Getting Started on New Client Work When You Feel Unmotivated
Every freelancer I know, including myself many times over, struggles with starting some new projects. Whether it's a new project type, a giant multi-month endeavor, or a brand new direction they're taking their business in, there can be a ton of mindset issues and roadblocks that pop up.
But when you're feeling unmotivated, there are a few strategies to put in place to lower the stress and overwhelm, and get back to the excitement of new work. For this week's live, we'll focus on overcoming, shifting, and rolling into a fantastic mindset for great new client work.
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All right. Welcome everybody. We are talking about what to do. We have a new client, and what ends up happening is you have so many other things going on, or you just don't feel like starting that new work, because I don't know, you just feel unmotivated, unmotivated to do it. I'm trying to break a Trudeau in half right now. This one broke into a thousand pieces. There you go. We're gonna start with the pup date because Fridays are for pup dates. Here we go. Barry's in his place. Charlotte, can you go in your habit hall? Thank you. Good girl. All right, here you go. Berry. You can have a whole one. Charlotte's had a whole one.
They're doing great today. Oh my gosh. You guys look great today. You guys are both on camera at the same time. I can't believe it. Leave it, leave it. Can you believe it? They're like we don't care. Lady. Just give us the treats today. They're hard to break in half. There we go. Nope. Nope. Wait you go buddy. Good job guys. The job everybody's having a great day. Everybody's having a good Friday. You guys look so cute today. Although you need a bath, we have to give them an allergy baths every week or we're supposed to. Sometimes we make it every other week. Sometimes like this time we make it a few weeks and we're not being good about it, but you guys ready to get back soon. So surprise. All right. So we're talking about the things that happen and what we need to do in terms of mindset blocks.
So I wrote down notes. So we always have notes now because I write them down. So here we go. What we're going to do is talk about the mindset stuff. So a lot of times what ends up happening when you get a Murray welcome in a lot of times what happens when you end up getting new client work is you're like, yay, new client, woah. Oh, Marie. So glad that this is perfect for today. Tell me why. It's perfect. I bet it's probably because you have a new client and you're like, what's happening. I'm you know, I don't want to do this right now. So a lot of it is mindset stuff. So you feel on motivated about the work for a few different things. And this has happened to me a bunch of times, like I'm really excited about this new client.
It hasn't happened to me in a while. But it's happened to me many times in the past where I get a new project and I'm really excited about it then when I'm like, oh, I need to start this work. My brain is like, no, we don't want to do that right now. So what ends up happening is I'm just like, oh, I'll do it later. I just don't feel very motivated to do it. I'm just kind of like, Ugh, please don't make me do this. And what's really happening is my mind is like, this is a new client. Oh my gosh. Like there's a lot of fear there. I'm like, you need to execute this really well. I'm really scared this isn't going to turn out. So my brain is like, decrease motivation. Don't do this. Like this is going to end terribly.
The other mindset thing that happens is it just sounds like an overwhelming amount of work. Hey, Katie, welcome in. Yay. I'm so glad that you guys liked this topic. I was worried that everybody like wouldn't get it, but I feel like this is something that happens so much as writers. So our second thing that happens with our mindset is that we ended up getting in this place where were like, whoa, that's a lot of work. I'm a really scared about starting all this work. I'm really nervous about getting all these things done, right? Like you sign a big retainer or you sign a big project and it's like a three-month project. And you're like, oh my gosh, that's so much work. Like, how am I going to get it done? And you start feeling overwhelmed. So instead of feeling excited that you're like, yes, I got this big project.
Like you end up feeling like this, like strong decrease in motivation. Cause you start getting overwhelmed at the amount of work you have to do. The next thing that can happen is when you're looking at the project stuff, you start like future panicking. This is something that I do often where I'm like, I got this work. I got it. Like I get what I'm supposed to do. I know how to do it. I've done it a million times. I'm really excited to work for this client. And then the, the motivating and the decrease in motivation comes from me being like, what if they hate it? What if they don't like working with me? What if they don't pay my invoice? What if they end up sending me all these edits? And it's like, they're like, why did you write like this? Your samples don't look anything like this.
Why did you do this? Or they send it to like their CEO and their CEO is like, this is garbage. Why did you hire this person? Right. So I ended up future panicking. Right. And that just makes my motivation go down because I'm like, well, what's the point? What's the point of doing this work if it's going to end so terribly. Right. And a lot of this stuff is just mindset things, right? We got this project, sorry I have to call, okay, we got this project because we worked really hard to get it right. We've worked hard with our marketing and not descending the LOI. We worked really hard to make our list, find the right prospects, make sure they had the right amount of budget for us like that. We were a match on rates and what they had available in their budget.
