Overcoming fear to succeed in freelancing

Nov 11, 2015 by jgordon@unitedmediaguild.org

In a piece for The Write Life blog, copywriter Stephen Altrogge explored there three fears that you must overcome to succeed at freelancing.

They are:

FEAR OF REJECTION

Early on, expect lots of rejection. It takes time to learn the marketplace and how to target your queries to the right people at the right operations.

He wrote:

A large part of my success is due to the fact that I overcame my fear of rejection. If someone doesn’t like me, I simply move one without a second thought.

The faster I move on, the faster I find someone who really loves my writing style and method.

All great artists deal with rejection. Stephen King’s first book, Carrie, was rejected 30 times before being published.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm was rejected with the comment, “It’s impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.”

So don’t let it bother you. Learn what you can from the failure and start building a better success rate.

FEAR OF CONFLICT

You have to sell yourself to make it as freelancers. That may mean arguing for better pay. That may mean fighting for the words you write.

Writers who believe in themselves and push on will fare better than those who shy away from conflict.

He wrote:

Even with the best clients, freelancing always involves negotiating. You’ve got to negotiate rates, deadlines and a thousand other little details that go into each project.

If you’re afraid of conflict, you’ll let your client win all of the negotiations. If your client wins all of the negotiations, you’ll end up with less money, less time and less happiness. If that’s not a recipe for total and abject misery, I don’t know what is.

FEAR OF MISTAKES

Of course you have to be careful with your work. The higher your quality, the more likely it is you will get repeat business.

But you cannot let the fear of mistakes paralyze you. After all, you have deadlines to meet. And to make money at freelancing, you will likely need to produce quantity as well as quality.

He wrote:

I can’t obsess over a single word choice or spend hours sweating over a paragraph. And I can’t proofread 20 times before I send something off.

I’ve got to create quickly and effectively.

For more detail, check out his post on The Write Life.