Liz Strauss kindly asked me to guest blog at her wonderful Successful-blog this week. I did with bells on. If you’re interested in learning what I learned from freelancing, do stop by. Today, for part 1, I tell you about how I learned to be confident.
Liz Strauss has one of the best blog communities on the Internet. I’m sure they’ll be happy if you stopped in for a visit.
May 12th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Good post Deb,
Success breeds confidence huh.
Any thoughts on how to stay confident for those just getting started and facing a lot of rejections/low paying jobs?
May 12th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
@ Adam:
I think that feeling confident is not a static thing. You can be working steady and enjoying a certain level of success and still feel insecure about yourself and your abilities.
One of the good things about working online is that the client only sees the finished product. They don’t know if you struggled with the subject matter or if you had one of those days when it was hard to concentrate.
My suggestion would be to keep applying for gigs anyway - whether you feel confident or not. Just present yourself in the best possible way. Either you will be a good fit or you won’t.
Give every assignment you are given your best shot and you will find that those clients will come back to you with more lucrative work.
I find that I am more likely to be hypercritical of myself when I am overtired, so eating well and getting enough rest is a good idea, too.
Hope that helps.
May 13th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Adam, I agree - just keep applying. Eventually, as you have some success, your confidence will arrive. Meanwhile, you can fake it - no one sees you so no one knows that your projected confidence isn’t real.