What to do when personal disaster strikes

Freelance Writing Coach

Why did you become a freelance writer? For freedom? Flexibility? The ability to work on your own terms? Whatever your reason, sometimes life can get in the way and throw your plans off course.

Learning to navigate the issues that crop up when you’re trying to run a business can help you weather the storms and deal with them. More importantly, it enables you to manage the impact these setbacks have on your work (and makes them feel less disastrous.)

Emma and I have been navigating our own personal disasters lately, so hopefully, this discussion is a cold comfort to you.

Go back to the essentials

Whether you need to go on a maternity break, care for an aging parent, or deal with a sudden health scare, some life situations force you to question everything. One of the questions you’ll find yourself asking is: “Can I sustain this workload and keep my business afloat through this period?”

In these situations, it's important to pare things down to their most essential.

Ask yourself some tough questions:

• How much money do I need to make?
• Do I really need to keep on all of my clients?
• Can I afford to cut my working hours down?

In a crisis, you need to figure out the minimum you need to do to deliver for your clients that will keep your bills paid.

"The perk of being a freelancer when disaster strikes is that you're very flexible. You have choice and control over your work hours, clients, and more."

Give yourself permission to shift gears; acknowledge that there are ebbs and flows in life, and take the time to adjust to changes in business and your personal life. Be honest with yourself and your needs at that life stage, and know that it's okay to take a step back and refocus.

Learn to delegate

Another tip: Get used to outsourcing work. When things get crazy in your personal life, getting help on the work front is okay. When personal disaster strikes, your mental bandwidth shrinks, and it's at these times that you risk letting the quality of your work slip. Remember that your clients trust you to do a good job, and delegating some of your work can help maintain that trust.

Consider what your strengths are and which tasks are tedious or you may not be the best at doing. Then find the right people who can help you with different projects: bookkeeping, accounting, admin work, or anything else that drains you of time and mind space.

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Make space for the things you love

We often forget why we became freelancers: to have the flexibility to do the things we enjoy. We lock ourselves into an incredible workload, and before we know it, there's no time or space to do the things we love. Instead, we're constantly scrambling and falling into the hustle-culture trap. It's a culture that reinforces the need to rise and grind constantly.

Putting your targets on paper is a great way to stay focused on what you need to do and when you can give yourself a break.

“Create a template for success and when you hit your goals, know it's time to stop working.”

Ask yourself: “How much money do I want to make, and how much bandwidth do I have?” Don’t keep adding projects or telling yourself you can fit in just one more project once you’re done. Keeping track of the work you're putting in and the actual capacity you have is a great way to start setting boundaries.

Recognize burnout

We've all heard about the new trend of 'quiet quitting,' where people are so burned out that they're doing the bare minimum at their jobs to get by. Sometimes the personal emergency you're dealing with is just complete burnout. It may sound extreme, but if that's the case, don't shy away from putting a hard stop on work. You can always come back to it the next month or whenever you feel rejuvenated and able to.

In other cases, while you may not be experiencing burnout, you may have an unexpected chronic health issue you want to deal with. Or, you now have a growing family and can't continue doing what you used to do without childcare. These are all valid reasons to take a complete break. Be kind to yourself; we’re all only human.

“Sometimes you need to fire clients. Get out of a guilt mindset about being productive all the time.”

Take a hard look at reality

You can't be an A+ mom, worker, house manager, and wife all of the time. The bottom line is that protecting your mental peace and navigating a personal crisis comes down to accepting the situation you’re in. It requires a willingness to change course in your personal and professional life. Often, this requires temporary sacrifices, but in some cases, you may need a complete mind-shift and a change in the direction of your business.

Give yourself room to evaluate and make changes. From delegating work to making space for the things you love, identify the strategies you need to adopt to navigate the small and big crises that life throws your way.

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