Why the Fear of Success May be Slowing Your Freelance Writing Marketing
It seems counterintuitive, but myself and many other freelance writers I've met finally get over the fear of taking action and moving forward to be met with the fear of success. What gives! This week's livestream focuses on why that happens, how it can slow down your marketing and business, and how to overcome those blocks to create a successful freelance writing biz you love.
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Welcome man on Friday. Ooh, we got people here already. Sweet. Hi Vicky. Welcome in. Hi, Diane. Welcome in. Cool. Great. We are going to get started. Sorry. We're a little late today. Then it's been a busy week. So I closed the doors yesterday to my course freelance writer, wealth lab. So yay. All the new students. I'm really excited about putting them through all the little steps and putting them in the, in the blueprint. I'm really excited. So there's that? So that closed yesterday. And then today we're talking about fear of success. So this is something that's really interesting where I dealt with this a bunch and I've seen other core students coaching students. Okay, cool. Just so you guys know, I just got a little note that says that my internet connection isn't like fast right now. So they lowered the quality.
So hopefully it goes back up. But yeah. So we're talking about these interesting things that happen when you start getting some wins in your freelance writing business and you move from like fear of actually marketing and fear of moving your business forward. And the fear of taking action or reaching out to actually being afraid of succeeding. And I've dealt with this a whole bunch of my business. And I know that other people have too like other my, my coaching students and my freelance friends. This is something that happens. So we're going to talk about it. Oh, also we have a new thing. We have a new thing. So if you have a question that pops up while we go over the live stream, or you're watching this right now as a replay you can go to Manny ellis.com/question, and you can put that put in your question and we can answer it on the live stream.
So if you have anything that you want to send me an email or you want to you know, you have a question that you want to be answered on the live stream, go to Mandy ellis.com/question, and then you can put it in there and then I'll pull it up on the live stream and I'll answer it on here. And then you can see your question pop up and get it answered. So that's the new thing that we're doing for this? Cause I've been getting a ton of questions, but I haven't been putting them on the live stream for more people to hear that, you know, I've been more answering them. One-On-One and I felt, I started realizing like, wait a minute, I'm getting a lot of the same questions over and over again. And I'm getting a lot of situations that I feel like would really help people getting a lot of stuff where I feel like putting it on a place where more people can learn from it.
And like we can all grow as freelance writers is a better idea. So we're, I set it up. So you, all you have to do is fill out. You can be anonymous if you're worried about being embarrassed about asking a question. I know sometimes they're like, please don't share my question. You know, I don't want other people to realize, like, I don't know what I'm doing is okay. You can be anonymous. I know that sometimes it's nerve-wracking when you feel like everybody else is not in the same place you are, but I just want to let you know that a lot of times when I get where people are, like, don't tell anyone about my question every, but a lot of people have already asked me that question. It's very common. Don't have to be embarrassed about where you are or where you, like, where are your businesses? Cool. So we're going to do that and then hold on one second.
Sorry. It's hot in here. And I forgot to turn the AC down. So I already can tell that it's going to be very hot. I still have in Texas, like it's still in the eighties and nineties sometimes. So we gotta make sure to return the AC on. So you can go to Mandy ellis.com/question and put in your question there and we can answer it on the live stream. If you're embarrassed, if you're feeling like other people won't have the same question as you, but you still want to ask a question, you can be anonymous, so cool. All right, let's get to our good stuff. So this is what happens when we are in our freelance writing career. Yes. If you'd like to make a comment this is what happens. We end up getting through all these things. We get through all of our roadblocks, Charlotte.
So let's just move the camera. So I saw it Charlotte, why this is our Friday today. So this is what happens. We get through all the hard stuff, right? We're like getting through all these mental roadblocks about whether or not we're good enough to be a writer or whether or not we're going to get good clients or or whether we can actually make it. And we start getting clients and we're like, sweet. I can totally do this thing. And then what ends up happening is we're like, oh crap, what happens if it all happens at once? What if I get a ton of clients? And what if I get like my schedules booked up and I burn out, or what if I ended up working too much and not spending, you know, not spending any time with my family or what if it's like too much and I can't handle it, or what if I start getting these better clients?
And they, you know, I'm not good enough to write for them. There's like all of these panic things that happen about succeeding and getting all of the things that you want. And then you're like, oh my God, it's going to be terrible. Cool. Yeah, Diane, I'm going to stick this up here. Cause I bet other people will have the same question. So you can put them in the live stream. So if you're here, live with me, you can totally put your questions in the chat and we'll answer them. That's totally cool. If you have something where you're like, we're not on the live stream, you know, and you're just like, oh, I have a question and I want it to be answered on the live stream or I can't make it to the live stream, but I have a question about that topic.
Then you can put it in Mandy ellis.com/question. But if you're here, Diane live, we're going to answer the question. Yeah. So this is like you have, yeah. It's more like you have a question about something after live stream or you're watching the replay or you know, you're like, huh, I'd rather just like, hear her answer that on the fly or you know, you just want to submit something to be answered on the live stream instead of, you know having something emailed over or you're just like, oh man, that's a good question. Yeah. Just put it in the question box. Cool. So then we start getting afraid of all of the things that could go, right. This is a funny thing that happens. And I have found that many times, I'm like, oh my gosh, what if this happens? And what if, what if this happens?
