Freelancing: the First Victory

I've been focusing recently on the negatives until I took a freelancing class that encouraged us to focus on the positives. I think that I expected to start up a business without (much) suffering, when really I should be celebrating the fact that I have any work in the first place.

Yes, there have been times--a lot of times--when I have been afraid to fail, and that's stopped me from doing anything at all. There have also been periods of inactivity where the length and growing list of "I didn't think of this but I should do it" to-dos has paralyzed me. I still have a long list of tasks. But that list is actually saying something.

It's not saying, as I thought it did, 'here's another line of tasks you must do for free that will never pan out.' It's saying, 'you know what you need to do to grow your business, and you didn't know before.' In short, it's giving work that will someday pay off with clients.

Many freelancers report that the first six months are completely unpaid. I started Sky Tango Freelance in July 2015, so I can report that my first nine months have been unpaid. But compiling the vast amount of skills I learned in my personal annual report has shown me how much of that has been productive time. If it were easy, we wouldn't pay for it. We wouldn't need to pay others for it. And everyone would be doing it.

It's not easy, so getting started puts you ahead of the pack.