What Serenity Is

Now that we know what serenity is not, let's talk about what it is.

At its heart, I think, serenity is about living in reality and accepting what comes to us--and then doing our part to care for ourselves, regardless of what's going on around us. Serenity comes from developing a strong center that can weather or quickly recover from big emotional blows or reversals of fortune.

I remember when this realization changed my thinking. I was on public transportation, heading to my last full-time job before starting my business. I hated that job--or rather, I loved what I was doing and many of my coworkers, but something about it wasn't right for me. I was in agony over it every day. So, on the way to work, I entertained myself with an issue of Yoga Journal. Here's what it said:

Ignorance, or avidya, is a root cause of suffering, according to Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. But the ignorance Patanjali refers to is less a lack of knowledge than an almost willful ignoring of reality. Today we call it denial. For instance, we may intellectually know that all things change, yet we desperately deny this truth--a denial that leads to anxiety, fear and confusion.

What he's working up to is a discussion of the Buddha's Five Rembembrances. They go something like this:

I will grow old.

This body will know sickness.

There is no escape from death.

Everything and everyone change.

All I have are my actions.

The writer, Frank Jude Boccio, recommends repeating these remembrances--these reality checks--every day to interrupt the machinations of denial.

As I think about serenity in my business, I need to adapt these remembrances for the workplace. For instance, I will get sick and not be able to work some days. Pretending like I can work nonstop and never set aside money or time or compassion for myself for those days I'm struck with illness creates in me--what did he say?--"anxiety, fear and confusion."

Yeah, that.

Or, pretending that the kind I work I enjoy won't change or that I can keep the same clients forever does nothing but leave me waiting impotently for the other shoe to drop. It creates a kind of self-satisfied, hazy denial where I refuse to think about what I would do if my biggest client dropped me.

That's why the last remembrance is key (from Thich Nhat Hanh's The Plum Village Chanting Book):

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

So again, the antidote to stress, anxiety and fear is to focus on your behavior today. How much marketing are you doing? How much are you relying on one client to make ends meet? What would make you feel more secure, like you could weather any storms? Think about it and then take one small step today to achieve it.

A Year of Self-Employed Serenity: Editor's Picks

Happy Holidays, all! To spread the joy off the season, I've linked below to the posts that make me feel most serene, most loved and most connected, even in my business life. This is a follow up to a post I made last week about the most popular posts during the first year of this blog. Consider this a gift of serenity, loving-kindness and gratitude for letting me share what I've learned over the past year.

What Serenity Isn't. Serenity won't fix you. Putting it in perspective, though, will make it more accessible.

What Serenity Is. Finding serenity is an oft-overused phrase. Let's get to the heart of what it can mean practically to you in your business.

What's Your 1 Percent? Want to know if you're about to lose your serenity by focusing on something out of your control? Use this as your guide.

Serenity Tip: Resiliency. We can't plan for everything--no matter how good our business plan. What we can do is cultivate a life that supports us bouncing back from difficult situations.

Serenity Enemy: Deprivation. As you look at the enormity of the task ahead--especially if you're aware that you need to increase your income drastically--you may be feeling especially poor, especially stress and especially deprived. Here are some ways to cope with that feeling.

The Serenity of Support. It's not just Karen who gets a lot out of support for her business. I find it crucial to my ability to focus on what I can control and let go of what I can't. Here's how.

The Serenity Muscle. Developing serenity in your business, just like developing a thriving career, takes discipline.

The Letting Go Tool Kit. Surrendering what you have no control of is especially hard when it can determine whether your business succeeds. Do it anyway. Here's how.

Cultivating Persistence. A little word of wisdom about passion from This American Life's Ira Glass.

A Word About Forgiveness. A meditation practice for those days when your clients, your sources and your colleagues are just driving you up a wall.

What Serenity Isn't

Serenity, like "me time," is a much overused word. In the wrong hands (say, advertisers), it's a buzz word, devoid of meaning and used like a sledge hammer to bully you into buying the latest aromatherapy kits. So I think it's important, before we go too far down this path, to remember what serenity isn't:

* It isn't blissful happiness.
Serenity doesn't promise you a rose garden, it doesn't bring you flowers, or any other torch song cliche. Feeling good and feeling serene aren't the same thing, but it's nice when they intersect.

* It isn't getting everything you want.
Sure, you may feel great (see above) when you get everything you want. But remember when you were a child? If you're Christian and if you grew up in a middle-class family, you may recall the high you got from getting everything you wanted on Christmas morning. But after that high, what happened? First, you took a nap because your adrenaline crashed and zapped your energy. And then you wanted more. You'll always want more. Getting what you want doesn't create calm or centeredness. And yes, I'll add that cautionary cliche: Sometimes getting everything you want can rob you of serenity.

* It isn't having a day where everything goes smoothly.
If you're juggling kids and work, you can be forgiven for thinking that serenity is a day when the kid doesn't throw up on his new outfit on the way to see out-of-town relatives, dinner doesn't burn and at midnight you're not attached to your computer, answering a million emails. Still, that's not really serenity. That's reduced stress--which is great all on its own.

I once read something that went something like this:

Our lives became unmanageable when the car wouldn't start, our spouse wouldn't do what we said or the computer broke.

Get the sarcasm? The point is that that stuff happens. That's life. Serenity doesn't give you a get-out-of-life-free card. In fact, it's that misconception that makes serenity seem so unattainable. If that's your definition, then serenity can only be achieved by cloistered nuns or yogis on a hilltop.

And that brings me to the most important thing that serenity isn't:

* Serenity isn't an action item.
Serenity was never meant to be another item on your to-do list. It's a means to accomplishing the things on your list because it clears away the clutter of fear and anxiety.

You can do that by creating a serenity practice, by practicing breathing techniques and by getting clarity about your personal and business needs through your business plan. And you can learn to let go, among other things. In tomorrow's post, I'll write about another way to find serenity.

The Serenity of Support

Serenity is a funny thing. One minute I'm feeling balanced and feeling that my behavior is in alignment with my goals; the next minute, deadlines are starting to overwhelm me.

