5 Ways to Handle the Stress of Being a Freelancer

I wish I could say that freelancing is the next best thing after drinking hot chocolate or eating a poppy seed cake while you play your favorite video game. Unfortunately, it isn’t. 

Sure, freelancing can be liberating but it can also be risky and worrisome. Whether you’re a content writer like me, a graphic designer, or maybe a coder, freelancing, despite being synonymous with dreamland, is not always rainbows and butterflies.

In fact, freelancing presents a whole new level of problems that can be overwhelming most of the time. Now, this is a normal part of life, and everyone will feel stressed at times. But when it becomes a long-term state of mind, there are serious implications for your mental and physical wellbeing. 

That is why learning how to handle the stress of being a freelancer will benefit your professional career, and your personal life. Now, here are some effective stress management tips for the self-employed. 

#1: Identify potential stressors and plan for them

You may feel stressed out for many reasons, including situations like these:

• You deliver a project that you believed met the client’s requirements perfectly, only to be told that it must be completely redone.
• You were sure you had plenty of time to get a project completed, only to have an unexpected life event occur.
• The demands of work constantly interfere with your personal time, leaving no room for exercise, a social life, or family time.

Stress comes from many sources. The first thing you must do is figure out what stresses you out the most and create a plan to address those issues. Keep a journal for a week or two to identify which situations create the most stress and how you respond to them. 

This is probably the most important strategy for combating stress.

#2: Handle the stress of being a freelancer by learning to say no

If you’re anything like me, saying no isn’t something that really comes naturally. As a freelancer, you will feel inclined to always say yes to every little project. After all, the more work you have the more money you will make, logically. This makes it feel anything but natural to actually turn down work. 

The mindset created by the need to always have work coming is the problem. It is the basis of most of the stress we experience as freelancers. For this reason, it’s important that we develop a different mindset based on knowing when to say no.

It’s important that you create a realistic schedule. One that allows you to make room for the deadlines for projects you are committed to. In order to avoid taking on too many jobs at once and adding to your stress level, you need to make sure that you not only schedule in your work hours. You should also schedule in time for exercise, social activities, and any other commitments. 

#3: Set your own work hours

Take advantage of the fact that you can set your own hours rather than being a slave to this fact. Think about when you are the most productive during the day and schedule a solid block of time in order to power through your work at that point. 

While most people are most productive as soon as they wake up, every individual is different. That is why some of us work better during night hours. Determine which is best for you and set a solid schedule that you can rely on.

Read More: Freelance Mistakes You Should Avoid

#4: Handle the stress of being a freelancer by focusing on one task at a time

In high-pressure situations where you’re flooded with what can feel like thousands of different deadlines, the worst possible thing that you can do for yourself is to dwell on everything that you have yet to complete.

It is crucial that, in a fight against freelancer’s burnout, you keep your mind focused on what you are working on in the current moment. You also need to focus on getting the most important tasks completed first. While you may have no choice but to work into the night from one day to the next, try not to make this a regular occurrence.

At the end of the day, wasting your time worrying about all of the work you have to get done is time wasted. This adds no value to your work. Focus on things one at a time and take a few breaths.

Read More: 10 Lessons For Successful Freelancing (From .MErs)

#5: Handle the stress of being a freelancer by making lists 

List making can be a stress reliever. The main concern with today’s kind of work is that it never feels like done, finished or completed. There’s a huge list of tasks to do and you could do and even those tiny open loops such as unread emails, unfinished books to read, commitments to follow up. All these things can generate subconscious stress. And the brain desperately tries to keep up with them but fail many times.

To add, much of the stress originates not from having too much on your plate but from trying to keep up with it all. This is the reason why when you feel so overwhelmed, you better sit down, and get a pen! 

Celebrate the worries or anxieties that you have conquered and cross them off the list. Others enjoy crumbling up a sheet of paper on which your prior troubles were written and send it up in flames. Give yourself the gift of acknowledging that one of the anxieties that troubled you and took “worry time” has been vanquished. 

In Conclusion

All in all, freelancing isn’t free. It is a demanding profession and, as entrepreneurial venture, anxiety is part of the package. But, the suggestions above can help you manage those moments when the angst takes over. 

It can be difficult to put yourself first when you manage your work independently and also have multiple different people relying on you, but without practices like these, you are more likely to experience exhaustion, burnout, and extreme stress when freelancing. So, hang in there! And open up that calendar app and schedule the massage. You earned it.