We worked really hard on the meeting. We worked really hard on getting the proposal done and the contract and our upfront invoice all said, like, there's so many steps before we get to the work. And sometimes what happens is we get to the work and we're like, oh my gosh, I can't do this. This is terrible. And this is a normal thing. Like I just want to kind of normalize this because every time I talked to other writers, there's always this thing where it's like, yeah, you signed this big project. And then you're like, oh my gosh, can I really do this? Right. You get imposter syndrome. Or you get something that pops up where like, you don't feel good enough. Or you end up going through all of these different things where you like worked really hard to secure the work.
You worked really hard to get that project. And now that you have it, you're like, oh crap, what am I going to do now? And it's really a matter of switching your mindset from one, that's basically like I'm afraid to just get started. I'm afraid to like, look at all this stuff to be like, all right, let's just start with like the basic stuff. This is how I ended up getting myself out of a lot of mindset stuff. Especially when I feel unmotivated is I'm like, listen, Hey Mandy, we don't have to do it all at once. Crazy Daisy. Let's just do one thing. All right. They need SEO keywords, go into Uber, suggest fart around in there for two hours. See how that goes. And sometimes I don't even give myself a time limit sometimes. Like I'm like, oh two hours is nothing.
Sometimes I'm like two hours sounds like a lifetime. When will there be dog petting and snacks? Like this sucks. So sometimes I'm like, listen, just open it. Just open Uber suggest, go in there and fart around or open up MAs or open up SEM rush or whatever tool you like. Just, just go in there or like, I'm like, okay, Mandy, you have to do a little research. Just go find one study. That's it. All you have to do is find one relevant study. And I kind of start breaking it down in small chunks instead of looking at the big picture where I'm like, there's 25 blog posts a case study, like, and I'm like, what am I going to get it done? I'm just like what to do first. What do I have to do to get that little bit started? And I often find that when we switch right, when we're kind of going into this thing where we're like, I have to eat the whole elephant at once.
Now we have to switch you just take one bite. Okay, cool. Let me just handle that. And then what ends up happening is like this little bit of magic. It's like a mind magic trick as you take one bite, you're like, oh, that didn't taste so bad. Let me try another. Oh, actually that tastes pretty good. And then you start eating it and you're like, yes, this is delicious. Well let's, I mean, you get what I'm saying? Like we're not eating elephants. Literally. I'm just saying like, the analogy is that as you get started with a small amount of work, you kind of like train yourself over time that you're like, Hey, this isn't so bad. I don't need to panic. I don't need to worry. And a lot of times, or you need to, like, you don't need to force your motivation to show up.
It won't like, it just doesn't. I find that motivation kind of like is basically like a rock rolling down a hill. Like it gains momentum as you take action, as it keeps rolling as it keeps going. So if you give yourself something little to do, and you're just like, oh, I'll just do this one little thing. I'll, I'll write the outline. I'll set up one interview, I'll talk to the client, you know, set up my client call. I'll do one slide of my deck. I will fix this one little error in here. Doing those little things eventually builds up into you completing the project. It kind of takes it from feeling very overwhelming and scary. And like a lot of imposter syndrome or a lot of like mindset things that just lead to the opposite of feeling motivated. Like a lot of things that just make you feel like I don't want to do this right now.
Just doing little pieces that gives a lot of momentum. I found that like sometimes when I don't feel like doing something, if I do one, if I just do one, like if I'm just doing one social media post or one email or one little section of a page, you know, like, let's say I'm editing like a sales page or I'm editing a a webpage or editing something like just one section of that. And I'm like, oh, you know what, let me go look at this next one. And it kind of just builds on itself. So instead of focusing on all of the stuff that makes me feel unmotivated, feels scary, feels overwhelming. Feels like I can't do it, then I'm not enough. And I'm not good. All of that stuff kind of goes away. Cause I just start focusing back on the work itself.
