Why Accepting Low-Ball Projects Harms Your Mental Health
It may sound a little odd, but taking on those low-paying gigs hurts more than just your confidence and self-esteem. It ends up taking a big chunk of your mental health points.
When I burned out in 2018, it was because I was accepting WAY too many low-ball project offers, not negotiating or understanding the worth of my work, and not taking proper care of my mental health. If you’re interested in learning more about how prioritizing your pricing and mental health helps you grow a high-earning freelance writing business, why low-ball project offers suck you into money now mindset vs. building wealth, and how accepting projects below your capabilities and pay grade keeps you stuck in the feast and famine cycle, tune into this livestream.
________
Most important question that we're starting out with today on the live stream. Is am I going to see you next week in the masterclass? So let me tell you a little bit about the masterclass, if you haven't heard about it yet. So, um, it's basically all of my secrets to building a high earning freelance writing business in a sustainable way. So it's how to avoid, sorry. So how to avoid snow, slow snail growth, um, how to get your marketing done without it feeling salesy or really sleazy and gross, um, and how to have actually have practices that make you work smarter and not harder, because a lot of times what ends up happening is people feel like putting in more hours and more time ends up, you know, is really going to push their business. And it does, but eventually you end up with burnout or you end up in a situation where you just overload your schedule and you know, it just doesn't really help your writing ability.
So the baster class is going to go over a whole bunch of different things. It's going to go over all of these specific detailed steps that you can take to build an actual high earning freelance writing business. So I'd like build to the high income level that you want to as a freelance writer. Um, and I run this class maybe twice a year. Um, so if you're interested in signing up, there's two slots. So I'll put a link up here just in case you want to join. So the first one is the first masterclass it's at Mandy atlas.com/masterclass one. This is on Tuesday, the 28th at 2:00 PM central. So noon Pacific time, 2:00 PM central 3:00 PM Eastern time. And I think Tommy is going to put that in the chat for everybody so that we have it there. So that's Tuesday the 28th at noon, Pacific 2:00 PM central 3:00 PM Eastern that's the first masterclass.
So if you want to sign up for that one, go to Matt mandelas.com/masterclass one. And if you want to sign up for the second masterclass, that's at Mandy ls.com/masterclass to super creative links here. That one is going to be, um, the Wednesday after. So Wednesday, September 29th, that's a nighttime class. So that'll be at 6:00 PM Pacific, um, 8:00 PM central 9:00 PM Eastern. So if you can't make the daytime one, that's at 2:00 PM central and you know, maybe around lunchtime ish slash late afternoon, you can come to the Wednesday one on Wednesday, September 29th, that's Mandy ellis.com/masterclass two. And that one is at 6:00 PM. Civic 8:00 PM, central 9:00 PM Eastern that's a nighttime class. So if you want to join those masterclasses, um, maybe, maybe Tommy we'll put the times for the masterclasses and the dates in the chat too, so that you can have them just in case you want to know, um, which one you want to sign up for it.
But basically I run this free class. It's a live class. It's just like this, except we're going to have actual slides and we're going to go over very specific planning things. So, um, when we come on the live stream, we get to go on like basically, um, a small dive on one small topic, but this masterclass is going to be about 60 minutes of slide teaching, where I get to show you all these specific steps in order. So instead of piecing things together on this live stream, you'll have all of these things together on the masterclass. So if you're interested in joining the masterclass, the Tuesday afternoon, one is Tuesday, the 28th, that is masterclass one. So Mandy ellis.com/masterclass one. And then the other one is the nighttime class, which is Wednesday, September 29th at 6:00 PM, 6:00 PM, Pacific 8:00 PM, central 9:00 PM Eastern time. So I hope to see you there.
And if you have questions, if you're any, if you're like anything like me and you're kind of like journalists, or you're just a question, ask her, I'm like you took the four tendencies by, um, what was her name? Um, oh my gosh. Why am I blanking? You know, the, um, um, oh my gosh. Anyways, there's a book called the four tendency and she tendencies and she has a podcast, the happiness project. I don't know why I'm blanking on her name right now. Um, but anyways, so in the four tendencies, one of those things is being a questioner. If you're a question or like me, and you're like, what is this masterclass? Can you give me some more info? What kind of like bullet points or in a cover? Uh, or if you're interested in like, why are you doing a masterclass or, you know, you just want to give me feedback and be like, huh, that's really interesting that you're doing this like free masterclass.
Um, pop it in the comments below. I'm happy to answer questions or go over a little bit more in detail, what we're going to cover in the masterclass. Um, like I said, I only run this masterclass, um, basically twice a year. So it's a free masterclass. I only run it twice a year. Um, it's 60 minutes of like, step-by-step actionable teaching on how to build a high-earning freelance writing business with actual sustainable practices for the longterm. So like you can keep doing these things over the longterm to improve your business, um, to make things a lot easier. Cool. So now that we got the master class out of the way, and I wanted to make sure you guys know about that, because if you're hopping on the live stream, I'm guessing that you enjoy the teaching here. So why not get a little bit more teaching with the free stuff?