The funny thing is, deadlines aren't what rob me of serenity. My judgments of myself and how I think my clients see me are the real culprits. They'll get me every time.

Of course it matters what your clients think of you. As Rachel Weingarten pointed out in a story I did on work gossip, your reputation is your stock in trade as a self-employed person. Projecting confidence and having the skills to back it up are what separate you from the competition.

But I'm always surprised at how human my clients are. I went into freelancing thinking that because I'm working remotely (and I have this reputation to protect), my job was to turn in a perfect first draft without asking my editor any questions.

The first part is true. The second part? Not so much. The longer I'm in this business, the more I know that editors want to help me draft the best possible story. They want to nip problems in the bud before they have to root them out themselves in the edit process.

So I've taken to including my editors in my process. This requires me violate my personal dogma that editors want to see me as capable, intuitive and, above all, perfect. They don't want me to be perfect. They want me to ask for help. And when I do, it inevitably leads me to a better story and a closer relationship with that editor.

Now, I'm not talking about asking for direction at every step of the process. That would be cloying.

Here are some examples of how I've done it:

* With one recent client, I was hunting for "regular people" to profile. My editor provided me with one name and when I contacted her, I learned she's going to be on the cover of the same magazine in a few months. Red flags waved in front of me but in the past I would have ignored them, assuming my editor knew about it and wanted this woman in the story anyway. This time, I told my editor and I was rewarded with both a "Good catch!" and a "You rock!"

* I'm working on another story in which the sources are too busy to call me back. My instinct was to keep badgering them and try to force them to call me back. Instead, I called my editor and asked for other suggestions and direction. She happily provided me with more sources and now I have most of the information I need to write that story.

* With a final client, I'm writing a summary of some survey results. When I sat down to start writing, I realized that I didn't have a key piece of information for understanding the survey results. I'd looked at this survey several times, but I figured I wasn't looking closely enough. Finally, I realized what the problem was and called my editor. She was kind and passed along a document that decoded it for me. Now writing it should be a breeze.

The key things to remember for my serenity are these:

Humility goes a long way.
Asking for help as a perfectionist and business owner is never easy for me. I have to swallow my pride. But enlisting my editor's help is actually a sign of professionalism and every client from whom I've requested it has appreciated it.

Cutting myself slack is always the right answer.
The thing that stops me cold every time is self-judgment. Should I know how to do this already? It turns out in all three of those situations, there were things happening that I couldn't have known. The more I expect myself to have the biggest brain on the block (not to mention ESP) the further my serenity dwindles.

I have to acknowledge my progress.
If serenity is a muscle, I have to recognize when I've flexed it. Asking for help is one of those times. Merely stopping for a second to tell myself that I've done something new and difficul--and it was the right thing to do--reminds me that I can ask for help in the future.

Serenity Question: Finding Serenity Insurance

A self-employed friend recently asked this question:

For God's sake, I've been a professional writer for more than 20 years now. Granted, I've only been doing consumer magazines for about 5....but still! Many of my articles are still keeping me awake at night with anxiety.

Any of you pros...did you eventually get over this????

I'm a perfectionist and a worrier. I worry that this will be the last story an editor will assign to me because THIS time, I won't get the right sources. Or I'll miss the important points they wanted. Or I'll do lazy reporting.

And I worry about deadlines. I never miss them, but I often feel totally overwhelmed by them even though I'm organized and keep meticulous lists--to the point where I'm thinking about work almost every second of the day and unable to enjoy hanging out with my kids.

I want to be a freelancer who ENJOYS the flexibility of the work and schedules, not one who is feeling more shackled to my work then I did when I was in corporate America.

Any advice? And I'm getting over bronchitis, too, which I often get at this time of year and when I working hard. Maybe it's the meds making me crazy. Talk me off the ledge??
Signed,
Self-Employed Stresscase

Dear Self (ha!),

Boy, what self-employed person hasn't stressed about their work to distraction? It's kind of a hazard of the self-employment biz. But it doesn't have to rob you of serenity and time with your family. As I said in my last post, it's that drive for perfection (and perfection's unrealistic demands on our time and energy) that makes us both successful and robs us of serenity.

It is possible to get good sleep, though. I feel much less anxiety about my work today than I did as a full-time newspaper reporter. I think the difference for me is time and clarity.

Time
As a newspaper reporter, it was always deadline time, and the encouragement I got to take my time and double-check things was always counterbalanced by the need for it now, now NOW! I know now that my anxiety was caused by failing to take the time to double or even triple-check things if I wasn't certain they were dead-on right. For me, if I know I've done that--and can remind myself I've done that--I sleep much easier.

Clarity
As a freelancer, because I have to manage my own time more now than when I was a staff person, I've gotten clear about how much time each story takes. I break it into six sections:

--Marketing: For me, this is contacting editors and sending story queries.

And then there's the work involved in actually doing the assignment. In my field, I break it down to:
--Research: Online, in person, via books, it's whatever it takes for me to get a grasp of the subject matter and figure out which sources I'm going to contact. If this is a topic with which I have a lot of experience, it's quick work.
--Interviewing
--Writing: I figure almost any story takes at least an hour to write, and many, if they're features, take about eight hours or writing, rewriting, and self-editing.

For most jobs, then there's quality assurance. In my case, it's:

--Fact-checking: For me, the stress of making a mistake is what kept me up at night, or woke me from a dead sleep. So I think of this as my serenity insurance. Even if a client has a fact-checker, I'll often call and double-check facts or ask questions about quotes if they are at all vague in my notes. Here, I need to pay attention to my gut:

* What's keeping me awake?
* What's causing fretting?
* Is it realistic?
* What can I do about it?
* Who do I need to talk to?

The more I do this, the more I find my gut is right on.

And the final step, after the project has been turned in:

--Edits: Changes, questions, etc.