I'm like, how do I actually figure out this puzzle? How do I put everything together? That's where my focus goes. Rather than feeling like, oh my gosh, I can't do this. And like, oh God, this is no place. Like I feel this like drain of motivation. So that's something that I wanted to point out. And then when we want to talk about moving away, so we want to move away from feeling stressed and feeling overwhelmed for this. So we have our first technique. Our first technique is that we just eat it one bite at a time, right? You eat an elephant one bite at a time, you break it down into small steps. So for example, you have 12 blog posts and you know, every single one of those blog posts needs an outline. You know, that every single one of them needs keywords, you know that it needs this, that, and the other thing start with one blog post and do one thing on the blog post.
Okay. I just wrote the outline for this one blog post. Cool. Oh, well maybe I'll try another one. Okay. One more. Write it down. Like there's a lot of things that we can do to kind of trick ourselves into doing the work. And as we do the work, we start feeling more motivated and more excited to continue on when we're trying to lower our stress and our overwhelm. There's a bunch of things that I've done in the past that I feel like really helped with mindset stuff. So one of those things is like, I know this sounds so silly, but like I say, stop out loud. Like I'm doing something and I get all these negative thoughts or I start panicking about a big project. Like I will sit at my desk or like sometimes I work on the couch and I'm just like, stop.
Like I will say it out loud. Sometimes it's loud. And sometimes it's not so loud, but that kind of like reminds me like, oh yeah, there's an outer world. I don't have to live in my inner world of all my thoughts and all my anxieties and all my worries. And like my lack of motivation and my fears and all that stuff. Like, oh, like it, it takes me out of those like inner thoughts. It kinda like wakes me up and then I'm like stop. And then my brain is like, okay. And then we kind of like do a little bit more of the work and then I have more thoughts. I'm like stop. And I know this sounds silly, but just saying it out loud takes me out of my head. It takes me out of my head. And eventually you stop having so many thoughts.
Like you train your brain. I I've done this to myself so many times where you like train your brain to just stop doing that. You're just like, say it out loud enough times that it stops doing it. That's one thing. The next thing is that when we're working on big projects, when we're feeling unmotivated, we're feeling stress and overwhelmed. Sometimes you just have to leave. Sometimes you have to go on a walk with your dogs or go on a walk to the mailbox or talk to your partner or call someone on the phone or go outside or go grab a coffee or go like, go get something at like go through a drive-through or just like get out of there. Sometimes it's just like, you know what? I just need a break from this. I just need to go like refresh myself. And sometimes that's just like leaving the laptop for a little bit.
And it's just kind of like a way to like, move your body a little bit. Right. Do walk your dogs, go outside a little bit or just leave the premises. You're like, I feel stressed in this space. Let me just go leave and do something else. And then your mind can wander. You can go do other stuff to kind of like take the pressure off of the situation. And I've found that that's really helpful. Just kind of like go do something else, go talk to someone else. Sometimes like zoning out helps like play a little game on your phone. Sometimes like talking to someone else really helps. Then I'm just laying there. Like I, I think my partner has come in many times when I'm like laying on the floor in my office and I'm just like, Ugh. Or I'm sitting in my chair and I'm just like staring at the wall.
He's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, no, I just, I need like a moment. I just need a moment. And sometimes you kind of just have to pull away from that. Like sometimes you, you just need kind of a deep breath and you know, you can kind of move away from all that stress and overwhelm. The other piece is that sometimes you need a good night's sleep and you need to know when to quit. This is something that took me a very long time to figure out when you get to a certain point when you're like working at nighttime, sometimes you just have to stop and try again tomorrow. Like sometimes there's times when I'm working on something and it's like four 30 or four o'clock or three o'clock. And I'm just like, you know what? Like I have to stop if I don't stop now.
And if I don't get some rest and if I don't get some sleep, like some brain space away from this, like I know my writing's going to suffer tomorrow. We have to start figuring out how to recognize what your brain is doing and what your mind is telling you and how you're feeling so that you can just stop, stop working for a little bit. This, I fought for a very, very long time. I spent many, many years being like, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. Every, I just need to finish this. I just need to do this thing. I need, you know, I can't go to sleep until I do this. I won't feel relaxed, but you know, what ends up happening is like the next day I'm like groggy and I'm exhausted and I'm tired and I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed that I have to go back and do this thing that I thought I would kind of finish yesterday.