So, um, let's go over that. So today we're talking about how and why accepting those low ball client projects really harms your mental health. And I think this is an interesting spin on the topic because a lot of times people think that it just hurts your confidence or that what ends up happening is like, oh, you're just, self-esteem takes a hit, but really you're like training your brain to accept less than what you really deserve. You're training your brain and you're training. Like, let's say you have, um, mental health. Like I have, you know, I've talked about it before. Like I deal with anxiety, let's say you have depression. Um, let's say you deal with, you know, ADHD or add, or which, you know, you deal with a bunch of other, um, you know, things that happen in your brain, right there, things that just happened in your brain.
Um, when you're dealing with all of these things, they're affected by how you see yourself in your business, right? So they're kind of holding you back from earning more money, right? The first thing I want to make sure that we go over is like, we want to prioritize pricing. So the first thing is we want to prioritize our pricing. Um, and then talk about how that works with mental health. So with our pricing situation here, hello, Charlotte, welcome Charlotte has joined our live stream today. Like she always does. So when we're prioritizing our pricing, right, when we're working through the pricing piece of our projects, when you end up taking something lower than what you think you should, you end up being resentful, you end up being more tired because you're working on this thing and it's frustrating as you work on it. So you're using more energy and you're using more like mental health points.
You're also using a little bit more of, um, basically your writer, creativity points, right? You're kind of doing all of these things to put this project together, but you're like, oh, I'm not getting paid and I have to rush around. Or maybe you have a short deadline. So all of these different factors come together. And instead of prioritizing pricing, you've prioritized just like money now. Right? You're like, okay, I'll just get this money now. And then you end up training your brain again, that you're like, we just need money. Now we just need money. Now we do like, let's just, um, it's sort of like that experiment that they did with kids where they give them the marshmallow where they're like, if you wait, you know, two minutes or one minute, we'll give you two marshmallows. But if you eat it now, you don't get a second marshmallow.
So if you can wait the full time period, you'll get two. But if you didn't now you don't get another one. And the really interesting thing was like, some kids just like ate it now. They're like, I don't care about the second marshmallow. I want it. Now, the other kids were like, yeah, I want to, I don't want to have one. I want to. So they waited. This is training your brain. And this has to do with mental health as well. So when you're kind of giving your brain, basically a sugar hit all these low paid projects, you're like, oh, I'm making progress. And then you're like, oh, wait a minute. No, I'm not. You're basically like tricking yourself into thinking that you're getting all these projects, right. You're busy all the time, but you're not really making money. Right. That's a big problem. That's why I burned out in 2018.
I was working all the time. I spent all my energy on my projects and what ended up happening. Hey, Getty. Welcome in. Um, what ended up happening was my mental health just really, really suffered. I was grumpy. I was really a big pain to deal with. I was so exhausted. I was not fun. Uh, I didn't do anything exciting. Like my mental health made me feel drained. Like my, my mental health was at the point where I felt so drained all the time, all the time. And I thought that by just like prioritizing getting projects, that was the point. But if I had prioritize my pricing, if I had prioritize thinking about it as like, what is this work really worth? What is the value to the client? Right. If I had thought about it that way, then I would have realized, oh wait, like I can work less and make more money and enjoy the project.
I don't have to feel resentful. Um, I don't have to feel like, oh my gosh, I put in all this work. And I only made 500 bucks. Um, I don't have to feel like exhausted all the time. I don't have to feel bitter. Um, I don't have to feel like everything else in my life is taking a second priority. Right? Work is my first priority. And then everything else, my mental health, my mental state, how I deal with other people, my personality, like your mental health affects how you interact with your clients. It interact. It affects how you end up getting more projects. It affects how you interact with people who support you like your family or your friends, or your significant other. It affects how much time and energy put into exercise or eating well or taking care of pets or taking care of loved ones.
All of those things get affected. So for me, when I think about prioritizing my pricing, and to me, that means what is the value of this work to the client and how, like basically what is the worth of this project to me, and based on my skills experience, niche, knowledge, all of that stuff. Like how many times I've done this project. When I think about that and I prioritize that, then I'm like, oh, I should charge a lot more for this because I've either done the project a ton, I've gotten results. Um, you know, I, I shouldn't be toiling away for pennies, right? When you toil away for pennies, your mental health just takes a huge dive. And it's, it's more than just your confidence. It's more than just your self-esteem when you end up working for pennies. And I get these messages all the time.
Like, that's the thing is I used to work for pennies, right. I used to work for $25 for a 1500 word article. Um, I've worked where I made, I think the lowest was like 2 cents a word. Um, or like I've made like less than a dollar an hour or something. Like I took on a project once where it was just like, it was not a good fit. And it was like less, I don't know. I calculated, it was like less than a dollar or, I mean, um, less than a dollar an hour. And that was like, so deflating, like my mental health, just like, I just didn't feel like working. Right. You don't feel like continuing to work. You don't feel like you're making progress. You don't feel like you're ever going to get those high paying clients that you want. You don't feel like you're ever going to reach that point where great clients who are a wonderful fit for your business are going to come to you with projects.
It just feels like it's in this dark. Well, like you're living in a dark well, and that you're never going to get out of it. And sometimes that dark well ends up being depression. Right? What ends up happening with some writers? And I get messages about, you know, talking about mental health and they're like, yeah, I have so much anxiety about if this is going to work out right. Catastrophizing or what if, um, or future tripping or I get messages about people that are like, yeah, I'm depressed. I'm, I'm trying to work when I can. Right. But part of that too is like, what are you actually working on? Like, are you excited to get up every day, work on it? Or is it like something where you're just like, I have to do this. I have to do this I over and over again.
