In honor of Halloween this weekend, this week’s open thread focuses on fear. Not those scary feelings you get watching a horror film or walking through a haunted house. But the more practical fears that hold us back in our freelance lives. Like worrying that one day all of our clients will dry up and we’ll be forced to sleep in a cardboard box and burn our beloved magazines to stay warm. Or that our college professor who told us that we had a way with words was totally off the mark.
What are your freelance fears?
I admit that the fear of inadequacy and fear of failing occasionally rear their ulgly heads in my own life. But I try to keep those fears in perspective. And on Friday I’ll post more about working through fears as a freelancer. Leave a comment describing your own fears so I’ll have more fodder for the post!
Flickr photo courtesy of Banana Donuts ~ Half Baked Photography
Number one, the image on this post is adorable.
Number two, I constantly live in fear, despite all the bravado. My biggest fear? The fear of failure, of course. As optimistic as I often feel about my master plans to take over the blogosphere, and the mag world, and the world of career coaching, I can't help thinking: What if it doesn't work out? What then?
I fear not making enough money to pay my house payment or my bills and having to go back and look for a full time job that I will hate. Don't all freelancers fear that at some point?
Hi UrbanMuse, This is a great post. My writing fear is not being good enough. I don't want to be compared to other writers and found to be lacking. Lack of faith in myself is a big one for me, though I've been working on it and still writing.
I'm afraid I'm not going to accomplish the things I want to. I'm afraid I'll constantly be in the hamster wheel!!!
I have a fear of spreading myself too thin and then not achieving anything at all! Wah wah.
Great post! And so appropriate for the upcoming holiday. It inspired my own post on 2inspired. My list of fears is a great one. The no. 1 being a fear of never making it as a freelancer. That I will have to eventually work in a job I hate and always wonder what might have been or that I will try to do it forever and be broke.
I have to first echo stephanerd: that image is fabulous!
As for fears, maybe mine matches your Halloween theme a bit: fear of being forgotten. Not exactly becoming a ghost or getting left behind in a haunted house or (worse) a cemetery. But, when my phone and/or email is unusually quiet for a day or more, I start to think "it will never ring again!" A bit ridiculous since I know I can make a difference by contacting people. Still, it's a thought that likes to rear its ugly little head.
The biggest fear most freelances have is not being able to pay the bills each month.
In order to be able to do this you have to be very versatile and be willing and able to undertake all sorts of writing jobs: reports, web text, advertising copy, speech writing, press releases. If you get stuck in a rut and don't regularly open up new lines of work, you're in trouble.
This is why freelances need to think seriously about how they market themselves. Blogs are one way to do this, a web site is another way. But this is not enough. You have to keep making new contacts and looking out for new opportunities.
And you need a specialism. Find a subject you are interested in and turn yourself into an expert.
I’m not a full-time freelancer yet, though I hope to be soon. My fear is that I won’t make enough money freelancing to warrant leaving my day job. However, I think that fear, as long as it is kept under control, helps motivate me.
Also, I second (third?) that the picture is really cute.
I have a constant fear of looking like a novice or looking really stupid.
Back when I was freelancing my greatest fear was my own laziness. The TV beckoned. The telephone beckoned. Food, friends, geez. Even though the rent depended on my selling my services and meeting my deadlines, I always just wanted to watch Casablanca. My solution? Who said there was a solution?