And we start to catastrophize and we start a future trip, like I'm a big future tripper. I am a big pur like like what if this happens and then what am I going to do? So I try to like create a plan and I start like panicking about like what actually is going to happen or how I'm going to deal with it or how I would change my schedule and what really ends up happening is none of it. Like, I don't need to panic about any of it. So we're going to go over some things today. So the number one, why does this happen? Right. Like, sorry, my shirt's messed up today and it's bugging me. So like when I can see myself in there, it's bugging me. All right. Still looking at me. All right. Do you guys ever do this?
Like where you're like your clothes have this like weird wrinkle and it's driving you nuts. I'm also not good at the, like, what I can see is the opposite of myself. So I'm not good at like being like which side is this, you know, what's happening. So anyways, all right. Back to our topics, see, there's like a wrinkle here. It's driving me nuts. I also have like, there we go. Okay. So why this happens when we start in like overcoming our fears, then we start making new fears, basically what ends up happening. And of course I'm not a mental health expert, I just had anxiety. So basically what happens is we start getting over all of our fears of actually moving forward. We start building a business that we really like. We start getting more clients. We start getting excited about all the changes that are happening and then we're like, oh crap.
Now we're starting a new stuff. Let's put up a new roadblock. We're basically like getting to another step. So our brain is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is new. We should probably stop. Cause it's new. Cause we're like freaked out what is happening? Yeah, we do need a professional unregular yeah. I seem to have fixed it now. So now I can like calm down by my weirdo. CD is, but so yeah, I hate it. Yeah, me too. I have the same thing, Vicky where I'm like, I really like things symmetrical, like it's a weird OCD thing. I just I just get very, I just like it, like even in like making it look normal. So we started setting up all of these roadblocks. We start setting up all of these things where it's like, we're basically trying to get them while we build them.
So this is what I've noticed for myself is like when I started getting over the fear of actually reading, reaching out to businesses, like I got very comfortable for a long time, like years reaching out to magazines and like I would barely reach out to businesses. I was just like freaked out that they were going to ask me to do something. I had no idea how to do. And I got freaked out that they were going to expect so much more because there's a lot more tied to it than submitting a magazine article. You know, that the ROI on the magazine stuff and the tracking on the magazine and stuff is just, it's a different game as a totally different game. So I was like, I, you know, I was really freaked out about reaching out to businesses. And then when I started reaching out, I was like, oh, this is, you know, they're asking me to do what, I'm what I already do.
It's just for business. They're asking me to do interviews, which I already do. They're asking me to put together content. That's like journalistic style. I already do that. They're asking me to put together a blog post. It's basically like this magazine article. I already do that. And then over time, that's when I started developing like different stuff. Like that's when I started learning like about sales pages and landing pages and better web copy. And that was a different part of it. But when I was first making the transition, I was like, oh my God, what if I I'm actually good at this? And what if I get all these clients, what am I going to do? Like how, how am I going to like say yes to everybody? And like, oh my God, what's going to happen. Or when, what ends up happening is we start imagining like everything changing in an instant, which it rarely ever does.
I don't know if I've ever met a freelance writer that has been in a situation where like the flood gates open and all of a sudden they're like unprepared and all this stuff falls on them. Like, I don't think that happens. There are times where feelings writers end up getting a bunch of clients at once, right? You end up getting like three or four clients at once, maybe five, but those things are spread out for so long. They're not asking for everything at once. And the other piece is that even if they are asking for everything at once, you can ask for different deadlines, you can change the timelines. You can be like, Hey, I'm not available until the next month because you already started two new clients and you need to move them around. So why this happens is like we just create kind of new problems.
Like we were already in a state, right? Our first state was like, oh my gosh, I can't do this. Or our first state was like, what if all this bad stuff happens? What if I'm not good? What if this, you know, all of the rumination on the bad stuff, then what happens is like, when you start kind of moving past that though, it just moves. The rumination just moves to a new home. And the new home is like, what if everything works out? But what if it's, what if I'm succeeding? What if everything is good? And like, what if everybody starts to notice me? Or what if I have too many clients at once? Or what if I all this other stuff happens? What if bad things happen, even though things are going well, we just kind of move it around. And what I found is that the fear of success part a lot of times has to do with like, feeling very small.
Like you're afraid that if you get bigger and if you take up more space or if you end up getting more clients or attracting more people to your brand, basically, or to your website or LinkedIn what ends up happening is we're like, oh my God, people will know me. People will know who I am. It's like, yeah, that's the point? Like, there's like this weird disconnect sometimes. And I know for me, that's something I was afraid of. I was like, oh my gosh, like people are going to know who I am. Like I, you know, people will know me and it's like, that's the point mandate. That's the point. And we kind of feel like if we expand too much there's a few things that happen, right. If we expand too much, that makes it feel like sometimes we're taking away from others, which isn't true.