Knowing this process and myself, I try to finish stories at least one day before they're due so I can fact-check. If I don't get it done in time to fact-check, I let my editor know that all the facts are true to my knowledge, but if they don't have a fact-checker, let me know and I'll fact-check it myself. Or, I double-check facts after I file the story and when it comes back for edits, I make the changes and let my editor know why I'm changing it. My clients love this because they feel they're getting high quality and, again, it's saving them time and stress.

And the final part that insures my serenity is to acknowledge for myself that I've addressed every reasonable concern I have. After that, I have to just remind myself over and over again that I'm not a mind-reader and any changes my editor makes will likely improve the story.

I'm willing to grow and learn. And I can't control what an editor thinks of my work. All I can do is manage my side of things and learn how to do my job better. This is key. I can make myself crazy with self-doubt. But I have to consciously decide against it.

And, frankly, I think you asking this question is a great way to get relief!

30-Day Marketing Challenge: Web Site Essentials

The one thing I tell everyone is that having a Web site is mandatory these days. But how do you go about getting one that presents you professionally but doesn't break the bank? To find out, I asked a few questions of my very own Web diva, Tracey Kazimir-Cree, owner of eeep! productions. While she has done sites for industry associations, retailers, ad agencies, artists and manufacturers, Tracey specializes in web design and Internet consulting for small to medium sized businesses. Have questions for Tracey? Follow her on Twitter at @TrayPup or email her at websmith @ eeep.com. (And don't forget to read to the end. There's a special offer there just for Serenity readers.)

Why is a web site so crucial for small business owners?

Imagine place where a prospective customer can get to know you and can be encouraged to do business with you while you're sleeping, or playing with your kids, or tending to the business of running your business.

More consumers are researching products and vendors online now that the web is so accessible. With the proliferation of iPhones and other Smartphones, the web is also becoming portable. A prospective customer can find out what she needs from the comfort of her own home, without you having to stop to answer the phone to repeat driving directions or store hours. Coming from a retail background, I know that alone is worth its weight in gold.

A website levels the playing field between the big guys and the little guys. It allows you to reach a larger audience than your local newspaper/tv/radio ads can. You can go global, if you so choose. A website is becoming a sign that your business has its act together and helps to establish trust.

It's a market full of opportunity! This is a great time to make an investment in your business that can pay off in big ways. If they can't find you on the web, it's very possible that they're never going to know you exist.

What are your biggest pet peeves about owner-designed sites? What bells and whistles should people avoid?

My biggest pet peeve involves poorly written copy that doesn't flow well, with lots of misspellings and typos. [Ed. note: Hopefully not a problem for writers' Web sites!] A website that's an eyesore or that doesn't do justice to the business is a close second. Let's put it this way: I don't do my own tax returns because my accountant stays on top of the tax law for me. That's what I pay him for. Same with my auto mechanic, my handyman, my house painter, my dentist. These people have their specialties and I know that they know their jobs inside and out and they save me time and trouble by performing services for me.

As a business owner you have a lot of things you need to pay attention to. Learning how to design a powerful, effective and helpful website is not one of them. Work with a trusted professional so you can focus on what you do best.

Other things that drive me crazy:

• Blinking text, music that starts playing as soon as the user lands on your site (give the user the option to turn it on and off), black backgrounds and cryptic, cutesy navigation. "Contact us" is far more clear and user friendly than "Here there be dragons".
• "It's my blog/website, I should be able to write/do whatever I want" is something I hear a lot. Yes, you can do what you want, but if you want people to stay, read and, most of all, come back to your site, you need to be smart about your content and design.
• The "if you build it, they will come" mentality. You must establish a plan that involves a combination of traditional and new media marketing to help grow your business. And don't be afraid to be creative and/or to employ really basic, grass roots ideas in your marketing plan.
• A website that's thrown together on the fly and isn't fully thought out and researched. I have a questionnaire I give to every prospective client that covers everything I need to know in order to create a plan and a good solid proposal/estimate. A lot of people don't want to take the time to think about these things. Some do, and their businesses are flourishing.

What are the three most important elements any professional's web site should include?

That's easy:

• A very clear call to action. What do you want your site visitor to do as a result of visiting your website? Make an easy path for them to do it and encourage them to follow it!
• Easy-to-find contact information. No matter how easy your site is, some people just want to talk to you. Make it easy for them. Don't hide behind your website. Give them the options of using a phone number, email address, contact form, live chat, etc.
• Strong, clean design and simple navigation. If a visitor is waiting for big graphics to load or sees broken images or the design isn't appealing, they are out of there faster than you can say "Google"--and most likely on to another writer's site.

I talk about this in more detail in my article Seven Basics of Good Web Design.

What should people look for when seeking a web designer? Any questions they should ask?

Talk to the designer and think about these questions:
Can she speak to you on your level? Do she communicate well? Is her site appealing to you? How about her portfolio? Do you feel a connection with her?

There's a great article on my site called Ten Key Things to Look for in a Good Web Designer and it may be useful for you as you get started.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Just one final note: Social Marketing. Start using it.
For Serenity readers: Tracey is offering readers of this blog a free evaluation of your Web site--normally a $150 service. You must contact her by March 1, 2009. Contact her on her site and fill out the contact form with the word SERENITY in the comments box. She’ll send you an evaluation within 10 days.

What are your favorite writer Web sites?

Serenity Enemy: Clutter

Recently a self-employed person came to me with this block to her serenity:

During the week, I'm too busy to clean my office, and just can't seen to be able to justify taking the time to organize it all. On the weekends, I don't feel like going in my office and doing work stuff. So, cleaning my office seems to fit in no where. It's a great space, really the best in my condo, and where I spend the majority of my time. But it's so disorganized and undecorated (aside from matching furniture I bought at IKEA when I moved in) that I don't enjoy being in here at all. I'm embarrassed when others see it, and I complain about it all the time.

This is such a common problem. Is this about serenity? I'm not sure. I do know that being unable to find things (especially bills) can lead to tremendous stress, discontent and worry. And if you don't like what you look at every day in your office, chances are you aren't enjoying your work as much as you could be. (And as I've said before, if you're happy and grateful, you are much more likely to pay it forward.)