And you're not really prioritizing where you want to go in your business for the long-term you're prioritizing that quick marshmallow hit of sugar of like, I just have a project. My schedule is filled up. So for me, when I think about it, like when you're thinking about anxiety or depression or other mental health stuff, like there's way more mental health things. And just those, it's just that the largest quantities of like, those are kind of overarching, um, themes basically. Uh, when you're talking about those, the more you think about high paid projects, right? Think about how you want to price your work, how you want to work with clients. Right. What types of things do those clients have? Right? What kind of attributes, what does that working experience like, think about that. Think about that. Like for long periods of time, like spend an hour and write down what you think your ideal client's personality is like.
And I bet you that when you think about that, you get like a little sparkle, look like you get mental health points back, right? Because you're like, oh, I would love to work with a client who unders it stands. I have other things on my schedule who understands that two weeks to three weeks as a turnaround time is normal. Who understands that I get booked up. So I may not be available till November, December, or January. Um, who understands that the value of the content is high, that we're doing all of these really important things like them getting website, traffic, um, increasing, you know, all their SEO, rankings, them getting more sales, them, getting more leads, all more subscribers, all that stuff comes down to us creating that content, right. High value stuff. That's what we want to focus on. That's what helps us build a high-earning business and prioritizing that pricing.
Right. That is really important for your mental health beyond just self-esteem beyond feeling better about your work. It gets rid of like all those feelings of like resentment and bitterness, um, and feeling like you're sometimes, you know, writers are like, I feel like I've been taken advantage of, right. Because you, you basically are. You're not, you're not making sure that you're pricing your projects. Right. Right. And when you feel taken advantage of what ends up happening, what ends up happening is your mental health is just like, why am I even doing this? Right? Your mind is, is filling your brain with all of these negative thoughts. I'm not a good writer. Um, I'm not Andrea. I just saw your question. Come in. So we'll talk about that next. Um, I'm not a good writer. I shouldn't be doing this. I can't build a business. I can't find high paying clients.
Um, you know, it just feels you're like every, every writer has their own thing for me, it's like, I'm not enough. I'm not doing a good enough job. My writing sucks. Uh, the quality of my work is terrible. Um, like all of these things pop up, but when you have a high paid project, it's a motivator. It gives you like the excitement to wake up. You don't feel so tired. You feel energetic. You feel like you have extra space too, because you do right. The more you take on high-paid projects, the more schedule space you should have because those high paid projects shouldn't suck up all your time. What ends up happening when you take low paid projects is they suck up all your time and your schedule space and your con, excuse me, you're constantly turning high-paid projects should be things where you have like, you know, a few deadlines per month, but it's not overloading your schedule.
Um, and you have space to walk your dogs and you have space to sit outside and enjoy the fall air. And you have space to go get the mail or take a snack break, um, or you have space in your mind to think creatively again and do some fun stuff. So that's the first point that we're going over today. Um, if that was helpful, if you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. Um, if you want to make sure that you learn more about building a high income, um, sustainable mental health, sustainable business, make sure to subscribe below. We're going to answer Andrea's question. So Andrea says, do clients like that actually exists? Yes. So I'm assuming Andrea correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that what you're saying is like those high paid clients who come to you or the ones who like care about your schedule, here's the deal.
Your clients don't care until you do. Right. Here's the important thing that I realized when I started being very particular about the clients that I reached out to the clients that I sent LOI as to how I ended up, um, figuring out their revenue. So like most of the time, our good butter zone clients are like 5 million to 50 million in revenue. Um, if it's over 50 million in revenue, that's a cherry on top of most of the time, like our clients kind of fall in the 5 million to 50 million revenue. Um, the next piece is if you work a lot for startups, at least 3 million in funding is probably good. The deal here is that revenue usually equates to like how they do marketing and how they see the value of content. What ends up happening when we work for lower paid clients, right? They're just like churn it out.
We know we need content, turn it out. They don't see the long-term value of that content. When you work with companies and clients and publications who understand that quality content like pays for itself, like a budget 10 times over, like you can find so many stats, so many stats from HubSpot about how content marketing is like the cheapest way to like get leads and sales. And it has like crazy ROI, right? But when we're working for high quality clients that make, you know, the 3 million, at least 3 million in funding for startups and 5 million to 50 million plus for regular businesses, they actually understand the value of the content. They understand that in order to get high quality client, they have to get a good quality writer and a good quality writer costs money in to get the thing they want. They have to pay the money.
Right. So they understand that they're getting someone, right. They're looking at portfolios, they're looking at who you've worked with. And they're like, yeah, we get it. Like you're busy. Like they understand that because they're coming from it from a perspective of like, we have a budget, right? We have a budget for writing. We understand the value of content marketing, the value of content strategy. Then they roll up to you and say like, we love your work. We want to work with you. We have a budget. We know we need to give you a bunch of money to get the thing we want to get. The quality leads that all of that stuff lives in the same sphere. Right? Lots of these good clients are coming from a place of like very specific goals. That's the major issue. When I first started out, I worked with clients that were just like, yeah, we just know we need this thing.
