You won’t find a freelancer who would say that everything has always gone smoothly throughout their career. That freelancing is easy and simple. Or that working with all clients is an absolute, cloudless pleasure. Everyone faces challenges and deals with them differently. And even if you handle adversity well, some of these problems can hit you hard. In this article, I want to discuss what kinds of problems you might encounter and how to handle such situations.
Everyone goes through it
The first thing is to get used to the idea that tough times will come, either at the start of your career or at some point later on. Dark days happen. The important thing when something bad occurs is to recognize that it’s happening. You may feel like each individual problem is unique, but it’s not. They have common traits, and they can be avoided by developing a set of actions aimed at preventing them.
Your worldview
One of the factors influencing how you face a problem is your personal view of what is happening or what will happen. Perhaps you think the client you're working for is your friend. Maybe you think they’ll appreciate your extra effort on a particular detail since you put in the work. Maybe you expected one outcome but got something completely different. And when reality hits, you’re left wondering, “How did this happen? What went wrong?”A simple example is presenting the final result to the client. Instead of accepting the work, praising you, and promptly paying the remainder, the client tears apart your concept, adds new critical information, and asks for a complete redo. From the outside, this situation seems logical and reasonable, especially from the client’s perspective. But when you’re in it personally, your feelings may turn upside down, as if a neighbor had insulted your child. The funny thing is, the client might actually be right. But due to your experience, your view of the situation, and your prejudiced judgment, you don’t see it.
You opportunity
In this very moment, when you feel like the ground has fallen from under your feet and you’ve lost the battle, lies your opportunity for professional growth. Review your experience with the project. Write it down while it’s still fresh in your memory. Reflect on what you could have done better, and what wasn’t worth doing at all. This process doesn’t take long, especially considering that completing the project likely took you hours of your life. A single hour of thoughtful reflection can save you many more hours and nerves in the future. Moreover, as a thinking person, you’re likely doing this work instinctively. But if you don’t set aside time for it deliberately, your conclusions will be incomplete and biased.It might sound strange, but also evaluate your client. How pleasant was it to work with them? Would you want to work with them again in the future? When you send out future newsletters to your client base, you’ll be able to choose whom to send them to. And understanding which clients you’d rather avoid will help you focus on those you enjoy working with.
Comparisons with others
It may seem like everyone around you is doing better, growing by leaps and bounds. But that’s not true. You’re surrounded by many people, and you’re immersed in a sea of information, each person contributing a piece, but you don’t see the behind-the-scenes work, only the polished results. There will always be someone better than you, and even more people who are worse in one professional aspect or another. Comparison should inspire you—if they can do it, you can too, and seeing this firsthand makes you believe it’s possible.At one point, in the Olympic Games, an unbeatable high jump record held for years. But someone eventually broke it, and the same year, several more world records were set, surpassing the first one. People simply saw that it was possible.Seeing someone on Instagram with tons of likes on a post you think didn’t deserve it might make you wonder, “How does this even work? What’s so special about this post?” And that’s a good thought. This person knows something you haven’t figured out yet. Try to understand and apply that insight to yourself.
Misaligned focus
In most cases, the client’s goals and yours don’t fully align. The client has a business to which you add value, and this value contributes to growing their capital. Your task is to satisfy their vision of this value in exchange for your fixed fee. This is why your pricing should vary depending on the benefit the client will gain from your work—this is the essence of your business. Meanwhile, the creative aspect, which is more important to you, might be completely ignored by the client because it’s outside their focus.
Colleagues and business partners
Despite freelancing being largely a solo endeavor, you might collaborate with other professionals on certain projects or even entire ventures. It’s interesting to consider a situation where you’re working on a project with a close friend. Maybe you’ve formed a partnership or a joint venture. If things are going well, everything is great, but if difficulties arise, your relationship may stagnate. You might expect your friend to support you, but in a critical situation, that might not happen. My advice here is to formalize your relationship with a contract, even if it sounds silly when your venture is still small.
The dream client
After working for some time, gaining experience, and feeling confident, you might suddenly land a large contract from a big company. You haven’t had such clients before. You’re excited. Getting a project from a well-known firm feels like reaching the top of the mountain. But you need to be careful. You might underestimate the workload, ask for too little money, and end up with a tough project that requires many revisions. Worse yet, you might never be allowed to mention that you even worked on it.Understand that while this is a great achievement, it’s not the end of the journey but just the next step. No matter how it feels like things are finally coming together, try to evaluate the task soberly. At the very least, double the timeline. If you finish faster, the client will be happy, and in the worst case, you’ll meet the deadline.
Reflection
As I mentioned above, you should take time to evaluate what’s happening. This isn’t just about your professional career or negative situations; it’s a valuable skill to reflect on what’s happening in your life—keeping a personal journal and thinking on paper about your feelings, your assessments, your actions, and your goals. When you list the negative aspects of your work, they become more tangible and manageable. Listing the poor or insufficient results of a project, is it really that bad? Could it have been worse? What’s the worst-case scenario? Could it be avoided next time, and what would that require?
Conclusion
You can’t control when or how problems will come your way, but you can control your personal reaction to them. What you do after a bad event is entirely within your power. You have a wide range of responses to choose from: fear, anger, despair, denial. This is a skill like any other, one in which you can improve and get better with time.In short: bad things happen, but you control your reaction. Use each challenge as an opportunity to improve and grow.