There's plenty of abundance out there for everybody. Sometimes we feel like if we expand too much, like we're boasting or we're like I'm being selfish or we are doing things that are too set, like self-serving, or sometimes when we feel like we expand too much that we're just not going to be able to handle it or that we are going to be in a situation where everything's going to snow in, on us. Like we're all going to get everything at one time. And everything's going to fall apart, all this hard stuff, all this stuff that we worked for. Right. We worked through all these things to build our business. And then all of a sudden it's going to crumble because we're going to get everything at once and it's going to explode. Okay. Vicky, that's a great question. We're going to answer that in a second.
So when you're thinking about this, like, think about what kind of thoughts come up. I know for me when I'm thinking about it, I usually try to write them down. So I'm like, like my first one was like, people will know me. Like people will, like, I won't just be able to like ride along in my anonymous little boat and like, be like, hi, do you need help? Do you need help? Can you help with that? It's not like that anymore. Right? It's more like, you're like, hi, do you need help? Hi. You know, like it's much louder and you actually have to put yourself out there and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with putting yourself out there or being noticed for being good at something that was something else I struggled with was like, I was so afraid of being noticed for being good at something.
Like, I just, I just want to be like everybody else. I just want to be like everybody else. I just want to sit in my little boat and make no noise and have no problems. And just be normal. And that's just not what happens when we start getting to the fear of success part it's like, all those thoughts come up like, oh my gosh, I'm not actually good at my job. I've lied my way here. I'm a fraud. I suck at this. I've just been cheating. I've I've rigged the game. How am I succeeding? That kind of stuff. Not about. Yeah. and it's just all of these thoughts come up. So start writing them down. And my guess is that all of these things that you used to worry about, like all the things you used to worry about when you were afraid that you wouldn't get there are now just like us, like basically just a mirror diversion.
Right? So instead being afraid that you won't get clients now, you're afraid you have too many clients instead of being afraid that you'll never make it, you start making it. And then you're like, everything's going to explode. This is too good to be true. I don't deserve this help. When, instead of being afraid of reaching out to businesses now you're like, every business wants me. What am I going to do? Instead of being like, my calendar's empty, I need more work. Like I need to make some money and pay my bills. Now. You're like, everything is happening at once. Oh my God. Like I, how am I going to fit this in my schedule and sleep and pet my dog and like eat all that stuff. It just kind of flops to your opposite thing. Right. And no, the Anon about like the, like the anonymous boat.
Yeah. The anonymous boat. So we kind of just flip flop it. This is what I've noticed is like I do that is like, I'm like, well, what if, what happens like right. What happens if I had 200 students? What if 200 students signed up for my course and all of them wanted one-on-one coaching. Right. All of them. And then I'd be like, oh crap. How am I going to fit 200 one-on-one coaching sessions into 10 weeks plus help them, you know, be in the community. Every single, every single business day, plus I'm blessed beyond the live two days, twice a week, plus answer all the DMS I get. Plus you answer the emails, like, how am I going to do that? And then it's just like panicking. You're like, it's the opposite, right? Where you're like overloaded. And you're scared that people will know who you are, or you're scared that successful change.
You. Sometimes people get really afraid of success because they're like, now I'm going to be a different person. Like maybe they saw somebody else succeed. They saw parents succeed or a family member or friends succeed. And they changed. They became a different person, you know, maybe it was their personality that changed or their clout that changed, or they became selfish or they became like full of themselves or they became a way different person than they were originally were right. Like, oh, it's going to change them. And these are, you know, you're, I think all of the fears that come up, whether they're fear of success or fear of failure, I think that those are, you know, they're very real feeling. They feel very real and and they do happen, right? Like people end up succeeding and blowing all their money. Right.
We know plenty of celebrities who have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and they blow all their money. Or we have this idea sometimes, like, I'll never forget this story of a football player. There was a football player who made it to the NFL and his dream, like the wildest dream that he could come up with. And he came from a very small town. The wildest dream you could come up with was like, you know, all these other NFL players are like doing it to the nines, right? Like they're buying the fanciest car, the fanciest house, like the fanciest, all this stuff. The fanciest dinners, all those things. And the, the, the top dream of this football player was like that he was going to get a double-wide trailer on his own land with a, that was like his, his top. Like, he didn't think about any of the other things that all these other football players are like, yeah, I'm gonna have a mansion.
I'm gonna do all this stuff. And he was like, I want a double wide trailer with my own car on my own space. And, you know, and when you get the money, when you, when you joined the NFL, right. When you get, get into the NFL, right. You, you get a lot of money and the amount of money it would take to get a double wide trailer and your own car and your own land is so small compared to a mansion and like the top car and like all of these things like, and that kind of thing messes with you when you realize the disparity of that, when you're like, oh crap. Like I have. So like, whoa, like it, it kind of messes with you where you're like, my biggest dream was just this. And you end up with way more than that.