Right. It's kind of like, it's kinda like, they just hear it. And they're just like, yes, we need content. We know we need that. Right. We know we need that content and we should just pump it out. It's sort of like, everyone's getting the red shoes, get the red shoes. Right. But it's not like getting these very specific red shoes because they, you know, are high quality. And they last a long time and they're not just trendy. They're like timeless. They'll last for a while. Right? The difference here, there's lots of clients like this. Like I work with clients all the time. All of my clients. I don't think it's been a long time. I think that I've worked with a client who doesn't understand that I have other work going on or that I too am busy. Right. I don't work for them. I work with them.
Right. I'm a team member with them. Um, I think it's been a while since I worked with a client who doesn't like, who doesn't get it in terms of like value or, um, the worthwhileness of, uh, of content or the, the impact of content marketing. The point here is that we need to qualify them. So sometimes what ends up happening is it's not just that they exist it's that you have to qualify them. So some freelance writers will end up grabbing a client and they'll grab a client because they're like, oh, this is a client. And it turns out that client's not a good fit for them. They didn't pre-qualify them enough. They didn't know how much revenue they made their budget. Isn't very good. They didn't look at their website. They didn't see like what their opportunities are. They didn't look at LinkedIn to see how the company's growing.
Um, they didn't look at like how things are working. So they grabbed this client and they end up in like, uh, a giant hole. And what ends up happening is again, that harms mental health. Um, but when you're very particular about the client that you want, like the client that you want in your business, every single step in the process is very thought out and particular. So that means that for me, like, I'll just give you a few examples for me. I don't get on calls with people who don't have a budget or a project, some sort of idea of what we're working on together when they're like, yeah, we need content. Like, can you hop on a call? No, I can't like, what are you working on? Is it a white paper is very different than content strategy. Um, which is very different than like four blog posts a month.
So that's the first prequalification is like, do you actually have, do you understand what it takes to get the thing you want? And do you have an idea of what you want? Right. So you not only know that you want four blog posts a month, but you know that you want, um, four blog posts a month because you're going to help to, um, increase leads because you're going to have a pop-up on all the blog posts that say subscribe to our newsletter and that'll kind of collect leads, right? So that's the first qualification point. So if I get an inbound lead, I ask them about that. If it's outbound, if I'm sending marketing out, I'm, pre-qualifying them by their website, by LinkedIn, by social media, um, by the revenue levels, like, what are they doing? What kinds of content are they creating? How does it kind of look, um, is the company growing?
Is it a neat company that I think I can help that kind of stuff. The next step is you actually get on a call and you ask them like, walk me through the project. They tell you a little bit about the company that's really important. Um, tell them like, how do you like to work with freelancers? Like, how does that work? Do you have a budget for the project? What's your deadlines, right. We want to know, like, what, what does this project look like? What does it actually look like to work with you? Then we can kind of go through like, do you do contracts? Like how many blog posts a month? Or like, what, what does that look like? Um, and when you pre-qualify them on the call, then you end up getting another point, right? So by the time you sign a contract, you should know exactly how this will work out, why they have budgets, what their KPIs are, their key performance indicators, KPIs, which basically a fancy word for goals.
Um, you know why they're doing this project, what their budget is, which means like, this is how much value they're putting into content, um, how their marketing is being done, you know, so much more when you pre-qualify them before you ever sign a contract. So yes, lots of these clients exist and many of them are looking for the right writer for their business. It's just the, it's just a matter of like, you have to do the research and reach out and then pre-qualified as you go along. So I know that was a long-winded answer, Andrea. So I hope that was helpful, uh, back to our mental health topics. So here I go back to the mental health topic here, we are going to go, um, on our next point, which is low ball project offers. So basically your low ball project offers suck you into.
That was a good question. Thank you, class Glasser, Andrea. That's a good question. Hi, Vicky. Welcome in. So your low ball pro your, your low ball client projects end up switching your mindset a little bit. And this also has to do with mental health. Um, one of the things that I think freelance writers kind of miss out on is like this idea of building wealth. Like a lot of financial experts talk about building wealth, but I find that the mindset of a lot of freelance writers is like, how do I make my first 5k? How do I like do this thing really fast? How do I do it a little? Like you're building a business, you wouldn't roll into any other business and say like, I need to make $5,000 yesterday. Oh my gosh. Like, that's just not how it works. When your mindset is that you take these low ball offers, just have clients.
And just to have things come in. Oh my God, oh my God. It's like this panic and scarcity mindset. And that just makes you feel like, oh my God, your mind and your mental health is like, oh my God, we're never going to get another project. And what are we going to do? Am I going to have a goal? Like you can't really take a deep breath when you think about building long-term wealth. And when you think about building a giant pile of money as a freelance writer, that's a long-term strategy. That's far away from low ball offers. And it's not just low-ball clients where like they come in and say a hundred dollars a blog post. And you're like, can I do that? And you're like, Ooh, I don't want to. It's like you quote someone something, right? Let's, let's say this work costs $2,000 and you quote them that.