Dmitry.
Everyone goes through it
The first thing is to get used to the idea that tough times will come, either at the start of your career or at some point later on. Dark days happen. The important thing when something bad occurs is to recognize that it’s happening. You may feel like each individual problem is unique, but it’s not. They have common traits, and they can be avoided by developing a set of actions aimed at preventing them.
Your worldview
One of the factors influencing how you face a problem is your personal view of what is happening or what will happen. Perhaps you think the client you're working for is your friend. Maybe you think they’ll appreciate your extra effort on a particular detail since you put in the work. Maybe you expected one outcome but got something completely different. And when reality hits, you’re left wondering, “How did this happen? What went wrong?”A simple example is presenting the final result to the client. Instead of accepting the work, praising you, and promptly paying the remainder, the client tears apart your concept, adds new critical information, and asks for a complete redo. From the outside, this situation seems logical and reasonable, especially from the client’s perspective. But when you’re in it personally, your feelings may turn upside down, as if a neighbor had insulted your child. The funny thing is, the client might actually be right. But due to your experience, your view of the situation, and your prejudiced judgment, you don’t see it.
You opportunity
In this very moment, when you feel like the ground has fallen from under your feet and you’ve lost the battle, lies your opportunity for professional growth. Review your experience with the project. Write it down while it’s still fresh in your memory. Reflect on what you could have done better, and what wasn’t worth doing at all. This process doesn’t take long, especially considering that completing the project likely took you hours of your life. A single hour of thoughtful reflection can save you many more hours and nerves in the future. Moreover, as a thinking person, you’re likely doing this work instinctively. But if you don’t set aside time for it deliberately, your conclusions will be incomplete and biased.It might sound strange, but also evaluate your client. How pleasant was it to work with them? Would you want to work with them again in the future? When you send out future newsletters to your client base, you’ll be able to choose whom to send them to. And understanding which clients you’d rather avoid will help you focus on those you enjoy working with.
Comparisons with others
It may seem like everyone around you is doing better, growing by leaps and bounds. But that’s not true. You’re surrounded by many people, and you’re immersed in a sea of information, each person contributing a piece, but you don’t see the behind-the-scenes work, only the polished results. There will always be someone better than you, and even more people who are worse in one professional aspect or another. Comparison should inspire you—if they can do it, you can too, and seeing this firsthand makes you believe it’s possible.At one point, in the Olympic Games, an unbeatable high jump record held for years. But someone eventually broke it, and the same year, several more world records were set, surpassing the first one. People simply saw that it was possible.Seeing someone on Instagram with tons of likes on a post you think didn’t deserve it might make you wonder, “How does this even work? What’s so special about this post?” And that’s a good thought. This person knows something you haven’t figured out yet. Try to understand and apply that insight to yourself.
Misaligned focus
In most cases, the client’s goals and yours don’t fully align. The client has a business to which you add value, and this value contributes to growing their capital. Your task is to satisfy their vision of this value in exchange for your fixed fee. This is why your pricing should vary depending on the benefit the client will gain from your work—this is the essence of your business. Meanwhile, the creative aspect, which is more important to you, might be completely ignored by the client because it’s outside their focus.
Colleagues and business partners
Despite freelancing being largely a solo endeavor, you might collaborate with other professionals on certain projects or even entire ventures. It’s interesting to consider a situation where you’re working on a project with a close friend. Maybe you’ve formed a partnership or a joint venture. If things are going well, everything is great, but if difficulties arise, your relationship may stagnate. You might expect your friend to support you, but in a critical situation, that might not happen. My advice here is to formalize your relationship with a contract, even if it sounds silly when your venture is still small.
The dream client
After working for some time, gaining experience, and feeling confident, you might suddenly land a large contract from a big company. You haven’t had such clients before. You’re excited. Getting a project from a well-known firm feels like reaching the top of the mountain. But you need to be careful. You might underestimate the workload, ask for too little money, and end up with a tough project that requires many revisions. Worse yet, you might never be allowed to mention that you even worked on it.Understand that while this is a great achievement, it’s not the end of the journey but just the next step. No matter how it feels like things are finally coming together, try to evaluate the task soberly. At the very least, double the timeline. If you finish faster, the client will be happy, and in the worst case, you’ll meet the deadline.
Reflection
As I mentioned above, you should take time to evaluate what’s happening. This isn’t just about your professional career or negative situations; it’s a valuable skill to reflect on what’s happening in your life—keeping a personal journal and thinking on paper about your feelings, your assessments, your actions, and your goals. When you list the negative aspects of your work, they become more tangible and manageable. Listing the poor or insufficient results of a project, is it really that bad? Could it have been worse? What’s the worst-case scenario? Could it be avoided next time, and what would that require?
Conclusion
You can’t control when or how problems will come your way, but you can control your personal reaction to them. What you do after a bad event is entirely within your power. You have a wide range of responses to choose from: fear, anger, despair, denial. This is a skill like any other, one in which you can improve and get better with time.In short: bad things happen, but you control your reaction. Use each challenge as an opportunity to improve and grow.
Dmitry.
