As a freelancer, it’s not unusual from time to time to feel unmotivated or like you’ve lost your ‘mojo’.
However, it’s worth noting that nobody is super-motivated all the time, things sometimes just don’t go as planned, and, like most positive things in life, staying motivated takes effort. In fact, as the quote by the famous American motivational speaker Zig Ziglar goes, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.”
So if you’re feeling unmotivated at the moment, here are 5 useful tips to help you stay motivated and get your freelance mojo back.
1. Uncover the root cause
There are more than a few factors that may contribute to why you might be feeling unmotivated, so it’s worth spending a little time on self-introspection and reflection to find out what is bringing you down. It might not just be one thing, either, but a number of things combined.
For example, it could be anxiety about getting new clients that’s impacting your mood, or you could be experiencing burnout or overwhelm from having too many tasks to do and too little time, or perhaps you’re not getting proper rest, enough exercise, or fuelling your body with the right nutrition.
It could of course be down to other factors, such as a wrong fit client or a money concern, i.e. you aren’t getting paid enough so need to review your prices (always a good motivator) or maybe you are experiencing a delay in payment of your invoices so you need to streamline the invoicing process and put checks and safeguards in place to help you get paid on time. The point is that once you uncover the cause (or causes), you can take the necessary action.
2. Take stock
Now is a good time to review just how far you’ve come since you started your business. Take into account all your client wins and successful projects, and have a read through case studies and client testimonials to see all the people you’ve helped and impacted with your work. What about sales? How much profit have you made? You might be pleasantly surprised when you take a bird’s-eye view of your financial position and review sales regularly. With Invoice Ninja, a leading free invoicing software, you can email reports on a regular schedule.
For example, at the end of the month, you may want to send yourself a sales report or an aged receivables report. While it’s easy to generate reports manually, you can configure the system to email them to you on a regular schedule.
It’s worth remembering that everything you have now is what you once hoped and wished for, so it pays to practice gratitude. You might be chasing things you don’t need and unnecessarily comparing yourself to others who are on a completely different journey from you.
Remind yourself why you started, your purpose, and your why.
3. Reach out to others
Reach out to other freelancers in your network who can help you regain your freelance mojo. Networking with other freelancers who understand what you are going through and provide support, guidance, and inspiration could be just the turbo tonic you need.
Attending a networking event, an industry conference, or even a small meetup can help enhance relationships with colleagues and build new ones, and can even spark new profitable ideas for products, services, and businesses. It could even lead to collaborations with other freelancers that would give your business (and motivation!) a boost.
There’s nothing to stop you from creating your own events, either. If you need help with that, EventSchedule is the perfect online tool to manage your events with calendars, ticket sales, QR check-ins, AI-powered tools, translations, and team collaboration, all from one platform. Check it out here.
4. Nurture a positive mindset
You can help nurture a positive mindset by reframing perceived negatives as positives, and, where possible, taking action.
For example, if you have a lot of time-consuming repetitive tasks to do, you can view it as a great opportunity to outsource or automate some of them. Likewise, instead of viewing invoicing as a chore, you can use invoicing software to streamline the process and see it as a major positive, as you get paid fast and on time.
Another reframe is if there is a slowdown in your business, you can view it as a perfect opportunity to work on your business rather than in it, or to take a well-deserved break. And remember, ‘nature abhors a vacuum’, so your next opportunity is on its way!
5. Invest in yourself
Investing in yourself by enhancing your skills is always a wise move. Whether that’s by learning a new skill that can help enhance your business or having a fun side project or hobby that you can get involved in, you’ll find that doing something you enjoy is immensely satisfying and can give a real positive boost to your mindset, mojo, and motivation.
Your fun hobby or side project doesn’t have to be related to your business, either. It’s just something you can do to provide some much-needed positive endorphins. When you approach your business from a more holistic mindset, i.e., taking all parts of your life into consideration and seeing how it makes up the whole, you’ll be better able to identify any areas that need improving and, as a result, restore your motivation. That fun hobby might even turn into your main business, or you could decide to pivot.
Whatever avenue you take, remember, as the motivational saying goes, “You didn’t get this far to only come this far!”.