It's like, it's like disorientating. Right. And it's just kind of, I'll never forget that story where like the disparity between and it wasn't that he was just like, I want to live simply. It was like, he couldn't imagine anything more than that. Like that was the best thing in his small town. Like the best thing in his small town, like the, the most he'd ever seen from someone was that. So that was like his top dream. Right. And that's kind of what happens with us is we're like our idea of success sometimes is much smaller than we ended up with. We were like, all I want is $2,000 a month. I just want to make $3,000 a month as a freelance writer. And you may end up making $5,000 a month or $10,000 a month. Or you end up with 30 K quarters or 14 K months.
And you're like, what is happening? Like, oh my God, then you panic, because it's a place you've never seen. It's a place you've never been. And it's like, you have to develop this new understanding of like, how to deal with that. And there's a disparity, right? Like there's this weird thing that happens in our brains where we're like, I thought the biggest thing was this it's actually like 25 steps ahead of that. Like, oh my gosh. And it, you know, it can make you panic. But I think that story is just like, it's. So it's such a good example of like, sometimes we really are like, within our circumstances, you know, and that leads to fear of success. You're like, oh my gosh, like, could I handle cleaning a double wide trailer and handle all of the responsibilities of having my own car and having my own land?
Like, could I even handle that? Right. And it's not that you're trying to clean a 10,000 square foot mansion. It's that? You're just trying to like, live a regular, you know, your simple life. And you're like, I can't handle that sometimes. That's what happens sometimes. That's what happens when we're like afraid of success. We realize like, it comes with a different set of parameters. It comes with a different it comes with different rules. And then we're like, what if those rules are like, things I don't understand or get, or it's something totally like that just blows your mind. Right. and I think that's really important to understand, like, there's, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just like a shift that happens. It's something that you have to kind of like move through. So I feel like for me a lot of times why that happens is just like, we, we oftentimes like writers writers, undercharged, they feel really small.
They don't go after big companies. They often like, these are the stuff I get in my inbox. Right. These are the things I get in my DMS, my LinkedIn messages comments on my posts. Like people send me emails. These are the things I get. It's like, they're afraid of like becoming bigger or becoming more well-known, but you have to do that to build a better business. And it's like this weird thing that you have to fight with where you're like, oh God, what if I succeed? And you know, it goes to this thing where you're like, what happens? So I think there it's just like this right. Cognitive dissonance that happens between like where, where you want to be or where you thought you could be and like where you are and your fears around what happens when you get to that other place.
It's also I know we're kind of like lagging a little bit Vicki. I am going to answer your question. So when you're afraid of success, hello, let's do a pup date real quick because we've got a grumpy, grumpy being over here. Who's looking for. Can you go in your habit hole? You go in your, have a hole. You good girl. Hey buddy. There you go. There you go. All good. Well, I so gentle today. There we go. Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte. We can never get John camera because you just never want to sit in the right place. You just always want to be a grump in the corner.
Yeah. Good job, buddy. Good job. Just as a note on Barry Bo is about to turn 15 in a, less than a month. I can't believe it. He's about to turn 15 in less than a month. Beau. How do you feel about that? He's like, I don't care. Charlotte's like, please give me more beer. You're really far away. It's hard to reach you over there, but I'll get you some pets later. So let's talk about how this slows down your marketing. Right? I think it's kind of already getting to a place if that makes sense. Right. So we're like afraid and we're having a lot of fear. So when we have a lot of fear, we don't actually want to do the marketing. We don't want to make ourselves reach out to companies and we don't want to, you writing an essay over there.
Okay. so when you're like afraid of moving forward, it slows down your marketing. Right. And then that slows down your business and then you get back to like a place where you feel more comfortable. So what would you like? No, I was just wondering if there was like a complicated question down there that you were just like, I have to write an essay. So we're, we're slowing down our marketing because it brings us back to a place where we feel comfortable. Like when we start stretching ourselves, we're like, oh, this is too much. And then we're like, oh, actually if I slowed down my marketing and I don't reach out to people and I don't do anything and I just sit here and just do my regular stuff, I'll be comfortable. Right. And we, we like our body and our brain really likes the idea of like being in a comfort zone.
I know that's happened to me many times where I'm like, I'm, you know, I don't want to do this. You know, like I cry about it. I'm like, I don't want to do this. I have to do so much. And it feels really scary and it's, it's so uncomfortable. And it's like, that's the point? The point is to grow. The point is to grow our business and you have to be uncomfortable and do things that kind of stretch you a little bit to do that. And this is oftentimes what I hear with imposter syndrome or people who are really like lacking self confidence as a writer is like, just the idea that they'd have to stretch a little bit, just feels way too heavy. It feels like way too much. And they just like, whoop, they don't do the marketing and they don't do the marketing because they end up just wanting to shrink back to that small space.
Like they're, they're feeling really comfortable there. Or, you know, they have this idea. They're like, oh man, I could make it. If I just had five K a month, I would make it. But you have to do a things like you have to do the marketing, you have to get your network going. You have to follow up with people. You have to do all these things that are uncomfortable when you're trying to succeed. Right. And that's just part of it. It's, it's more like this thing where you're like, the more you stretch yourself, the more you're like, oh God, I need to slow down all these other processes. Cause like, this is feeling way too much. But what really happens is like, it's like what I've noticed is it's like it's like a rubber band. So like, you're like really, you start here in your comfort place.
