Blessings in Disguise

Feast or famine. It’s a term we hear a lot in the freelancing world. One day you may be overwhelmed by the number of projects on your plate, while the next leaves you wondering if you’ll ever have a paying gig again. We’ve found ourselves on both sides of the fence, and we’ve determined that it’s actually not all that bad of a deal.

Despite your best efforts, you’re likely still going to come across times when you just don’t have as much paying work as you would like. This is frustrating at best and terrifying at worst. We found ourselves in this situation a while back, and our first instinct was to panic. This kind of lull is an open door for worries and self doubts.

Fortunately, we didn’t spend too much time focusing on the “famine” aspect of our situation. You know why? Because we were too busy. You read that right. Just because we didn’t have an overabundance of paying clients at the moment didn’t mean there was nothing to do. In fact, we were able to use the lull to take care of ourselves and our own business. It gave us a chance to sort of catch our breath and look around to discover what else we needed to be doing.

• We spent more guilt-free time with our families.
• We became revitalized when it comes to blogging.
• We came up with a new strategy to make our Berry-Brewer web site work for us.
• We discovered some earning opportunities we hadn’t fully considered before.
• We developed classes for SparkplugU.
• We got to have actual conversations with our colleagues.
• We revisited our goals and our business plan.

Want to know something amazing? Once we got these things in order, the jobs started coming back. Don’t get me wrong, we bid on jobs before, during, and after the lull; but it was almost like the universe gave us the opportunity to get our ducks in a row.

So, the next time you experience a lull in your business, take a look around. What things could you be doing that will help take you to the next level? As long as the bills are paid, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to redirect your attention for a short time. Take advantage of it.