So what to do?

First, I'll suggest something that I do once a month:

Sit in a comfortable position, before the stress of the workday is upon you (you can do this in bed as you're waking). Close your eyes and breathe deeply. As you settle in, ask yourself this question: "What do you want your office to look like?"

You can get more specific, and I often do:

* What would be most abundant and serene for you?
* What do you see when you look at your office in your mind's eye?
* What's one thing you can do to make your office more like this today?

This is, as my friends call it, a visions meditation. Create a vision for yourself, something that excites you and gets you enthusiastic about making the change in your office.

I do this once a month and I often have the same vision: Cherry wood desk with tempered glass top, lots of plants, free of clutter, overlooking a big window with a view of trees or a garden.

When I look around my office this very second, I don't have that view. But what I do see is a big window, a bookshelf with cherry wood and tempered glass shelves and a small bouquet of dazzlingly yellow freesia. It's a small thing, but it makes me happy. And I'm aware that it's a process.

Now, there are lots of ways you can bring this vision into being. The way I do it is to do one hard thing toward cleaning your office a day.

But professional organizer and former freelance writer Janine Adams uses an online motivational tool To help her clean off her desk at the end of every workday. Here's what she says:

"My big obstacle when I was freelancing and until recently as a professional organizer was as messy desk. I couldn't get myself to clear it at the end of the workday, even though I knew I was much more productive on the rare occasions that I had a clean desk when I arrived at work in the morning. But this year, it's changed. I cleaned my desk off thoroughly on January 5 and, with the help of www.dontbreakthechain.com to build the habit, I've cleared it off every single day, save one Saturday when I left my knitting on it. That habit alone has really, truly affected my work serenity."

There are still other ways you can do it. You can set a timer and do 5 minutes of cleaning every day. I even have friends who have "clutter buddies" who come over and sit with them as they clean their offices, because they can't seem to motivate without that kind of support.

The point is, of course, not to do this the One Right Way, but to make a start.

What do you do to bring serenity back to your office?

Finding Serenity with Income Goals

If you have a business plan, then chances are you have income goals. And if you're like a lot of self-employed people, your income goals are probably a whole lot higher than your income history. Either you're new to self-employment and growing your business or you're experiencing a slowing of income increases that a 2004 study documented in the journal Science.

When considering my income goals for this year, some self employed friends gave me the following advice:

"If you're the type of person who can handle it when you don't meet your goals, then shoot for the moon. If, on the other hand, you feel like a failure and spend a lot of energy beating yourself up when you don't reach a goal, then you should set more modest goals.

Now, I've always fallen into the latter category. I'm very goal oriented, very Type A--but the unintended consequence of being so oriented towards outcomes is that inevitably you don't reach your goals at some point and not reaching those goals can send you into a spin of self-loathing and self-pity. Ans serenity? Right out the window.

So you're coming to the end of the first month of the year and it's a good time to reflect back on those goals you created at the end of 2007. How are you doing?

To assess, consider the following questions:

Are you close to your goal for the month?
What's the margin of difference between your goal and the reality for the month?
How does that goal feel in your body as you are putting it into action? What I mean is, when you think about that goal and how your income is actually flowing in comparison, do you feel panicky?
Do you feel proud?
Do you feel hopeless?
Do you feel like a failure?
Do you feel secure?

You get the point. A business plan isn't some dusty thing you put on a shelf. It's a living thing that--and here's the important part--you can adjust to match your needs. The important thing about a business plan is that it motivates and supports your business and your serenity as a self-employed person. If you're in the panicky category, you may be tempted to tone down those goals. That's allowed after all. But before you do that, consider this:

Wait a few months.

I know, it can feel excruciating. But you need to see where the gap between your earnings and your goals is the result of an unrealistic goal or if it's the result of some oversight in your marketing efforts.

So before you scale back, see where you can increase your income next month to balance your earning from this month. It's less important what you make this month than what you make on average over the next six months.

So don't be precipitous with your goal fiddling. But do be aware. Just do one small thing to increase your company's profile today. If after a few months, you're continuing to feel terrible, consider changing your goal.

Until then, consider it a practice of setting your intention with the universe.

If, at the end of those few months--let's say, at the end of the first quarter--you find you're not okay with falling short of your goals, then it's possible that you need to revise it--and then revise your expectations for spending, too.

And it's possible that you need to look at your mix of clients and marketing to see what's most effective for you.

The point is not the goal. The point is whether it motivates you in a positive way.

Serenity in business, I feel, comes from sustainability more than anything else.

So did I reach my goal for this month? Nope.

But I'm oddly fine with it. I don't know if it's the meditation, the support or the planning, but I can see my income stream projected for the next two months and it's outstripping this month several times over. Part of that, I'm finding, is seasonal. Last year, January was a tough month, too. The difference this year is that I'm better targeting my marketing and doing more work I love with better reward (both intellectually and financially) than I was last year.

Having a plan, more than anything, makes it so I find it easier to bounce back after a stressful or short month. Let's face it--cash flow will always be an issue for us self-employed people. That's out of our control.

What we can focus on, then, is how we plan for and react to our circumstances.

Serenity Check In: Are Your Clients Your Higher Power?

I write a lot about relying on a Higher Power as a way out of the insanity of focusing on things you can't control. But what happens when you make your clients your Higher Power?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I'm working on a story proposal that's really important to me and I have an equally important client interested in the story. As I was working up the proposal, talking to folks, I noticed how ravaged I was by the process: Every time a source said something that backed up my premise, I was elated and excited and deeply convinced that doing this story is my Higher Power's will for me. It felt great to be in that groove. But every time someone said something that contradicted my premise, my self-esteem took a nose-dive and my anxiety level went up five octaves.

What was consistent about both responses was that I couldn't work on anything else the rest of the day. I was emotionally drained by it and in the back of my mind constantly wondering what the potential client might say about each of my sources.

Here's what I know is true:

* I can't read my client's mind, no matter how hard I squeeze my eyes shut and concentrate. I haven't yet developed the skill of clarevoyance.

