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Are You Responsible For Your Freelance Rut?

Image by: Homethods.com
Are you tired of the work you’re doing? Are you tired of feeling like you’re not making progress?
If so, there’s a good chance you are the problem.

I feel safe saying that because I’ve had to point that finger at myself. I’ve had to hold myself accountable for conditions in my life I didn’t like.

In most of those cases, when I was prepared to be honest, I had admit that it wasn’t logical to blame anyone else. Other people may have aggravated my feelings but they really weren’t in any position to produce the changes that I wanted.


Do you know how many times I’ve sat down at my desk on Monday dreading the whole week because of the work I faced?

Do you know how many times I took freelance assignments and regretted every moment I worked on them?

Do you know how many times I wished I was writing for myself instead of for someone else?

Do you know how many times I wished my career was going in a more progressive and fulfilling direction?

But, do you know how many times I pushed myself through day after day of doing  that work I hated?

Of course you don’t.

The problem is I don’t know either. And that means it happened far too many times.

When I went through those phases, do you think I took action to find different clients, better projects, or to make progress on my personal goals?

Nope.

When evening came, when the weekend came, I would completely check-out of anything work-related. I’d indulge in the relief of not having to be bothered with any of it.

Then, another day would come. Another week would come. Sometimes months or maybe even a year would go by. I was still hating what I was doing but I wasn’t doing anything about it.

Also Read: Ideas Without Action Are Useless

I don’t always take action as fast as I should. But once I’ve decided things need to be different, once I’ve decided there’s something else I want to do, eventually I will make moves.

And once I stop griping, stop wasting time and start actually doing something, life gets better. Work gets better. I get things accomplished.

Two principles I live by are:

Never convince yourself that because you haven’t done something already there’s no point in trying or it’s too late.

But always remember you can’t expect change, if you aren’t making changes.

Now, back to you. If you’re sick of your work, if you’re sick of being stuck in neutral, ask yourself two questions:

  1. How long have you felt that way?
  2. What have you done about it during that time?

It’s okay if you don’t like the answers. That’s actually a good thing.

That puts you in a position to accept responsibility for what’s happening to you. And, doing that means no one is in a better position to create change for you. From there, it’s just about making moves.

So, if change is what you really want, what are you going to do after work today? What are you going to do over the weekend? How is next week going to be different than this one?