And they're like, can you do it for a thousand? Like, no, no. Cause that's not really focusing on building the wealth part of your business. It's not focusing on building. Um, like for me, when I think about wealth, I think about the profit first method. I talk about this all the time, um, with coaching students and with, um, people on my newsletter is like profit first by it's by Mike [inaudible] best book ever. It's like putting money in your business, piggy bank all the time. You're taking out, um, taxes, you're taking out, um, profit, like actual profit in your business, right? Which is how you start building the wealth in your business is you're taking out profit. Would you, um, every time you get paid, you take out 5% for profit, but at least that certain income level. So like if you make less than $250,000, um, you take out 5% for profit and then every quarter you take half your profit out and you can spend it on whatever you want.
You can spend on vacation, you can spend it on investment stocks. If you want to be spicy, you can spend on dog treats or dog beds or whatever you want. So this whole point is that we don't want to rush around and just accept everything that falls in our lap. Right. When we do that, it's again, we're back to this marshmallow thing, like, oh, quick, get the marshmallow now instead of building wealth, instead of building our profits in our business, instead of building opportunities where we can be very choosy about who we take on, like, for me, I'm very choosy about who I take on. Um, I'm look up a lot of stuff about them. I'm very particular about who's on my client list. Um, and most of the time, like I'll end up chasing a few companies for like a couple of years sometimes.
Cause I'm like, I love this company. They responded to my LOI and I really love the stuff they're doing is so cool. Like I will follow up with them and chase them because I'm like I really want to work with them. I really feel like I can help them. I think what they're doing is cool and this is the wealth thing. I, that whenever I ended up working with them, I'm not going to like undercharge for the work. And I know that, like I know a lot about their business from following them. I have a lot of experience. And so then it's like, I'm not really trying to like deal with all this low ball stuff. I know that they have the money. I know that they are doing cool stuff. I know that they're getting funding or that they're growing their content or, um, they're working on big projects behind the scenes.
And then I'm like, you know what, for me, that's a big motivator. Um, and that's, you know, the wealth part is just a much more long-term strategy. Nobody goes into, you know, rushing through making 50 K or 60 or 70 K in a business and freelance writing business. Um, and they're like, I've done it. I've built wealth, right? It's more about like building it into like that. You can take your profits and like buy a new computer or that you can take your profits and take a vacation. Right? A lot of times what ends up happening, um, is that writers don't end up being able to have a, of like a wealth business or a profitable business, because they're just getting by. They're not thinking about long-term things they're accepting all these low paying, low paying projects, and they're not being very specific, right? They're not being very specific about is this actually helping me build a super profitable, healthy business?
Is this helping me build wealth in my life? Is this helping me like, and build wealth can be a bunch of different things, right? So wealth can be financial, right? Wealth can be that, um, you're investing money. You want to retire early. Um, I have a friend who wants to retire early, so she's putting a lot of her money away. Um, and, uh, it could be, gosh, it could be even schedule stuff like building wealth to, you could be like, I work 10 hours a week and I make plenty of money. You know, I work 10 hours a week and I only accept big giant projects. Uh, I work, you know, 30 hours a week and I only take two projects. You know, I only onboard one new client a month. Like building wealth could be financial. It could be schedule. It could be flexibility.
Um, it could be the wealth of time that you have from, you know, break time that you get off. Um, it could be gosh time with your kids or with your family or with your dogs. It could be a whole bunch of different things, but it's a long-term mindset and strategy. And when you do that, your brain responds to that. I can tell you from my own experience, like the more I stood up for myself, the more I really knew who my clients were, the more I really got specific about who I, who I, who on my client list, what, um, what work I'm doing, how that looks on my schedule, how I'm getting paid. Um, that really made me feel, you know, like I'm going to make it, you know, like my, my mind got to relax. Cause I had this like feeling of comfort and feeling of peace.
And I didn't feel like I was running around and just a different type of rat race. Right? Like sometimes what ends up happening is we ended up running around, like we were having our nine to five job. That's not building wealth. That's like accepting whatever kind of marshmallow falls in your lap. Right. I see we have some stuff coming in for questions. So, um, okay. Andrea says, thank you. That answered her question. Sweet, good deal. And then, um, yeah. Clients who value great writing. No, the great writers. Aren't easy to find. So they tend to value the re yeah. So this is really important too, but we can connect this to building wealth. So building wealth also means building wealth in relationships, investing in relationships with clients also means more referrals. It means eventually right? More money, a bigger network, more inbound leads, quality clients coming to you cause they, oh, I saw your website.
Oh, I connected with you on LinkedIn. Oh, Robert told me all about you, blah, blah, blah. Um, that's really important. And the value of your relationships is really priceless. Like those can pay off for years and years and years, and years and years. I can't tell you how many times I have invested in many relationships with writers, potential clients, current clients, past clients, and they still send me projects. They still send me projects. They send me leads. They send me ideas and that is priceless. Like that is a very, um, easy way to build wealth. And it's really important to do so. Um, okay. So w Bob, Lou, let me know if I'm saying your name right? I'm so sometimes I'm not good with names. So, um, let me know if I said your name, right. So double blue, I think. Um, so it says, hi, Tommy, Manny.
Hi, welcome. We're so glad you're here. How do you deal with the want, the job mindset in the moment? Yeah, so writing my first bid right now and the topic is timely. Cool. So there's a difference here. Sometimes as writers, what we have to do is make tough choices. Sometimes what ends up happening is do you want the job? Why do you want the job? Right? Number one is why do we want the job? Is the job purely financial? Is it purely because we want money? Do we want that clip? Do we want that clip? Because it's in a, um, a high profile magazine or for a high profile client or for a client in a new niche, or is it a new type of clip that we're going to get? Um, are we getting, are we wanting the job because like we're bored and we need something on our plate.