Right. And then you're like, I want to be here. So you start stretching to get there. And then you're like, oh my God. Oh my God. And then you like, let the rubber band go of like your fear place. And you're like, oh, this wasn't as bad as I thought I'm succeeding. This is cool. Like, oh, I'm not being snowed in and I can totally do this. Right. And then you start doing it again. And the other, you know, you start, it, it, it kind of snaps back on the good place. And you're like, oh, like now I'm comfortable. You know, like it's not stretched. I feel okay. But then you stretch yourself to the next level and then you let it go. Right. And then you're like, oh, it's not so bad. It's kind of this, this is how I felt when I have been struggling to get the marketing done or being afraid of succeeding or really stretching myself to get to the next place in my business.
It's just been like this rubber band. And then you let it, you finally get there or you finally kind of get to the place where like, you're so uncomfortable. And you're like, oh my God, everything's going to be bad. And then it's like, oh, you like get there. And you're like, I'm not, then I'm okay. I'm not freaking out. I'm turning in my assignments on time. I'm getting paid. I'm working with people who value my work. Like, oh, it's actually kind of nice here. And it's like this weird thing and yeah, we're still going to panic. Right. You're still going to panic. You're still going to feel feel like every time you move up, you get, yes, you want something. You're still gonna feel like every time you move up that it's going to be this rubber band stretch. But I can tell you like some point the fear part, the lower part, where you're like, where you started eventually releases and you get back to this place where you're like, I wish I had a rubber band in here.
We always have, I always have like a rubber band, but so you like, let it go, you know? And it's just like hanging out. Right. And you're just like, oh, this isn't so bad. It just like this. I kind of think it, it helps to think of it more as like a fluid movement as more of something where as you do your marketing and as you kind of do stuff like it will eventually just kind of like have this ebb and flow. Oh my gosh. You're so bumpy. You're so Ruby and it's okay to slow down your marketing sometimes when you're living like in a fearful state, I think that we all do that. Oh my, yes. Hello. If you guys didn't hear her growling, she's being all grumpy in the corner. But I think it's okay sometimes to slow down your marketing when you're afraid, but you got to deal with the fear and then you got to pump the marketing back up. So I think it's kind of like, if it feels overwhelming and you're just like, want to cry every day, just take a break for a second and be like, all right, I need to, oh my, yes. Hello? Did you want something? I'm going to see, I'm going to see what she does. Yes. What would you like to do? What would you like?
This is normal. It's okay to slow down your marketing, but eventually you got to pick it back up after you deal with all the fear stuff. And oh my, as you go along, can you go in your Hobbit hole as you go along, your marketing eventually will end up being, can you go over there? Can you go to your Hobbit hole? This has to be a two way street here. Many. You got to go to your high level air. We go, good job. You go away. We go, yeah, there you go. So eventually as you do your marketing, right, as you do your marketing and you kind of feel more comfortable and you kind of let that rubber band kind of stretch back and forth. Eventually you kind of figure out where you're going with your marketing and you can basically, you know, you're such a good girl, even though you're having a tantrum right now you eventually can kind of figure it out.
You can figure it out to a place that makes sense for you. You can mark it at the right place. And the other thing is when you are succeeding at whatever level of success you feel comfortable at, yes. Would you like to mock me over here? Yeah. Well, I mean, I just, you know, success means different things to different people. I feel like some people feel really successful. Like more than they thought they'd get it two K a month. And some people feel really successful at 30 K a month. It just depends. But as you become more successful, as you become more successful and you get to a place where you feel good and you don't have to do as much marketing, so you don't have to be in this hustle stuff all the time. Right? Like, that's something that I talked to like students about.
They're like, well, what if I have a bunch of clients it's like, then you don't have to do as much marketing. You don't have to do like you don't ha you're going all in on the marketing because you don't have any work. You don't have enough clients. You don't have enough income coming in. Right. So that's why you're doing this big haul on marketing. When you actually have money coming in and you have work compliance, you don't have to do this super in-depth marketing all the time. You don't have to do what, like 50 to 75 Lys every month, or tons of pitches to magazines or all these things. You can slow it down because you already have things coming in. You don't have to, you know, you want to keep filling the pipeline, but you don't, you're going at different phases of your business.
So like you're doing a ton of marketing. Then you get more clients to get more clients and these things are changing. So when you have zero clients, right, you're doing a ton of marketing, but as you get clients and marketing kind of like slows down and then you do different types of marketing, you do more follow-ups you do more like net, like adding people to your network. And then as your work increases, you're still filling the pipeline, but it's not as much. So it does. When you fear success, it does slow down your marketing, but sit in it for a bit, deal with it, think about it, then get back to the marketing, like what's happening. Like what kind of thoughts are coming out? Another one is that the other one is that people often feel like they're, they're like who am I to actually build this business?