* I didn't know exactly what she was looking for. She simply asked me to gather information, to report. And it's not my job to manipulate the results into whatever I think the "right" answer will be for me to sell the story.

* This is a great, important story. It just is. And if it's not right for this publication, it's not a judgment of me or the story.

What I realized in looking at all these things is that my spiritual life was askew. Instead of thanking my Higher Power for being my muse and guiding me to this story, I was making this editor my Higher Power. Her opinion was more important than anything else, and upon it all my sense of worth was resting.

She doesn't need that responsibility. And it's not very professional. It reminds me of Liz Strauss's great blog post about what she was looking for in a freelancer. The line that stuck out for me was:

Most freelancers I met with were too worried about my approval. The ones I looked for were the once who looked past me to the folks I was working to serve with my publications. That meant they were helping me think through the needs of my audience.

In other words, I can talk as much as I want about how much it's about the story, but what I'm doing when I'm trying to force a solution and making my client my Higher Power is making it about me. I share this not because I'm a glutton for punishment, but because most of us at some point have made our clients into our Higher Powers by wanting their approval instead of wanting to write a story that serves our client's readership. This is a spiritual malady with a real business consequence.

So for the sake of my business and my serenity, I did a lot of work to realign my spiritual life. Every morning, I've been writing the following. I share it with you in the hopes that it may help you realign your thinking, too, if you're in a similar fix:

* I really want to write this story, and I want to write it for this publication.

* I can really really want something and still hand the results over to my Higher Power.

* I trust that my Higher Power will guide me to the right home for this story and hold me up no matter what.

It's helped tremendously. I keep thinking of that line in Eat Pray Love in which Elizabeth Gilbert writes that "God loves you as you." I don't have to be serene and surrendered and needless or wantless to align my will with my Higher Power's. My Higher Power wants me just as I am--passionate about my work, slightly neurotic, excited about this client and really really focused on trying to make it happen, even though I can't. Oddly, that realization lends me freedom, to want all I want, and know that my wanting doesn't require a response. It can just be what it is.

And then, I can get back to work.

Righting the Resistance

Yesterday, I wrote about how having a business plan can create serenity. But anyone who's ever contemplated actually putting a business plan into action knows it's not that simple.

The first lesson in getting to serenity is that it doesn't feel serene at first. Far from it.

After creating my business plan--which includes amazingly abundant things like an income goal beyond what I've ever earned, treating myself to ergonomic office equipment and moving in with my beloved--my body pushed back. I felt fluish. My throat swelled. I was sleepy. I couldn't concentrate. Worst of all, my work suffered.

I fretted: Can I really do it? Can I pull this off long-term? What if I fail? What if I'm humiliated? What if this proves that I've been a fraud all along?

Now, if I simply reacted to this distress, I might think I was pushing too hard, too fast. I might think, "Let's not set such an ambitious income goal. Let's leave it up to the freelancing gods." I might take care of myself by not taking care of my true needs.

Luckily, I'm working on a story about how the impostor syndrome can cripple one's career. Thank you, freelance gods.

So I didn't take it too seriously, but I did take my anxiety seriously enough to ask:

* Where do these fears originate?
* Is there anything I can learn from them?
* Are they realistic?
* What will happen if I "fail" to reach my income and other goals?

The answer? My fears aren't realistic. Sure, I could fail, but I'd be no worse off than I am right now--and I'm doing pretty well right now. And most important, I relaxed into this knowledge:

Guess what? Whatever it is that you've been longing for? This is how you get it.

That pain? That feeling of coming out of your skin, that dramatic, "I couldn't possibly do that!" feeling?

Well, have your Norma Desmond moment, and then remember: This is what it feels like to stretch the serenity muscle, making it stronger and more flexible for the next time you want to grow your business.

How do you deal with resistance to growing your business?

30-Day Persistence Challenge: Motivating Yourself to Move Forward

On my way back from the Association of Health Care Journalists Conference this past weekend, I picked up a copy of Scientific American Mind, and, specifically, an article about how irrational behavior is hardwired into us. In a Q&A, professor Peter A. Ubel, author of Free Market Madness, made the following observation:

One reason we humans do not always behave rationally is that we have limited willpower. We understand that junk food is bad. But we cannot follow through on our rational desires. We plan to run for 30 minutes, but after 10, we get off the treadmill and convince ourselves we are a bit stiff today. We try to cut down on empty calories and then grab a handful of M&Ms from a candy bowl, almost unaware of our actions. No single M&M caused anyone to have diabetes. No one experienced a heart attack because he was 20 minutes short of his exercise goal. And yet our lives, or waistlines even, are the result of thousands of such decisions and behaviors.

Anyone who's ever dieted knows what he's talking about. Not that the desire is bad, or that a single outcome is bad. It's just the chasm between intention and action on a regular basis that undermines persistence. To develop persistence, and get the rewards from being persistent, you have to do the things you plan to do even if you don't feel like doing them. Something has to motivate you.

But where do you get the motivation? Here's what Ubel told Scientific American Mind:

To improve ourselves, we have to act as if each M&M matters, as if each decision has important consequences. To do this, it helps to make rules and follow them. Commit yourselves to no candy, no desserts, and you will become more mindful of M&M bowls. Run outside, rather than inside on a treadmill, and you will be forced to finish your running loop. Tell a friend you will walk with her for 30 minutes this afternoon, and you will be forced to show up. Do you want to save money? Have some money automatically deposited into a savings account that you cannot access easily through ATMs, debit cards or checkbooks. Sometimes the best way to behave better when you are weak is to impost martial law on yourself when you feel strong.

How does this sound to you? Do you like the idea of "imposing martial law," as Ubel puts it?

Unlikely. But Ubel does have a point. Structure is the key to persistence. If I tell myself (as I have) that I don't eat sugar, a red flag waves frantically when someone puts a baby tart in front of me, as they did several times at the conference last week. But for me, that's as far as structure goes: It just creates the red flag. How I cope from there is another matter.