Do we need the job because we just want to fill a schedule hole. So for me, when I think about the mindset part, um, I think that you have to figure out why you're kind of doing it, right? Why do you want this job right now? So like, that's super cool that you're writing your first bid right now. Like I remember how nerve wracking that was, make sure you price it properly. And, um, if you haven't gotten the free pricing guide, so just because like, we're fancy, we can do this now, even though it's not in the right place. Cool. So if you haven't gotten the pricing guide and you're writing your first thing, go to Mandy ellis.com. So that's pricing guide and use that as your metric for pricing the work. So make sure you actually get paid what your work is worth. Okay.
Um, so figure out why you want the job what's going on. If you want this job for the clip, you have to then decide, well, what am I willing to accept in terms of money for that? Do I, w will I take lower than what I normally take? Because I just want this clip. Um, is it financial? Like if it's financial and you're like straight up, I need the money, like straight up right now, I need the money. I'm going to take whatever I can. I need the money. And sometimes that's a decision we have to make early on in our freelance writing careers. I had to do that. That's something that you do, the deal here is that the, it shouldn't become a mindset. You should not keep repeating that pattern. That should be an outlier where like you are having that. Um, you're having that, that building wealth mindset for the longterm and every once in a while, you know, like, yeah, I need this gig for the money.
Yeah. I need this gig for the money. Um, or every once in a while, you're like, yeah, I need this gig for the clip. I need the, this gig because I want, um, this thing in a certain niche, I need this thing because of, you know, I, I need this gig now, so I can take two weeks off whatever it is. I think once you kind of figure that out and you move away from the mindset of like, I want the job all the time, right? You don't want all the jobs, you want very specific jobs for specific reasons. That's what we want to be in, in terms of our mindset. We want specific jobs from specific clients, um, in specific niches. That make sense for us, what specific rates the deal is when I'm thinking about wanting the job, let me take you through a couple of different things.
So, um, I know Getty's in here, so we'll, we'll pop over to Getty in a second. So when we want the job, when I was beginning, like I took all the jobs, I took everything and I don't think that was a good strategy. I don't think taking everything was a good thing. Because again, you get in this like weird rat race where you're just like, oh, I'm everywhere. What you want to do is match the direction that you're going in your business, right? Where are you actually going? Where do you want to be in five years? What does your schedule look like? What niches are you in? What types of writing or content work or strategy work? Are you in? Um, how much money are you making? Which what's your time off schedule? Like map that out. Then you can kind of figure out all right, where I am now, what types of things are going to get me there?
Well, right now I need to make some money. So I'm going to take these three jobs, but I'm going to do my marketing. I'm going to pay attention to those long-term goals. I'm going to focus on the long-term building, actual money part. Um, and the other two jobs I take this month are for that. So you kind of want to make sure that you're matching all these different things. You're matching your goals for the future. You're matching what you need right now to keep your business going. Sometimes you just need to take a job for the money, but when what happens is freelance writers lose sight of that. So for me, when I lost sight of it, that meant I burned out. I took too many low paying gigs for way too long, and that just ended up really harming my mental health. Like I just couldn't do it anymore.
I physically, emotionally and mentally could not work for a while. Like I just, I had to take a break. I slept like 13 hours a day for like two weeks. It was too much. Um, it's because I lost track. I lost track of what I was actually building. I lost track of like, why do I want these jobs? Why do I, why, where am I going? Like, what types of things will help me get there? So mindset pay attention to what's going on in the future. And then in terms of like right now, why are you taking this job? Is it financial? Is it schedule based? Is it niche base content type based, um, and then make sure you get the pricing guide so that you price your project. Well, so I hope that was helpful. It was a little long-winded sorry about that. But I think, I hope that was helpful.
So Getty says that he's, I'm going to pop this in Getty since you commented. So he says, Hey Mandy, Hey, Getty, um, was hoping to take the second. Um, yeah, my fall winter course, which is opening soon. Um, my primary role actually is opening next week. So my course is opening next week. Just FYI. Um, my primary role for this past year. Yeah. I'm yeah, I know. It's been really hard. You've had a lot of, oh, I'm so sad to hear that she's back in the hospital. I'm so sorry to hear that Getty. Um, he said in short, I don't have much bandwidth for moving my freelance, like forward. Yeah. It's okay. Getty. Sometimes our personal lives take over our professional lives. Our work can not always be the first priority and it is frustrating and overwhelming and sad and really hard. And it does really impact your mental health when you feel like you want your life back, but you're dealing with all of this, um, caregiver, health crisis, and basically like lack of personal space, right?
Like you, you have devoted all of your time and effort to caring for someone else and it's hard to work on your business. Um, and I kind of think that the point is not always to like always have to rush in and always have to work on your business. Sometimes you kind of just have to say, you know what? This is where I'm at right now. There's nothing wrong with where I'm at right now. This is just where I'm at. Like, we don't have to pass judgment on it. We don't have to beat ourselves up. We don't have to go through this whole thing of like, I should be doing this or that. Um, being overwhelmed, feeling frustrated and feeling sad, I'm feeling just like, it's never going to end feeling like it's just so much time and effort and emotional space, right. That can feel very, very heavy.
