Hey friends. It feels like it’s been ages I wrote a post straight from heart, and it feels great writing this. Believe it or not, I drafted this post on my iPhone whilst feeding my kids dinner and listening to my African playlist on Spotify. Yes I like to multitask like that!
Life has been busy. From dealing with endless cold symptoms, stress, annoying clients, and everything else in between. These last 3 months has been one hell of a rollercoaster in the dark. I have hardly had the time to write as much I would love to. If you have noticed, I have only been managing to post once a day which is unlike my usual schedule, but what can I say, life happened.
I have now decided to get rid of anything and anyone that would put me under unnecessary stress, I don’t have to deal with. Life is too short to spend the time stressing. The first quarter of 2017 is almost over, and I feel like it has just passed me by, which is kind of frustrating. I have spent more time sorting other people’s business, and I let mine to fall behind.
One thing I have discovered is that there is definitely a very thin line between love and hate, and I am crazy in love with my life and working conditions, I won’t let anyone make me hate it. Which is clearly what I see happening if I continue dealing with some of the clients I am working with. Some of them are just impossible to please.
Without giving too much away, the main issue I have with these people is that I manage their expectations a bit too much. So I won’t let them build castles in the air, or let their expectations exceed their reality, or allow them to expect to get more than they should, if that makes sense, and that is where our worlds collide. Some people are happy leaving in a fantasy world, and expecting everything for nothing, but I am unable to function that way.
However when it comes down to it, the ball is in my court. I have to decide who I am happy to work with and what conditions I am willing to accept, and stick to it. I also need to avoid using certain websites to source for jobs. The crazies all seem to be on certain platforms, so they are best avoided.
I guess that is the ugly side of freelancing no one tells you about. The great expectations from clients looking to pay the bare minimum for the job that needs doing. The chasing of invoice is another annoying part of being a freelancer but I think it all comes down to the client. Some clients are just very difficult to work with, and are best avoided, while some are truly amazing!
My advice to any newbie freelancer would be to try as much as possible to cut out the middleman websites. The cuts they take are a lot and the clients you find on there are usually not worth the hassle. You could get lucky but I am yet to see any good in them. Instead, make the most of social media, word of mouth and offline recommendations if possible.
Do you freelance? How are you finding it?