And I didn't. And I'm, I'm, I'm frustrated by the fact that I, I have to continue to execute day after day after day after day, that just like, it's really tiring. So when's the ends up happening is I'm like, you know what? I recognize the thoughts I'm having. I'm recognizing how I'm feeling. I'm feeling tired of feeling annoyed and frustrated. I'm feeling like I need a break. I'm feeling like I'm not making very much progress on this today. Like I just need to stop. I just need to stop today and rest and then get a good night's sleep, wake up tomorrow and just, you know, do my thing. And that works a lot of times, like when you feel stressed and overwhelmed, sometimes you just need some time away. And some time away just means like today I'm stopping at 3:00 PM. That's just what happens instead of working until midnight, trying to finish it.
And I've done that so many times where I'm like at like three or 4:00 PM, I'm like, I need to stop. And I just don't until like midnight or one, cause I'm like, oh, I'll finish it. And the next day it's like, I just went way overboard. And the next day I'm just like, oh my gosh, like, oh, and I just have zero motivation to do anything. Not even just writing or my client worker emails, but just like anything. So you have to kind of learn the signals that are happening and I'm not super like a woo woo person. But what I mean is signals, like what thoughts are you having? How you actually feel, do you feel really exhausted, frustrated, tired, annoyed, just like deep, like deep on like, you're not motivated at all to do this. And then like, just stop it's okay.
Like, let's say you just wanted to work a traditional nine to five or nine to six or eight to five, whatever kind of schedule you wanted to work. Let's say as a freelance writer, you wanted to work a similar schedule to what you did at your full-time job. Well, if you stop at three that's only two hours away from 5:00 PM or three hours away from 6:00 PM. Right? It's not that much time. It's a very short amount of time. And if you really want to be at spicy about it, you can get up early the next day. It's just a shift in hours. So instead of worrying about like, oh, I have to work till five or I have to do all this stuff, or I need to get in this place where I finish all these things at once. Or even though I'm not motivated, I just need to push myself.
Like sometimes there's times where you like pushing yourself is a lot more damage than, than actually stopping and then taking a break. So when you're working on this stuff, start paying attention to that pay attention to what's kind of going on and like, if it's late in the afternoon and you're just like, I need a break, take a break. Oftentimes you like, what what's happened to me is sometimes I'll just wake up early, like, I'll go to bed. I'll I'll have enough rest. And like, I'll have some downtime, I'll go to bed and I'll just wake up early. And then I start working at like seven. This has happened before where like, I'll just work at seven or seven 30 and I'm like, oh, sweet. That's like way earlier than I normally start. So you kind of get that time back or what ends up happening is you end up feeling so rested that you're like, oh, sweet.
This was way easier than I thought I've had this thought so many times I go to sleep. And the next day it's like, I'm looking at a totally different document. I'm looking at a totally different article. I'm looking at a totally different case study. And my brain has been refreshed where I'm like, oh, this is easy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I do all my stuff and turn it in. No worries. That's just because I gave my brain the time to like, you know, on sponge, right. It gets all tight. It's all like, oh my gosh, we have to do this thing. And then I'm like, okay, relax brain sponge. Like, let's just let it flow back out. You know? And what ends up happening is like, my brain feels like I have space. I have space to relax space, not to think about it.
And the next day I feel motivated. I feel excited to keep working on it. I feel like I'm going to get a lot more done and I'm like looking at it with so, so much clearer vision or like a much more honed in I where it's like the day before. If I had just grinded it out, I would have been miserable. So look for the ways that you can kind of reduce the stress and overwhelm part. So like take a walk, lay on the floor go downstairs and talk to someone. If you live with a partner, a significant other roommate, go outside, go drunk, drive through somewhere, get like coffee, get drank, or get, you know, just go somewhere else. Say something out loud. I always say stop. Like, you know, or just stop working, just take a little like few hour break.
You know, there's nothing wrong with that. And we're assuming here that when we take our break that we're not running up against our deadline try to preplan your stuff so that you're not like pressure to keep working till midnight. And then you're like, oh my gosh, I have to do this thing because of a deadline. And oh my gosh, this is terrible. That kind of stuff. All right. So let's talk about our shifting our mindset things and like getting back on track. So if you have any questions, pop them in the chat. If you have anything that's popped up that you feel like you have a question about what we're talking about or questions about freelance writing, pop them in the chat. If you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. It feels like you want to learn more about building a high earning freelance writing business subscribed a we'll do a quick pup date too.