Like, oh my gosh, all these other people are doing this thing. And like, who am I to like build this freelance writing business that makes a bunch of money. Like I should just be in an office job. I should be in an office job. And you're on the move now. Now you're going to growl at me from this side. We're just changing it up. And I feel like, who am I to actually do this? Like, I should, I should be doing something I hate. Like they, you know, there's some sort of something that happened where they have seen other people just continue to work these jobs and not do what they want. Or they've been in a situation where other people in their life have just been like, this is just what you do. You just get a job here and you just do it for forever.
Or you just keep moving your job and you just go to college and get this job and do it forever. And when we kind of break out of that mold and we're like, I'm going to build my own business. I'm going to be a freelance writer. I'm going to build a small business on my own. Like, it, it feels really scary. Right. I don't know the percentages off hand, but I'm guessing that like most, most of the population has a nine to five, right? Like maybe 60 to 80% of the population has a nine to nine five. So when we'd go off and build our own business and we do our own stuff, we are in like a smaller group. We are in a much smaller group of people who are willing to do that. And that's scary. And then you're like, what if I do, if I succeed, how am I going to handle it all?
What if the, do you, I'm just one person. I'm just one person help. And we forget that. We can always ask for help. We forget that we can get a VA or we can ask our partner to help us during tough times or that we can talk to other writers and get support from them. Or we forget that, like sometimes we can just take a break, like when we're really tired and we need a vacation, that's the beauty of having our own business. It's like, take a break. That's it. Right. that's really important. We kind of forget all those things while we're panicking about all the success that's going to happen. Oh my God, Hey, whoa, hold on a minute. We can just take a break. And that's hard to do sometimes when we're like, what if I take a break and that, and then all this stuff goes away.
Like, what if I don't, you know, all that, but, oh my gosh, you're just a little double muffin today. Then we just kind of like, it's okay. It's okay to take some time off. It's okay. To let your brain relax a little bit too. Right? Your brain is kind of like in this. Like I always I always think of it. I feel like they're like at a, like a rave and they're like, oh my God, we're Sara. Oh my God, what are we going to do? Like that? It's okay to like sit by a pond and, you know, watch the ducks swim by instead. Right. That's what I always kind of think like our brain is like pumping us with like, oh my God, this is going to be horrible. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. But we can like, and then the opposite of that to me is just like, you just sit on a bench and like, watch the world kind of do world stuff.
Right. You watch the, the, the river run by you watch the ducks swim around. You. Watch people walk their dogs. You like sit in a park or sit someplace where like, people are just doing people's stuff. There's nothing to, there's no appointments. There's nothing to worry about. There's nothing to go do. Yes. Would you like to say you can lodge a complaint and Mandy ls.com/question, why am I getting not getting enough Fritos? You can lodge that if you would like, and I will answer it. And I'll be like, I gave you a lot of treat us and you'll be like, let me get my representation. So, all right. I know this has been a little silly today, but I just want you to know I just want to like put this out there that it's okay to fear success. It's okay. This is why we think she's a friend.
She is. Cause she does this weird chicken noise. It's okay to be scared about success. It's okay to be worried about. It's okay. I already, I just give her something. Here you go. It's okay to be worried about success. It's okay to be worried about failure. That's normal. This just happens. It's like you get to a new place that you have to navigate, that you don't understand that you are trying to get all of these places and it's overwhelming and it's a lot. And it's, it's scary. Like you're building something on your own and there is a roadmap, right. But it doesn't giving someone a roadmap. Isn't the same as like supporting someone through all of the changes that happen. Right. You can be following a roadmap. You can be following the blueprint step by step by step. But it doesn't, it doesn't it doesn't always like there's emotional stuff that happens.
There's like freak out stuff that happens. Right. And that's, that's the support part, right? Like that's why I've always liked to have a lot of freelance writer. Friends is cause I'm like, I got to this new phase of my business. I'm totally freaking out. What do I do? And then it's like, oh, like other people have already been through this. I can get advice from them. Or they can be like, oh man, that sucks. Like they can empathize. That makes a really big difference. So I'm gonna answer Vicky's question. I haven't kept up on the chat cause I wanted to keep Vicky's question here. So she said, I don't understand what the scheduling part of my onboarding process will look like when I start getting clients more frequently. How far should I ask clients to book me? Yeah. This depends on your schedule. So when you're doing your onboarding process, this is something that I do like very early on.
Hey, I just want to let you know, like from the very first email that I get, Hey, I just want to let you know I'm not available until January 20, 22. If that works for you, I would love to hop on a call to talk about what you need in Q1. I let them know off the bat. And this is what when you look at your schedule, it should be like your deadlines. Like for me, when I look at my schedule, it's like, what's coming up. Like what's coming up in the next two months. Like, let's say like right now, how many deadlines do I have for October? And then what's coming up in November and December. And like, I already booked my time off. I've already at the beginning of the year in the be in January. I always booked my time off for the year.
So I look at that. I'm like, where's my time off. And like, how many deadlines do I feel comfortable in that space? So like November and December, basically the way I always think about it is like I have October to Thanksgiving and then I have three weeks and then everybody's on night-night time. Like everybody's off for like a winter holidays and new year's. So that for me is like, okay, I basically have until November. And then if I want to slot in like a magazine article or like, if I have a client that wants to finish up something before the end of December, that's what that three weeks is for. But your onboarding process process should always look at like what's happening this month and then what's happening in the next two or three months, like what's happening in this quarter. And, and do I have room to put in those deadlines?
