Freelance Writing Failure: Fear can stop you in your Tracks
Time after time I have said the same thing: aspiring freelance writers who are afraid of failure may never get started. Those who are already working in this capacity, but afraid to make mistakes, will also find it difficult to make the kind of progress they are interested in. Simply put, you cannot be afraid of freelance writing failure. This can hold you back in many ways.
Why are so many freelance writers afraid to fail? Just like any career, you are going to experience highs and lows. There will be times when you are making a lot of money and landing new gigs like there is no tomorrow. But on the other side of things, you will face tough situations where every query gets rejected and every cold call ends up with you getting hung up on. This is all part of the industry. You have to roll with the punches and take the good with the bad.
One thing to keep in mind is that you can learn from every failure that you experience as a freelance writer. You never want to fail but if you do you should learn as much as you can as to avoid the same situation in the future.
It is common to be afraid of failure. This will make you feel bad, and may put you in a position where you worry about the future. But you have to have thick skin. Failure is a part of every career, and once you start as a freelance writer you will realize that it is no different.
Instead of being afraid of failure you should try to learn as much as you can from it. I know this is easier said than done, but you might as well take as much good as you can from a bad situation.
June 11th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
This kind of relates to a comment someone left on one of my blogs earlier this week. In short, they mentioned a freelance network that I had criticized in the post, and said that they liked it and did well with it. That’s all well and good, but the reason had mostly to do with them being comfortable there (basically accepting much less than they could be earning because they were afraid of the inconsistencies natural to freelancing).
Unfortunately though, the moment we stop moving out of our comfort zones is the moment we stop growing as freelancers. It’s not meant to be easy. If you’re afraid, let that be a motivator to make you try all that much harder.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:32 am
[...] Freelance Writing Failure: Fear Can Stop You in Your Tracks [...]
June 12th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Jenn - Spot on, like usual! You are totally right about letting fear be a motivator. It really does work.
June 13th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Really great post. I just wrote a post about fear of failure and its effect on success for a paid blogging gig and touched on the subject in my most recent freelancing post. Must be on everyone’s mind lately! Thanks for the advice.