And it can be really hard on your mental health. One thing I just kind of want to say is that these, the heavy feelings don't last forever, like there's always going to be good stuff that comes in. Um, and it's okay sometimes to prioritize your personal life. Sometimes that has to, yes. We all want to build a higher, any freelance writing business. We all want to build our freelancer wealth. Right. But at the end of the day, sometimes you have to deal with personal life stuff. And especially when, gosh, when you're dealing with family member issues and health stuff, that is just like, that's a lot, that's a lot at once. I'm, I'm totally, you know, like I totally get why you're overwhelmed. I totally get why you're, you know, it's really, um, it's a lot, you know, I know that we've exchanged emails and talked about it.
Um, but man, don't feel like you have to take a course to move forward. Sometimes like sometimes what ends up happening is like, we deal with our personal life stuff. And then when we kind of have our own time back, then we're able to move forward. So Getty, I think is the best, you know, like just trying to like be kind with yourself. I know that sometimes it's really hard to do that and it can just kind of feel like you're like, everything is out of control. Everything's getting sucked away. Everything is just a big mess. Um, but sometimes, like I said, you have to prioritize the personal life stuff and you have to kind of put your business on the back burner. I've done that multiple times. Like, you know, you've heard me talk about like, I've talked about it already. Right. I burned out and I was just like, I can't work.
Sometimes you physically like you mentally, emotionally and physically just cannot work. That's just how it is sometimes. Um, it doesn't last forever, which has happened sometimes it's a lot, but you know what? It's, it's sometimes helpful to think of it as like, this is just a phase it's not forever and we don't have to pass judgment on it. Like, this is just what's happening right now. I'm doing my best. So, um, Getty, whenever you're ready, you know, like, we'll be here. The, you know, the course isn't going away anytime soon, I'm not going to remove it or anything. Um, it'll still be available. But I think most importantly, like sometimes that just happened. I've done it like this year too. Like I spent a while this year having to prioritize my personal non-work stuff. Like I went through a while of like, not doing work cause I had, I had to deal with all these other things in my life.
Um, that's just what happens sometimes. And sometimes it helps to focus on the things we can control. You know, you can control your attitude, you can control your mindset. Um, you can control sometimes your off time, but when it's out of your control, like sometimes we just have to, you know, we have to kinda like, hold on. Like just hold on for a little bit until the heavy stuff kind of like passes for a bit. And it's definitely very hard. Yeah. Don't beat yourself up. Don't beat yourself up Getty. You're doing a great job. I know you and I have exchanged emails. So like you're doing a great job. It's going to be all right. Um, it's okay. Not to move forward sometimes personal, like our work is not a whole life. I write this, you know, I wrote this, um, you know, I had a little journal and I used to write like, um, there's to life than work every day I used to write there's more to life than work.
And there still is like, there's always more to life than just doing the work. So sometimes you have to do, you know, like personal stuff instead of professional stuff and that's okay. That's okay. Um, okay, so back to this stuff, so D did I figure this out to Bob blue, double blue? Is that right? Um, he says it's helpful. Okay, cool. Or she, he, or she, they say it's helpful. I found out about the live stream because oh, great. Awesome. Cool. Um, yeah. So if you've got the price that, and you feel like, whoa, that's a lot, then like definitely charge at least something like charge a good rate. Even if you feel like the bottom of the range is like a lot charge it because like that's the bottom of the range is really like the very bottom of the potential in terms of what you can, um, what you can earn.
I really want to clients' network, so I'm comfortable. Okay, cool. Yeah. If you really want to be in the client's network, you want to get a clip. Um, you want to do the work to kind of like join their LinkedIn connections and grow your potential clients. And you're fine with the bid, then go for it. Um, just make sure that as you keep getting clips and as you keep getting clients, and as you keep growing that you raise those rates, I know it's nerve wracking. I know it can feel like a lot. And you're like, oh my God. But when you find the right clients, they're like, oh really? You know? Okay, cool. Like they're, they're, I, I, um, this is a funny story. Like I had a client, um, I've had a client where they were like, what would, you know, what do you, um, ballpark range for this?
I gave it and they were like, oh, we actually, you know, pay more than that. And I'm like, oh, awesome. Sounds great. So sometimes that can happen, but, um, if you feel good about your bed, that's good. If you want to get in there their network. Good. Make sure you raise your prices over time. Oh man. We went on a long live stream today. Um, Diane. Okay. Let's just go with Diane. Okay. So next time I see your name. I will go with Diane. Um, yeah, I know. I'm so bad sometimes with pronouncing things on, on camera. Sorry, everybody. Um, all right, cool. So I think we covered it all. Let me make sure. Oh, one last thing. We don't want to accept projects that are below our capabilities and pay. Great. So let's talk about that real quick. So when you accept projects that are like way too easy for you and, and should be like, let's say you've been writing for a little bit, like a hot minute, maybe six months or a year or two years.