Like how comfortable would I feel with like 10 deadlines in the month? Okay. That sounds like too many. Maybe we should try for seven. All right. I already have five. So it sounds like only have two slots left. Okay. Maybe I only feel comfortable with four deadlines in the month. I have a big project I'm working on. Okay. Well I already have four deadlines. Sounds like we can only book them in November. So I think when you're looking at it, look at the quarter, like this is Q4 that we're in, but look at the quarter and then look to two to three months ahead. So like if that expense, like right now three months I had would be January. So that'd be Q1 of 20, 22. So number one from the very beginning, you got to tell them on the initial thing, Hey, I'm not open until this time.
If that works for you, let me know. And if they say no and they're like, oh yeah, like, let's see if we can work together later. Boomerang them, that's a warm lead. They're like, oh, we still like you, but this doesn't work for our current timing, boomerang them three months out and then start following up with them. This is how I get a lot of my warm leads. I'm like, I can't do this right now. You know, and they're like, oh, we really like you, like, let's keep in touch. Okay. Talk to you in three months. I'm boomerang, I'm three months out and I follow up I can't tell you how many times do you like thanked me for just following up and being like, yeah, let's work together. And they're like, oh, good. You're back. And I think that's really important also in your onboarding make sure that you ask them, like, what's kind of the scope.
Like what are they doing? What are the kinds of things that they are looking at? In terms of the project like, oh yeah, we want a blog post every week or we want a case study every quarter, or we want to do these five items in the next three months. Like when you hear their plan, that's when you can kind of figure out what's going on and then you can work that out with them. I know that for me and my friends, businesses and my coaching students businesses, same thing. Like I've had a couple of coaching students who were like, I didn't think that they would you know, change their schedule for me, but they did. It's like, yeah, cause this is a collaborative process. Those are the good clients, the good clients understand that you have other deadlines other work to do.
And you actually have a personal life. You have other things to do besides type on a keyboard and get carpal tunnel, right? Carpal tunnel syndrome. I said, Korbel, not the military carpal tunnel syndrome. So what we want to do is plan all those things out and good clients will have a reason, right? We talked about this in the masterclass, good clients will have a like a why for the creating the content and they will have a plan for what that looks like and their plan in your plan just need to match up. And if they don't, it's okay. You can put them in warm leads and then that's still filling the marketing pipeline. There's always work around the corner too. Like there's always more stuff coming in. So I hope that was helpful, but let me know Vicky, if that didn't answer your question.
Cool. now I'm going to look through here and see oh, I am thinking about having a Friday game show with pricing projects. Hey, Getty. Welcome in listening from the car. Cool. I'm glad that you joined. Yeah, I'm thinking about having a game every Friday. So let me know, like if you guys are interested in that drop a comment below, drop a comment, or like put it in the chat. If you're interested in doing like a, like a game show of basically like the price is right. Of like me telling you a project and about the client and then you pricing the work and telling me like, what you think about that. So to see if we can like help with pricing stuff and just to make it fun. Has she ever done that before? Have I done the pricing game?
No, I haven't got Charlotte. Oh yeah. Charlotte does that all the time. She's literally, she just makes noise all the time. Charlotte, so what's just as like a side note. Charlotte's kind of grumpy right now because she hasn't been walked in a little bit. So like, she gets real amped up when we put her in this room and she can't leave and she goes outside all the time. So if we haven't been diligent about walking her, which we haven't, it's been a little bit of a nutty week this week, then she gets kind of grumbly. And right now she's like kind of doing, like being, being being a grumble muffin about [inaudible]. Cause if I say it she's gonna like make a noise, but she's been kind of a grumble muffin around that. and we, when we walk her, she's like fine.
She just sleeps. And does what other stuff? So this is, this is an, our problem right now. We, we do this, but she makes noise all the time. Yeah, she's always during that. Okay. Diane says, I don't know exactly what my fear, thoughts, fear thoughts are to write down. It's more of just a generalized, Ooh, feeling, any tips for dealing with that while moving forward besides white knuckling it, yeah. Sometimes you have to wait a little bit. So I used to have the same thing I used to be like, I don't know what's going on, but like, something's happening? Like, Ooh. You know, like, Ugh. Yeah. You kind of have to like sit for a little bit. So like for me I'm sometimes I pull out Headspace is right. Has not his face. Right. I'm like losing my mind today. Yeah. Headspace. So I happened to Headspace, which is like a meditation app and I just try to like sit there quietly and do like a meditation.
And oftentimes what ends up happening is like, when I get out of that, when I kind of like calm myself down, then my brain comes up with like these thoughts. So there's that the other part is that it's not that you just sit around, like right now, if I sat down and I said like, what are my fear thoughts? Like, I guess I could pick a few, but usually it's like, in that moment, like when I start feeling panic and when I start feeling worried and when I'm like, my God, you know, like that, that's when I'm like, all right, what is my brain saying? My brain is saying like, you're a loser. You can't do this. You're, you're terrible at giving advice. You're terrible at all. These like, that's that moment is when I start like writing them down. That's when I start like figuring out like what's happening in my mind.