Ubel hints at ways to make persistence work, though. This week, I'll lay out three ways to firm up your boundaries--with yourself--and keep on your persistence goals. Today, we'll start with...

Experience
I know I don't eat sugar. I have the experience of not eating it for five years now.* And I have the experience of not dying--of embarrassment or cravings--from any single instance of passing the dessert back to the waiter. I also have the experience of ease that comes with not eating it. It's not hard for me usually. People say they can't do it. But I think what they mean is they don't want to, that there's always an escape plan, an exception to their rule about dessert, etc. What Ubel is talking about is a hard-and-fast rule. A "no matter what" rule.

Action: Take a look at your rules around your persistence topics (querying, decluttering, invoicing, etc.). Is your rule;

• "I will do three queries this week no matter what?"
• "I'll do three as long as I'm not too busy with paying work."
• "I'll send three queries, but only if I don't feel too panicked at the time about it."

Don't judge. Just become aware of what your rules are for yourself. Then, at another time, look at them again and ask yourself a few more questions:

• Do they work for you?
• Are you getting the results you want or need, or are they feeding into bad habits that sap your energy and your serenity?

Once you've done that, you can take a leap of faith: Try doing the thing you know you should do everyday--even when you don't want to. How does it feel? Is it unbearable? Do you feel better or worse afterward? But a warning: Just like no single handful of M&M is going to undermine your diet, no single act of querying is going to quash your disdain for it. You have to do it over and over again, sometimes for months or years, before you start to have the experience of it being okay to feel uncomfortable and do it anyway.

and you find a few personal rules that don't work for you, you can apply tools we'll talk about tomorrow and Friday.

Photo by Phunkstarr.

*Please no attagirls. If I could eat it like a lady, I wouldn't have to eschew it entirely.

30-Day Organizing Challenge: Flow Through Work

Day 22's goal: Create a workflow plan

Every Sunday night I sit at my computer in the quiet of the waning weekend (can you tell I don't have kids?) and fill out my plan for the week.

I started doing this because of a very big problem: I was coming up against deadlines and realized I didn't know what I needed to finish. Or, I'd forget that edits were likely on stories I'd already filed. I'd turn in a story and become resentful when I needed to drop everything to make a few follow-up phone calls.

Now that's crazy. Edits, as any writer knows, are a very important part of the job.

What I realized was that I didn't resent the work. I resented myself for not allowing time for it. When I started this challenge, I got a lot of questions about creating time for marketing, time for invoicing and other administrative work like scanning and shredding or addressing mail, time for the gym, and time for personal things.

This chart is how I make time--and make my priorities.

My method is very basic--a Word document marked with eight columns. For you, it might work better to do it in Excel, in ACT or in your Blackberry's calendar function. The key is that whatever system you will use is the right one for you.

This is my low-tech solution, and these are what the columns include:

Column 1: Client/assignment.

On my form it comes out something like, "Chron-nabe" or "TMG-GINA." Any shorthand that helps me easily identify the project.

Column 2: Final deadline.

Self explanatory. It allows me to include both stories I've filed but for which I have expected edits and those for which I haven't invoiced. Everything stays on there until I send the invoice.

Column 3: This week.

Under this heading, I list what needs to be accomplished this week. For stories I've turned in, I always write, "Poss. edits"--possible edits--to remind me that work is not done. For stories I haven't begun, this usually means researching or contacting sources.

Columns 4-8: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

For each day, I write what I expect to accomplish or what I need to accomplish to stay on-target for my deadline. It also allows me to see that if I have three deadlines, as I do this week, I need to stagger writing them. That way I don't end up frantic and trying to draft three stories in one day.

How Many Rows?

I include a row for each assignment, from inception to invoicing, but also have ongoing tasks that get their own rows--so named because that's what I list as the deadline. It's not that they're not important. It's that they're always due. These include: Querying, Gym, Networking, Admin and Personal.

It reminds me that 1) these are real priorities and need to be scheduled in; and 2) I need to find time to do them every week. This is not optional.

In those "ongoing" rows, I include what days I'll hit the gym or go to yoga, include lunches scheduled with editors, days to scan clips and file old docs, etc.

How It Could Work for You:

Organize your rows.

Start by listing your deadlines by date. On my current list, I have an assignment that was due on Sept. 12 and one due Dec. 16. On the former, I'm waiting for edits, and I use the schedule to remind myself to drop a note to the editor. On the latter, I remind myself to get started this week seeking sources so I'm not slammed as people leave for the holidays.

After the deadline rows, I have the ongoing rows. On those, I remind myself to draft the update to my Web site, write posts to this blog and remind myself that my friend's birthday is on Thursday and need to buy her a present.

Get specific

It's not enough to just say I'm going to query this week in the query row. For me, it helps to list the specific query I'm going to send and the queries I'll follow up on.

The same goes for contacting sources in the deadline rows. I try to write which sources I'm going to call (listed by abbreviation to save space). That takes some of the crisis out of figuring out what to do next when I'm busy.

Make it visible

After finishing the chart, I print two copies. One goes on the bulletin board above my computer monitor, where I can look at it all day long if I choose. The other goes in my planner. It's small enough that it fits just fine.


Do it daily

The real gift of this list is that it saves me time when I make my to-do list for the day. (Not a list person? Sorry. This is the only way I can ever hope to get anything done.) When I fill out my to-do list for the following day--I write mine in the evening so I don't have to think about it when I get up in the morning--I transfer what I haven't accomplished today along with what my chart tells me I need to do. That way, I have a fighting chance to stay prompt with all my work and out of chaos and drama.

This, my friends, is the real source of much of my work serenity. Include everything, schedule it, and try your best to stick to it.

What works for you to keep yourself on-track in work and life?

What's Your Treat?

I'm a firm believer in staying in my body. Imperfect as it is, it serves me well, and when I'm connected to it, I have a better chance of maintaining my serenity. It's when i get in my head and start spinning that I forget what I can control and what I can't, and my serenity flies away.