So let's do a quick pop date. You guys ready to be updated? All bare. You look so cute. Good boy. Bear, bear. Okay. Beau is Beau also known as bear you go, buddy is like less than two months away from turning 15, which is crazy to me. Can you get in your habit hole? You got to get in your habit. Whole good girl. Good job. Charlotte's half birthday was last month. So she's an eight and a half, but Beau is a November baby. Well, we just picked a random date. So we picked a random date and he his birthday's in November. So on November 1st, he'll be, you know, he'll be 15. I can't believe it. Oh, wait a minute. That's for Berry. Good boy, buddy. Wait, I like your Elvis lip. Here you go. Good girl. All right. We did our pup date.
All right. Marie says you pay, you got it in a two year there. All Maria says we're going to pop this up real quick on our pup date. So she said sometimes that rejection or client comment will get me. Yeah, this is totally true. So let's go back to our main screen here. Oh, we lost our Murray comment. So let's just pop it up here. So Merissa is sometimes the rejection or client comment will get me. Yeah, sometimes that happens. It just kind of sucks the wind out of your sails, right? When your clients are making you feel crappy, right. When your clients are making you feel like, you know, you're not doing such a great job, you are failing in some way, or they're giving you a lot of edits or critiques where you're like, oh gosh, like really? I have to go back and do this.
Like, something that I think really helps is that you're like, okay, number one, is this actually making the piece better? Or is this person that crazy Daisy there's a lot of times where I talked to freelance writers where they don't trust that little piece in their head. That's like, this is making the piece. I think my client's not doing a good job as, as an editor. Like listen to that. You can always go back to your client and say, well, why did you make this change? Or like, can you walk me through this? Like, there's, I feel like it might be better if we switched to this, like, and you make another edit this should be a collaborative process. So when you're doing your work and you get edits or comments or whatever try to keep it in perspective that this should be collaborative and nothing is really set in stone until like you have this conversation with them.
So it can make you feel unmotivated. But I think what kind of helps is like a few things. One, you can always take a break, you get like a bunch of edits. I've done this before, where I got something back where I did like so many edits. I was just cried for a long time. I was just like, Nope, I can't do this right now. And I was just like, I'm the worst writer on the planet? Like, look at all this stuff. Hey, sad, Panda. She's sad Pandora right now. She was sitting like a sad Panda. It you're just like, Nope, I have to cry right now. Like I need to get away from this. Sometimes that's just what happens. Or you just lay on the floor. Like I do this all the time where I'm just like, I can't do this right now.
And I just lay on the floor and it sucks out motivation. I don't think trying to force yourself to be instantly motivated works. I just don't a lot of times when we talk about mindset or when people talk about like getting back on track or switching your thoughts, I'm sure that there is an immediate thing that some people can do. I, most of the time can't do that. I need some time, like sometimes I just need some time. Like sometimes it's 15 minutes, sometimes it's a day, but sometimes there's these things where you're just like, no, I just need a break. I just need some time away from this. I needed some time to like, you know, whatever. Then we can kind of come back to it in like a refresh state and we can be like, alright, yes, those client comments were really harsh and yes, they really sucked.
Are they actually relevant? Or is this, you know, is this one of those situations where they're giving me really good feedback? And it just hurts right now? Or is this one of those situations where like too many people have their hand in the honeypot. So they asked five people at the company to review this stuff. They come back to you with all these different comments that are conflicting and make no sense. And you're like, well, who do I listen to? And then it's kind of that situation where everybody makes comments just because they were told to make comments. Right. And it's not all that. It's not all that all of them make sense. So there's that the rejection part, that's something that I think just takes time as a writer. There's a lot of times where we get rejected. Like I've been a freelance writer for about 10 years and I still get rejected all the time, all the time.
This is a normal part of putting yourself out there. No matter what kind of business you have, if you're putting yourself out there, you're sending your LOI, you're sending pitches. You're networking. You're growing your speaking with other writers you're working on following up, you're doing all of these things that are really putting you at this. Like, Hey, you know, like you're, you're, you're going out of your comfort zone. You're like working really hard on getting the next client, like putting yourself out there and getting rejected. Like I think for me sometimes what helps get my motivation back? Cause I'm like, Hey, at least I'm not sitting around doing nothing. You know? Like I'm making an effort. I'm putting myself out there, which is scary and it can be tough. And you can get a lot of rejections in one week, which really sucks.
