I first started taking on clients in 2017.
Back then, I would feel an initial high and then a sudden low as soon as any client agreed to a proposal.
The high came from a feeling of:
- personal progression
- business traction
- privilege to be chosen to work on the project out of all other possible agencies and freelancers
The low came from:
- a sudden weight of responsibility and pressure to deliver
- the unknown of how the project would go ( working with different hosting providers, different technologies, different business goals, different people … etc. )
Recently however, the feeling of privilege has begun to totally dominate my mindset and I attribute this to three main reasons:
Experience
Genuine confidence takes time to grow. It’s taken me years to feel confident about taking on new clients and knowing how exactly how I can deliver for them.
Accepting that there will be lows
When I started out, I remember thinking that I would make a massive impact from the word go. My earnings would shoot up and people would go crazy for anything I created.
Then reality kicks in and you realise that any worthy success will have to be earned. Success will be the result of time, effort, skill and a little bit of luck.
There will be lows when working towards worthy successes because they’re never easy.
Previously, I wasted a lot of energy stressing and worrying about these lows.
Now, I simply accept that they’re inevitable and use my energy to tackle them one by one as they arise.
Perspective
Rassie Erasmus’s famous words post winning the Rugby World Cup in 2019 stick with me when he said:
“We talked about what pressure is.
In South Africa, pressure is not having a job. Pressure is one of your close relatives being murdered.
There are a lot of problems in South Africa — which are real pressure. Rugby shouldn’t be something that creates pressure, rugby should be something that creates hope.
We started talking about how we have that privilege of giving people hope. Not a burden, of giving hope.
The moment you see it that way, it becomes a hell of a privilege. And that’s how we tackled this whole World Cup campaign.”
Since hearing Rassie’s point of view here, I’ve focused on the hope that my work gives to aspirational companies to achieve their goals.
It’s cool to be starting out 2020 feeling a great amount of privilege.
Privilege to be working with so many aspirational companies and privilege to be surrounded by so many aspirational people.
Thank you for reading,
Gary
