Reduce Freelancer Stress

Freelancing can be a lot of fun. There is a reason it is being more popular (forced circumstances aside). Marketing yourself, creating products, research, and makes those first sales, can bring a lot of joy and excitement to you. 

However, there are the downsides like deadlines that seem to rush up on you. Clients that aren’t ever happy, and the feast and famine freelancer cycle. All of these things can lead to a big heap of stress. 

While stress is natural a natural part of life and in most cases not harmful there comes a point where the stress starts to take over. If you are feeling that stress overload here are a few things that you can do to take control of your stress levels. 

Best Friend Chat.

While you are likely sharing your stress and worries with your friends, this isn’t what I mean. Instead, think about the advice you would give your friend who was feeling like you are right now. It can help to write down everything you need to talk about, and then address it one by one as if you were talking to a friend. 

You wouldn’t want to lead your friend down the wrong path, so apply the same process here. 

Lists.

If you don’t have clean and clear lists to tick off as you complete, or simply to keep you on track, you are holding multiple tasks in your mind all the time. It’s the same as having multiple tabs open on your laptop. It will start to run slowly, and when you’re looking for your research page you’ll need to go through everything else first. 

Honesty.

Sometimes instead of being honest with ourselves, we make excuses. Instead of just saying that you don’t sleep enough cause you work too much, you should be looking at your workload. Perhaps you have too much work to complete, or you need to work on your organisational skills. 

The other option is you’re not charging enough, meaning you need to take on too much work, in order to remain freelancing. 

Be more honest with yourself. This will help you get to the root cause of your stress. 

Support.

There comes a point where your stress is becomes to much to handle. At that point, you are most likely going to need to find outside support. A luxury rehab facility, therapy, your doctor, and even online groups will give you plenty of support and a system that can help you deal with your stress levels. 

Soothing yourself.

Stress will give you multiple physical signs. Hair loss, acne, weight gain/loss, headaches, and tension in your jaw, shoulders, and neck. Some people find going for a walk works, others find that listening to a story or calming music helps them release that tension. It is important that you know what soothes you and use it regularly to help keep your stress levels in a more manageable state. 

Often it comes down to what you find most important too. Is it important that you scroll through Instagram for hours, or is it important that you reply to the emails? Keeping a sense of priority is important in stress management.

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