So when I give myself treats, they aren't of the chocolate-and-a-glass-of-wine variety. For me, that stuff just takes me out of my body. And I've found better ways to treat myself without having to leave my body.

Here are my treats:

* Organizing. I know, I'm a freak. Lately, I've been rewarding myself for hard work by scanning in old documents. Yesterday, that means scanning in copies of my old articles from my last full-time newspaper job. It was fun to read through them, see the good work I did and notice how my craft has progressed. I know what I would do differently with my work now.
* A Bath. Dump half a bag of Epsom salts into hot water, line the tub with a few candles and click on the podcasts for This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! or Fresh Air and luxuriate for a half an hour.
* Music. At my last full time job, I was chastised for wearing headphones. But one of the joys of self-employment is that I can listen to music as I write this. My current favorites? For people of my generation and particular persuasion, Rhino's Brit Box is like a warm bath and a walk down musical memory lane in one (I mean, come on! Trash Can Sinatras and Inspiral Carpets together? Oh, Rhino, how I love you). Can You Dig It? The Seventies Soul Experience is nothing but goodness. Talk about injecting a little joy into your work day!
* Exercise. Nothing like getting out of my office and breaking a sweat to relieve tension, calm my nerves and boost my mood.
* Friends. Sometimes I do something hard and then call or email a friend--either in my field or not--to share the triumph, the struggle, etc. for a few minutes. Or, even better, lunch or tea.
* Meditation. This is the ultimate get-in-your-body relaxation treat. Even if it's for one minute at my desk, a mini-break is great.

Now, I'm sure you have your own--chocolate or wine included, likely--but here's my question for you: Do you do it?

This is one of those tips you see in women's magazines all the time: Take some "me time." It can feel like a command or threat. My wish for you is that your approach to your treats is gentle. The truth is, we all need rewards for stepping outside our comfort zones. Not giving ourselves them just burns us out quicker.

So if you have a hard time tearying yourself away, think about what your rewards are and what would feel best. It could be that for you, working on a new project is the reward. No reason your reward needs to be mine.

Serenity Tip: Resiliency

A word about illness and my last post: I was, of course, being sarcastic when I said that illness itself is the enemy of serenity. It can feel that way: You've got work to do and you can't move and that can be a recipe for obsessive worrying and self-condemnation (why didn't I plan for this? Why didn't I wash my hands more, the way they tell you to?).

But the reality is that illness is part of life and part of that 99 percent we can't control.

But what we can foster is resiliency--that is, the ability to bounce back quickly after a challenge or illness leaves us down for the count.

If you want to foster resiliency, the key is to focus on the future instead of the past. Sure, I could spend today gnashing my teeth over the fact that I lost a few days of work last week, or I can think about how to proceed with this week.

I once read something (and I'm sorry I can't now recall the source) that said that the difference between successful people and people who can never quite get there is that the successful people treat obstacles as a chance to change their behavior in the future (for instance, "Now that I've been sick I'll know how to approach clients about deadlines and how to manage my time better. I'll know to let myself rest earlier and not to take certain medicines that made me sicker this time."). People who struggle with success spend all their time looking at the past (for instance, "WHY did I do that? Why? I must know before I can move on." Or, "See? The fact that I 'failed' this time is proof that I'm a failure.").

But don't fear. You can have a little of both and still be successful. The Life and Work Connection at the University of Arizona reminds us of something very important:

Resiliency occurs on a continuum (it's not an either/or proposition)

In other words, feel free to wallow and beat your self up for a few minutes. Then think about how you can use this experience to make you successful the next time you experience it.

And have no doubt: You will experience whatever it was again. As the Buddha says, you have to remember that bad things will happen. And you have to remember that the only thing you possess are your actions around it.

So what actions should you take to develop the resiliency muscle? According to the University of Arizona, these are the keys:

1. Self-soothing: This is essentially anything that interrupts your stress response. A lot of the techniques are in the letting go toolkit. Meditation, yoga, support and prayer are all great ways to soothe your rattled mind. But it can also include cardio exercise and affirmations that contradict the anxiety building in your body.

2. Self-confronting: Essentially, this is challenging those self-doubts and negative thoughts that belong to you and pop up over and over again. For me, those are usually fatalistic beliefs about my ability to sustain self-employment and the belief that I will starve no matter what I do. Your mileage may vary, but please don't doubt that you have these grubby monkey-mind thoughts. Your job is to soothe yourself enough to contradict those old beliefs that are steealing your serenity.

The key here is to do both together:

Focusing on building your resiliency does NOT mean that whatever is going on around you is okay or that you should accept it, because maybe your growth issue involves saying no or setting a boundary where you've been afraid to in the past.

Self-soothing without the self-confronting leads to avoidance. Typical examples of avoidant behavior include withdrawing, being demanding, emotionally-driven eating, substance abuse, etc.

Conversely, self-confronting without self-soothing can lead to you beating yourself up (not good). Everybody walks a different road. For you, growing may involve backing off and letting go of control of a situation. For someone else, it may mean that they need to take more charge of the situation. Don't judge yourself by comparing yourself to others.

Two Ways to Change Focus from the Economy to Your Economy

I'm hearing from more and more people the state of the freelance landscape today:

"Since January, I've had three assignments (not high paying) and have sold two essays. My financial situation is far from good, and I'm the only breadwinner in the house."

"I have a large project pending but the client's counsel doesn't seem to be in any hurry to review my contract revisions. I am counting on this project to break my slump. "

"I'm only now seeing positive results, with two assignments I'm working on this week and potentially two more coming in this week. I've been at this almost full time each week since December 15. Getting out queries, LOIs, followups, etc. I can't give you an exact count right now, but I've gotten out at least 100 queries (new, revised or tweaked), more than 100 followups, and dozens of very targeted (with ideas) LOIs."

Still, sometimes, isn't it tempting to think it's YOU? In a way, it's almost comforting: If there really is a cabal of editors out there talking smack about that one article that took tons of revisions, then there's something you can do. You can try to change minds.

