understand the intricacies of business. The hair on my arms would stand on end on my arms every time I thought of the risk of repeating my role as a “training order taker” in my new freelance endeavour. The whole point was to get away from the “order taker” mentality and to one where together with my client, it was a trusted business relationship of mutual respect and learning to co-create a solution that would solve their business problem. If I wasn’t learning in the process, I’d lose interest and be useless to my client.
I had to take this risk of going out on my own to see where it could take me. I also had to start thinking and acting like a business – the business of ME – which was my “performance gap”. (I did a little ‘needs analysis’ on myself and came up with a learning plan because you know, that’s what I do for others, I may as well do one on myself….)
So this year, I invested in a 12 month business coaching program that runs every fortnight with a small group of others in similar situations to myself. The program is a mix of mastermind sessions around particular business topics as well as four full day Business Planning workshops aimed to check our progress to meeting our one year business goals. However, it’s not only the content that is feeding my desire to learn about how to build business – but the people who attend these sessions have opened my eyes to the world of a business owner. I needed to be around people like this in order to understand their ups and downs and in doing so, understand my emotional journey too.
Many of these people have invested their time and risked their life savings for a product or a business idea they passionately believe in. Some of these ideas are so simple. So creative. So…basic. In their simplicity – they are genius ideas because they solve a distinct problem for a target market and you start to think, “why on earth didn’t I think of that?”
In the grand scheme of things, all I have done is risked a fortnightly pay packet in order to get back some freedom and control so I cannot help but feel awe for these people as we share their trials and tribulations every couple of weeks and see their business unfold in front of our eyes.
Two days ago, we did our first Business Planning workshop where we had to write our 12 month Business Goals and then break these down to what we want to achieve for the next 3 months. All goals were then broken down into weekly goals to be achieved and written into a large A3 piece of white cardboard so that we could refer to it every day, every week, every month so that we can measure our progress to achieving our goals.
How often do we forget to make our goals these… @davidguest business planning workshop today. pic.twitter.com/THSCCvIKFW
— Helen Blunden (@ActivateLearn) February 24, 2015
The scary thing is that I’ve got to fill this out & actually DO it. Even #freelancers need #goals & a plan. pic.twitter.com/i4NH7d6oa4 — Helen Blunden (@ActivateLearn) February 24, 2015
One of the other activities we did was to sit down and write a letter to ourselves which would be mailed to us in 90 days. In it, we would congratulate ourselves for achieving our 90 day goals and give us permission to enjoy a reward of some sort. If that’s not pressure for achieving your goals, I don’t know what is. Imagine how awful you would feel if you received this letter to yourself and you realised that 3 months went by and you did NOTHING!
An activity where we write letter to ourselves to have it mailed to us in 90 days to see if we achieved our goals. pic.twitter.com/Qgynid6788
— Helen Blunden (@ActivateLearn) February 24, 2015
I believe we all need a plan of some sort especially when freelancing too. It doesn’t matter what it looks like but the simple act of having your goals written down and referred to will enable you to take action towards them. In the last eight months, I am amazed at just how much I have achieved and I shouldn’t be worried or concerned if things are going too slow in comparison to others. Or, trying to meet other people’s expectations of what I should and shouldn’t be doing.
To some people, what I have achieved doesn’t look like much but to me, building my website, learning new tools within WordPress, broadening my networks into new markets, working with new clients outside of Learning and Development departments, undertaking this business course and building Third Place (a learning and development social networking and co-working group) have all been an eye opener and are possibly new avenues into finding what value I can provide to others so that my dream is realised – and what’s that dream?
Simple.
- Love what I do;
- Meet lots of people;
- Travel every few years;
- Always be learning.
Oh and have enough money to buy nice yarn to knit.
Photo Credit: Swansea Photographer via Compfight cc
I love the letter to self.
I also like the dream. I could use the same, replace knitting by painting.
I never did plans so detailled, maybe I should. I’m getting second degree benefits of your coaching investement. What about making it more or less public for some peer pressure. An idea I should consider.
Interesting about making it more public Bruno as I’m thinking that maybe there are some things best left to ourselves. I don’t know, I’m still uncomfortable with putting my ‘goals out there’ and then for whatever reason not being able to meet them – or worse gloat about them. I guess it has its pros and cons and for me, the major ones that mean life/family goals are best kept to myself. Work? Well, I’m happy to share some of them – it may even be a bit boring. What this whole exercise is teaching me is that my dreams are quite simple. Others had to live in bigger and better homes, others to pay off debts, others to pay a sports car, others to grow their business in multi-million dollar entities. All I wanted was to knit, travel to go to various art galleries of the world and work less. Maybe it’s an age thing – the older we get, the simpler our dreams become?
I think that having a goal of simplicity let us be very lean, clear and able to focus more on our objectives. I compare it to the spartiates way or the yogi way. When you reach an important milestone it will always be possible to reactivate whatever silly desires one can have The reward in a way.
Few months ago I decided my dreams where not enough ambitious and I fancied to try to imagine travels in more expensive places. Just to set the goal higher and fuel my combativity. No way I realized quickly this new dream was counter effective and borrowed.
My idea was not to disclose private matters or aims but just the professional ones, possibly extended to motivations, context and rewards. You are a pro of Working Out Loud. It’s not very far to transparency. Some companies applies it on projects, some companies applies it on their core values like Buffer or Signal37. It doesn’t seem to be counter productive.
Should it be for all to read and interact or just a step away from the front side. The truth is that we don’t work like we did 20 years ago and some practice should or could adapt to take benefit of it.
I’m thinking out loud today.
It’s an interesting comment about what to disclose and what not. It’s true that ‘working out loud’ has helped me to make sense of many things (whether right or wrong), but there will always be an element where I will keep things to myself – or check with others whether it’s okay to do so. For example, I’m working out loud on the community of practice project with a client – some clients aren’t as open to have me doing this so I seek out confirmation first. Obviously, I’m also mindful that nothing shared is private or sensitive. If anything the value of working out loud comes when all parties can do it together and give their own unique perspectives to the whole experience. So not only do they do the work to create a result, but they explain their reasoning, thinking, beliefs, reflections through the whole process. That’s when the project and all its intricacies actually come alive and you feel that you have truly been involved in it – had a voice – and had a part to play in the process. Unfortunately many clients aren’t willing to do this so you only have my voice.
There are times when I think that how I write blog posts are not serving me well for work. Am I too open? Should I be writing more formal, structured posts like many others. Some people espouse ‘working out loud’ but they haven’t demonstrated it for their own reasons. Personally, I’m not too fussed about this but I do turn inwards and think, “is this enough/not enough?” “how do I come across to others?” “am I too giving?”
I stumbled upon a book called Give and Take by Adam Grant who also has an assessment on his website that assesses whether you are a ‘giver’, a ‘taker’ or a ‘matcher’. I have done my own assessment as a ‘matcher’ and have sent the assessment to another 13 of my friends and colleagues to get their assessment. I’ll wait for the responses and then share the results.
Helen, I felt I was sailing in the same boat with you. I’m just two months into freelancing and feel the swells and troughs of emotion each day. Self belief is a powerful tool. (Just remind me to use it). You have so much talent and a commitment to sharing with like minded freelancers around you-I’m one who has benefitted from your willingness to learn together. So let us journey on, riding the waves, sharing and learning together.
Sounds good to me Marilyn, happy to share our experiences – by the way, we need to go for another long beach walk again soon!