And it makes you feel like you don't want to do it anymore. You're like, well, if it's going to be like this, right, the thought I often have about freelance writing is if it's going to be like this, I don't want to do it anymore. Right. You're just like, it's going to be this way forever. I'm always going to get rejected. No one wants my ideas. No, one's interested in working with me. I don't have the clips. I don't have the experience. I don't have the niche expertise, whatever it is that doesn't last forever. It never does. You can always get a new client. You can always get a new clip. You can always make more money. You can always do all these things. And it's always possible. It's just that when we get all the rejections and especially when we get them at once, it just like, you know, all the wind goes out of your sails, your balloon just totally deflates.
And I think that's normal, you know, you're trying something really hard. You're trying something new. Sometimes what ends up happening is you're like, you know, I've been doing this marketing and like, yeah, it kind of works, but I need to try something new. So when you start something new, you're just like trying it out. And then you're like rejection, rejection, rejection. Right. And that sucks. It pulls a lot of motivation out of your sails. I think you just need to take a break sometimes. And I think sometimes with a break, you know, there's, there's this time to kind of like step away from it. And then for me, a lot of times what ends up happening is like the next day or the day after I ended up getting all these thoughts that are like, Hey, remember, cool. That was when that thing happened. I'm like, oh yeah, it was cool.
Hey, remember when you met that really cool writer who like gave you all these tips? Oh yeah, it was cool. And I have like all these other thoughts where I'm like, you know what, that's why I want to be a freelance writer. Like I want all of these things. Like I want a byline in this publication. I want to work with companies and really help them create better content. Cause I'm tired of seeing content everywhere. I really want to help these companies grow and I feel like their product is revolutionary or really cool and more people need to know about it. I really love getting all these samples. I really love making more money. I really love supporting my family with my freelance writing business. I love having a flexible schedule. I like being able to take vacation whenever I want, especially off season where all of the families are like in school.
And you're like, ah, it's so quiet here. Like that kind of stuff, that those things kind of helped me feel more motivated. Cause I remember kind of like, what's the end goal? Where am I going? And when I feel rejected, it's like an instant thing because it's like, you feel like they're rejecting you as a person and they're not, they're really just rejecting like marketing. They're rejecting like, ah, we don't need this service right now. It's it's not really about you. And that can be man, that can be frustrating. But eventually I think it's, it's helpful to kind of walk back to like, what's your end goal? Your end goal is to eventually get more yeses, to get more clients, to understand you. And sometimes what ends up happening. And this has happened to me many times, I ended up getting rejected by clients where like a few like a year or so down the road, I look at their content and I'm like, oh God, thank God.
I didn't write that. Like thank God I didn't work with them. And that's like a relief. So sometimes it rejection part is and it sucks. But it's part of putting yourself out there and it's way better to put yourself out there, build the business that you really love get that flexible schedule or whatever you want. Like sometimes people just want to make a ton of money. Sometimes people get into freelance writing because they want to make a ton of money. Sometimes people get into freelance writing because they want to write about the topics that they want to write about. Sometimes people get into freelance writing for a flexible schedule or for building their own business. There's a whole bunch of different reasons, but you have to kind of walk back eventually to like, what's the goal here? Why are we doing this? Why are we risking getting hurt and feeling like all this rejection and all this like crappy stuff, where are we going? Like, what's the point? And then once you remember like what the point is, I think that kind of helps bring the motivation back. So I see that there's more stuff in here, so let's go through it real quick. All right.
Yeah. So Tommy says that he sets us short timer and tells himself he's only going to work that amount of time for now. Yeah. So like this, I know this works for him. Like I, the timer thing doesn't work for me. Like at that, that doesn't work for me, but it works for him when he's like, I don't want to do this. I'll just work on it for minutes. I'll set this little timer. And by the time the timer goes off, you're so deep into what you want to do. You're just like, oh, that's an annoying sound. You stop it. And you keep working. So yeah, sometimes that really helps for motivation for just giving yourself a time limit. Like I'm only gonna work on this for X amount of time. I'm only going to, you know, for me, it's usually task-based so I'm like, I'll only I'll do this one keyword research thing.
I'll do this one thing or excuse me, one thing right here. But a time works. Use that. Yeah. Also, also Maria says you got this. Yeah. So like, if you can give yourself some positive stuff to say like, Hey, you know what, why are we doing so much on the crappy stuff? Why can't we dwell on the things that might be good? This is a new thing to me that I'm sure other people have known for many years, but like, instead of catastrophizing about what can go wrong, let's catastrophize about all the things that can go. Right. All the good stuff that can happen. Like if we spend like a hundred percent of our time in all the that can go bad, badly, all the can go badly poorly. Yeah. So all the things that can go bad, why aren't we spending an equal amount of time and all the things that can go, well, that just seems silly, right?