Um, and you start taking beginner projects. That's bad for your mental health. It makes you like, wait, it makes you feel like, you know, like you're like a little ball. Um, and it makes you feel smaller than you really are. This ends up also contributing to the feast and famine cycle, which is the giant rollercoaster of mental health, like ups and downs. Right. You feast. And you're like, yay. I got projects. And then you're like fam and oh my God, we're all going to die. Like, this is horrible. There's no kibbles. And they'd be like, oh crap. Now we've got a lot of money. What are we going to do? Let's buy everything. Oh, crap. Now we're poor. Right? It's a big mental health rollercoaster. So, um, you want to make sure that you're pushing yourself with each one of your projects. This is how we kind of escape this.
So we want to push ourselves. Uh, this is how we escape this, like in a mental health complex to push yourself, don't accept just like everything that you feel comfortable with, keep pushing yourself forward. Now you don't have to like take giant leaps and bounds. Sometimes it's little things like 50 more dollars, like 50 more dollars per post, or sometimes it's big things like you got your first 10 K project. Um, but you want to keep pushing yourself forward so that you keep like moving just a little bit out of your comfort zone and you kind of build that inner strength and build your mind to be like, no, we can do this. We can totally do this. Um, and then when you keep pushing yourself, you end up getting out of feast and famine. Cause you're like taking chances and yeah, you're going to make mistakes, but you're still taking action.
And taking action is always more profitable than being like, no, I'm going to make a mistake, please. That kind of stuff. We want to make sure that as we take action, we keep putting things in the pipeline, keep our marketing up, keep taking higher up clients and higher up clients could be, you know, maybe they make the same revenue as another client, but they offer more money for the post. Um, it could be basically like, um, any way that you have more work coming in and you grow your network, you meet more writers, you get more referrals, you have more clips. All of these things, we keep pushing ourselves a little bit more and a little bit more. It basically eliminates feast and famine because then once you start pushing yourself, all these things start happening. You keep doing all the marketing, you keep growing your network, like then you get a lot of inbound.
Um, and then the more inbound you get, the more positive things that happen. Your brain is like, all right, cool. Like we we're doing it. We're doing it right. And your brain, isn't going through this constant rollercoaster. I'm like, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. You know? And it's exhausting. That's really exhausting for your brain. I've done it many times. I've even done it this year, multiple times. Um, and it's really exhausting. It's a lot. So you want to make sure that we kind of like level it out a little bit and leveling out and he's like push yourself a little bit. Because eventually these kinds of things where you're like, I have a, you know, when you're starting out, like it kind of levels out and you get more stuff coming in. All right, cool. Let's do a pup date before we hop off.
Let's do a puppet. Oh, we only have one in one in the puck date. Hopper. You have to go your Hobbit hole. You weirdo. Come on. Can you go to your rabbit hole? Go to your hospital. You have a whole good job. Good percent good girl. Oh, you're cold. You go. Very good job, buddy. So just as an FYI, if you do come to the masterclass, these guys will be there. These guys will be there. There you go, buddy, for our masterclass. So, um, oops, sorry everybody. There we go. There we go. All right. You go buddy. But it was about to turn 15. He's about to turn 15 in November. So we're like one month ish away from whoops. Sorry. This is, this is the live stream people. Um, we're about one month away from him turning 15. I can't believe at bow. You're almost 15.
Can you believe it? And he's like, I don't care. Just give me the treat out. Good job, Charlie. All right. Cool. Um, last things. So as we're talking, as we're looking at our pup date, so last piece here, I'm going to pop this over here. If you want to join the masterclass, the masterclass is basically, we're going to talk about steps, actionable steps to, um, build a higher new freelance writing business. The Tuesday masterclass. So masterclass one here that's linked is on Tuesday, September 28th at noon, Pacific 2:00 PM. Central 3:00 PM Eastern. And here you go, buddy. The other one, our other master classes on Wednesday. So our other master class is masterclass two. If you want to sign up for that, here's the link. Our masterclass two is on Wednesday, September 29th. It is at 6:00 PM. Pacific 8:00 PM. Central 9:00 PM. Eastern. So if you want the afternoon class, that's math class one. And if you want the nighttime class that's masterclass too. So I hope that was helpful. Everybody is enjoying. I hope you guys are enjoying the pup date. Why is your tongue so cold? Her tongue is really cold. I don't know. All right. Let's hop back. All right, so we'll do one more. Treat him. You go. Oops.
All right. All right. I hope that was helpful. I hope we got some questions answered. Let me know. Let me know if there's anything that you've noticed in your mental health or anything that you've noticed that's changed over time with low ball projects or, um, changes in kind of your mental or emotional, uh, guidelines or state when you're taking all of these low paid projects, pop them in the comments below. Let me know. Um, it feels like this was helpful. Give it a thumbs up. It feel like you want to learn more about building that high-income freelance writing business. Make sure to subscribe. I'm here every Friday at noon and or well noon central time near every Friday. And I will see you next Friday. Hope everybody has a good weekend. Bye. Oh, hope to you in the next class to bye.
________
Trying to figure out how to price your work for what it’s worth? Check out my FREE Pricing Guide!
Need some fantastic contract and marketing templates to make your freelance writing biz run as effectively and efficiently as possible? See my Templates!
Want to stay in touch for weekly detailed advice plus updates on new freebies and courses? Join my email list!
Want to follow me for inspiration, tips, and to stay connected?
So psyched you’re joining me on this livestream adventure!