And also like, that's another thing that I did through dealing with anxiety and going to therapy was like getting the tools to help me get to a point where I could be like, what is stopping me from moving forward? Like, why do I feel so crappy? And like why? Like, I can't access these thoughts. I just feel so amped up. So that helped me a lot. Just kind of like sitting in it. So I think it's not that you just like are in a regular state, you're like making toast. And then you're like, oh, that thought is this. Sometimes that thought will come to you while you're making toast. And they're like, Hey, you suck at everything. And you're like, oh, that is a thought. But what usually happens for me is like, I'm already lathered up. I'm already panicking. I'm already like, you know, and I'm already like, oh my God.
And I don't, I don't need to white knuckle. It I'm just like, what's happening in my brain right now. Like what what's happening? Like what kinds of things are popping up? And usually like, if you kind of just like sit there and you're like, all right, I'm feeling frothy. And you do that multiple times. It may not happen the first time for me, it's like been many, many times of being like, all right, what's kind of coming up and then I kind of start writing them down. The other thing is that the thing that helped me get space, like, right. So I go into therapy gives you space between anxiety and like dealing with stuff. So instead of it being like anxiety all the time, you actually get space to be like, hold on, I see you anxiety over here. I get it.
We're doing that thing too, but what else is going on? And then that space helps you kind of break it down. So I think that the white knuckling it part, I think is more is not as helpful as like really kind of being like, all right, let me do just something, let me get something done. And then when you kind of get those, those fear, thoughts, come up, write them down. Like, no matter what you're doing, write them down. And that really helps to start breaking out. And then the more you write them down, the more you notice them, and then the more you can collect them. And then you're like, oh, here are all the things that I think about. So I think for me it's not that you just know them off hand, is that like, they come to you in your worst moments.
Like you're feeling really crappy. And then you're kind of like, Ooh, what's going on in there. And then it's like you, and then they like come to you. And then also I don't know. I do, like for me, like they just come at random times while I'm doing other stuff. Like I'm thinking about a project and then like a thought comes up. That's like, don't do that. You're terrible at writing. And I'm like, oh, write that down. So I think there's like a white knuckling part. There's like a therapy part. There's like a writing it down part. Sometimes people like to journal a lot. Like I know I have friends who journal every day that helps. I think it's also like when you start, like for, when you start talking to someone and they're like, yeah, we want you to sign a six month contract.
It's going to be two K a month. We want to do these blog posts every week. Here's the contract. Like the first thing that comes to your mind when you start panicking is probably like, I can't do this, write that down. Right. That's what happens is like, we kind of ignore it. We just kind of like start panicking on that thought we start panicking on that thing. Oh my God, I can't do this. What am I going to? That's all of the negative stuff. That's all the fear stuff of like, I can't do this or, oh my gosh, like, what am I going to be doing in six months? That's a really long time write that down. So I think when you get to that, like trigger point kind of let it marinate and see what's going on. All right. That is a good question.
Yeah, talking to yourself out loud. Obviously I'm a big fan of that. I'm a big fan of like saying stop out loud. That really helped me. What else? Anything, any other questions we want to go to? If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you want to learn more about building a high-income freelance writing business, make sure to subscribe. I'm curious. Have you actually already figured out your thoughts? Do you have fear thoughts that have popped up pop them in the comments below? So if you're watching this after the live do you know your fear, thoughts? Like, I'm curious if, if you have the same ones like that I do. Or if you have different ones, like pop them in the comments below, and if you don't feel comfortable sharing that do you have any tips or techniques to share, to like find out what your thoughts are or to deal with the fear of success? Pop that in the comments below. I'd love to hear that I'm always like, always interested in like new techniques to kinda like help other writers and help help myself, obviously. But I hope this was helpful. Let's do like one more quick update cause I have you here. Oh, and don't forget if you want to ask a question and you can't make it live or you just want me to ask a question. You can go to Mandy ellis.com/question.
And then we can answer the question live. So then you get your question answered live, and then also you get to fill out the form when you feel ready to do that. And you can be anonymous if you don't feel comfortable. Putting your question on blast with your name on it. It's totally fine. Thank you again. Yeah. I hope you have a good, oh please. Not Sooners. Definitely Longhorns. So kind of have to go kind of have to go with Texas. I've been a big I was big Texas fan. I like Mack brown, so I was always a big Texas fan, like before we moved here. So I always liked the Longhorns and I had visited Austin before we moved here. So yeah, so I have to go to the Longhorns and sometimes I pick Ooh, but like not anytime recently since we've lived in Texas and I think I picked OU like way before we lived here. So definitely going to have to go with the Longhorns. We'll see how that goes, but hope everybody has a good weekend. Thank you for joining us by Vicky, by Getty, by Diane. And yeah, hope this was helpful and I will see you next Friday. Bye.
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