Like it's a scale, it's an unbalanced thing where your brain is just like, let's talk about all the horrible things, right? Your brain is just like, remember that saber tooth tiger or like your brain is like, remember all the horrible things where we won't be able to eat and someone will repo our house and our car and our dogs like, oh my gosh, all that stuff. Like why can't we spend an equal amount of time or even maybe more time on all of the things that can go. Right? All the things that are helpful, all the things that we're going to do, all the good stuff, like what can go, right? What can kind of like push us to the next level? What are the things that, all the positive things that can come out of it? Oh, we've got to move in geriatric bear.
All right. Let's see. There's Katie says reading the book power versus force by David Hawkins. Oh really? Okay, cool. I'm gonna have to, oh, now we moved the desk. I'm gonna have to check that book out. I haven't heard of it. So I'm definitely going to have to read that. Cause I it's writers. I'm sure we all love books. So I'm going to have to check that out. I'm going to write that down after this. So let's see. Katie says that she finds it super helpful to focus on the desires that drive a goal rather than the feelings of obligation. Yes. That's so great. Exactly. She said it better than I did. So the desires, like what are you excited about? What do you really want that drive your goal rather than worrying about like, oh my gosh, I have to do all this stuff, please don't make me do it.
Ooh. All that. Yeah. And bring your mind back to that. Like ingrained little feeling of like, Hey, like why are we doing this? What are all the desires? What all do things that would make us excited? Like that's a really good point. She said it better than I did. Cool. anything else? I have two pups here that are not in their little pup date spots. Can you go to your pup date and look super cute. All right. Can you go to your pub date spot? Good. You have a hole. You're out of a hole that Charlotte toggle hole through. Do you have a hole over there? Very. All right. You tried. Can you go over here? You over there. There we go. All right, Charlotte, go to your, have a hole.
There you go, buddy. Good job, Charlotte. Good job. Good job buddy. Found it. Good job. All right, everybody. So last thoughts here. Last thoughts here. So it's okay to feel unmotivated about new client work that happens sometimes because we're nervous. We feel overwhelmed and stressed. We feel all these negative mindset things where we're like, I'm not good enough. I suck at this. I can't do this. This is too much work. Like my new client's going to hate me. All that stuff. That's normal. That's just that happens sometimes. But what we want to do is focus on, you know, why are we doing this? What's our end goal. How can we break this down to make it more manageable? How can we kind of like switch our mindset? How can we take a break? How can we kind of bring ourselves back to all the good stuff, all the good reasons why we're doing this and why we're working for this client.
Last couple of things. If you feel like this was helpful, give it a thumbs up. It feels like you want to learn more about building a high earning freelance writing business. Subscribe below a wellness thing is if you're on the email list, if you're on my email list check your inbox on Monday. We're, we're starting like I'm, we're having something cool. Go out. So if you haven't joined the email list, you can just grab my pricing guide. And then that'll just add to the email list and you'll see all the cool stuff that's coming out, starting on Monday. So if you just go to Mandy ellis.com/pricing guide, you can get the free pricing guide. It'll help you make more money. Like right now I've had so many writers email me and tell me that they priced a project the day they got that guide and they made more money.
So big thumbs up to that. So you can make more money with the guide, but also you can join the email list for all the cool stuff coming out on Monday. Sweet. All right, guys. Thanks for all the great questions and all the good stuff. Hello. There we go. So I think we're done. I think that's good. All right. I'm really happy about all this stuff. Oh. And make sure like let's make sure we add to the list power vs force by David Hawkins, that book that Katie recommended. So I think that's a really good reco here. Cause I think that oftentimes like reading or seeing someone else's strategies or tips or especially people who are mindset experts, like, you know, Carol Dweck has the book mindset, which is a really fantastic book. I think that really helps a bunch. Hey, Getty. Welcome in. All right. Thank you. Getty Getty says good one today. Thank you Getty. We're glad you're here. We're glad you joined us. I think we're going to hop off, but we
Will see you next Friday at noon central time. If you're on the email list or want to join the email list, maybe ellis.com/pricing guide. You also get the free pricing guide. And there's cool stuff starting on Monday. So yeah, I will see you next Friday. Hope you have a good weekend. Bye.
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