Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of choosing your hard, and I think it can be really useful to us as freelancers.
Too often, we know what we need to do, but we struggle to force ourselves to do it, partially because we frame this as a choice between an easy thing and a hard thing. Like:
- I’d love to make more money and work for clients who appreciate me, but the easiest thing is to keep working for my current clients
- I keep planning to make a new website and be more proactive about marketing, but the easiest thing is to stay in the rut I’m in
- I really want to do work that I enjoy and am good at, but the easiest thing is to keep translating what lands in the inbox
But here’s the problem: being chronically unfulfilled isn’t easy, it’s hard. Living off very little money is hard. Doing work you don’t enjoy is hard. Dreading turning on the computer for work is hard. Working for clients who don’t treat you like a professional is hard.
Staying stuck in a sub-optimal situation is hard. Making daily positive changes is hard. Choose your hard.
This thought helps me a lot, and I hope you’ll find it useful!