When I started freelancing, I was a full-time hustler. I started an Instagram, a Twitter, turned my Facebook into a business page, signed up for design conferences ($$$), attended meetups, got my Behance and Dribbble on.
I was always chasing the next gig. Still with the mindset of an office worker accustomed to a steady paycheck, I panicked when I didn't have paid work. I was so stressed I even applied for and was offered another fulltime studio job.
Just as I was seeking counsel from friends as to whether I was going bonkers, I got slammed with work. All my worries about a job, structuring my time and pursuing any personal work was pushed back into the shadows. But not for long.
The work dried up. I looked up and realized I was right back where I started - worried about the next gig, no structure for my days and no work of my own.
It seemed the only way forward was to take a step back. I realized I didn't have any long term goals or plans for my freelancing. Aside from client work, I was not advancing any creative work of my own.
I looked at artists I admired who were successful. Artists who not only seemed to be getting the most interesting opportunities, but whose evolution was exciting to watch. It slowly dawned on me - they took their interests seriously. They never abandoned the expansion of their ideas and vision.
I bought a fancy astronaut cat Decomposition notebook and started doing a brain dump. I explored which interests gripped me, and which, if I had the courage to pursue, would move me in the direction of becoming the kind of artist I would admire.
I began to design - carefully and without denigrating my attempt - a project I had attempted twice already but never succeeded in finishing.
I wrote everything down. I wrote down why I wanted to do the project, how I thought it might help me explore my interests, built a careful timeline for it and started planning out my time.
I allowed the interests I'd written about to inform the project and was surprised by how the work came out.
Around the same time I began a project for Carnegie New York. I took the opportunity to present the style I had been kicking around with my personal work, and the client loved it. I was able to develop my person vision and release it out into the wild through a client project.
That's when it clicked.
The personal creative vision was the generative force behind everything I did as a freelancer. Hustling meant chasing after ever-changing trends; building a business meant integrating client work, marketing and personal work into a system that had my individual artistic vision at its core. This was what is meant to be a creative freelancer. This was how my favorite artists were able to carve out more and more space for themselves in competitive markets.
My whole approach to freelance changed. Switching from focus on the short term to the long term gave me perspective on the utility of activities I was engaged in. Instead of focusing on being "seen" on social media, I focus on completing personal projects. Instead of endless worrying about the next paycheck, I put into action my marketing strategies and make changes based on results. Every task in my day brings me closer to my long term goals, and I no longer have to worry about what to do next, or whether what I'm doing today has relationship to the kind of life I want to have down the line.
I kept writing in my astronaut cat notebook, consolidating the things I'd learned over the years into a resource I could keep returning and adding to. I'm proud of it, and it will prove helpful for you, too.
If you're interested in what I do for my clients, you can find my commercial work here.