Whereas, if it's just the economy and the only answer is to stay vigilant and stay persistent and deepen your patience, then you've got nothing. There's nothing you can do but wait. And entrepreneurs? We're not known for our patience. Especially when the mortgage is due.

I talk a lot about the serenity hypothesis: That serenity isn't being happy all the time or getting everything you want (ask most lottery winners and they'll tell you the same). Serenity is focusing on what you can control and moving away from that which you can't.

And this economy? It's the epitome of what you can't control.

So how do you keep focused and sane and serene right now? Here are two techniques:

Look for role models
If you're a lone freelancer, staring at your barren inbox in frustration and worried about bare cupboards, it's easy to think that something has gone terribly wrong in your business. But if you hear, as I have recently, about tons of other freelancers going through the same thing--and getting through it, surviving and actually thriving--you have a road map.

Ask them:
How did you get through the slow times?
What did you do to keep yourself motivated?
How long did it take for the slump to pass?
How did you occupy your time?
How did you develop patience?

Especially those who say they've been through the slump a million times before--grab them. They're the ones whose resilience you want to learn from.

Pull a switcheroo
Serenity is all about switching focus from the uncontrollable to the controllable. So:

• Instead of focusing on editors not responding, work on a new query.
• Instead of focusing on two months from now when you're sure you'll be destitute and on the street, start teaching yourself a new skill.
• Instead of obsessively crunching numbers, revisit your business plan.
• Instead of replaying every stressful interaction you've had with a suddenly MIA client, send a thank-you card to an editor with whom you've always enjoyed working.

Can you think of more?

Photo by tomsaint11.

Serenity Tip: Invoice Tracking

If you're anything like me, by about the 15th of the month you start getting nervous about money. Since my income comes in in drips and drabs, my daily trip to the mailbox can feel like scaling the Andes. By the time I get there, I'm exhausted from my mental machinations: If I get this check in today, all is right with the world. I'm making it! I'm doing it! If not: Oh my god, I'm going to starve! Who am I fooling thinking I can do this for years on end?

Now, as someone who has been doing this for a few years now, I have to say: Jump off that treadmill, and fast.

There is one thing I've found that relieves this particularly tenacious brand of crazy:

Clarity
I can't overstate how important clarity is to my serenity. It gives me a sense of whether what I'm feeling is something I should really be worrying about or whether it's just a way I rob myself of serenity in the name of preparing for the worst.

For me, clarity in this case means keeping a Microsoft Word doc of my monthly income, expenses, etc. (I just re-save the same document with a different name every month.) Here's what' most important for keeping me clear about whether I need to be worrying about money. I keep a section that's called "Expected vs. Actual income." In it, I include the following categories:

* Client from whom I'm expecting a check this month
* Expected income
* Actual income
I keep this category blank till the check arrives, obviously; this category is helpful in showing me how often clients meeet payment deadlines and how often they don't. It's good info to have when I work on my business plan for the next year. If they don't pay on time, that's a factor I take into account when I decide which clients to keep and which to forgo in the coming year.
* Expected date the check will arrive
This estimate is based on past payment performance--that is, how quickly has this client paid in the past?--and what's stated in my contract. Actual performance always carries more weight.
* Actual date the check arrived.
This one is useful in the same way that "Actual income" is useful in my future business planning.

So when I woke up this morning and felt the anxiety rising in my chest about my income, I clicked open that document and took a gander. Here's what I found:

* I'm only missing three checks.
* One will arrive next week, so don't worry about that.
* One, I called the client already to inquire about it and if it doesn't arrive today, I'll call to check in again.
* The other is outstanding for two months.

Instead of feeling like a victim of my freelance life, I picked up the phone. I called Accounts Payable for that company and asked about it.

"Email me your invoice," said the very nice lady on the other end of the line. "I'm cutting checks today and I'll cut one for you, too."

Well, thank you.

See? How hard was that? I tell myself.

The answer: It's both harder and easier to pick up the phone and get clarity than it is to sit here and complain about how beleaguered I am. Harder, because it requires me to face the music. I might have to face the fact that it won't come in this month, either. Easier because once I did that, I released a tremendous amount of energy, that I can now spend on my work instead of on worrying.

Try it and see how it works for you.

30-Day Economic Stability Challenge: Budget vs. spending plan

In my experience personally and with other writers, one of the hardest things to do is keep track of our spending--which makes all the other tools useless. After all, we can't work toward putting 30 percent of out income toward cashflow or savings if we don't know how much we're making.

I know. I spent years drafting budgets in Excel, only to abandon them almost immediately. For me, a budget is like a diet--all about what you should be cutting out instead of what you get to eat. So a key to my financial solvency is to draft and follow a spending plan every month.

I'm not the first to talk about this. Lots of other bloggers and financial minds have covered this topic. And clearly I don't know what will work for you. But for me, a spending plan is the answer because I'll do it--and I won't do a budget. I've been keeping a spending plan and tracking my spending for about two and a half years now, and it's contributed greatly to my serenity by showing me where I'm spending my money and what I value. Plus, knowing how much I need to make based on spending gives me the motivation to earn more because I know what I'm getting for the money.

Here's what I love about a spending plan:

• It acknowledges that money is emotional. If I just look at a budget, I can see where I should spend my money--what would get me to one goal the fastest--but my experience with money is that I never have just one goal. Each financial decision is a juggling of a lot of wants, needs and guilt and desire. A budget doesn't have room for that. A spending plan gives me breathing room.
  
• It lets you have the things you love. A budget might tell you that the $4 frapaccino you buy every week on the way to a specific meeting is frivolous. But maybe that $4 coffee drink fills you with such joy and happiness, it's one of the bright spots of your week. If so, a spending plan lets you keep it while a budget would tell you to forgo it for some other, greater end. I do that with expensive hair products. I could get $4 shampoo at the grocery store, but my spending plan includes a considerable amount of money for the salon version because it's my one big splurge a month. I don't get my nails done, I don't shop at Bloomingdales. I treat my hair to a spa every time I wash it. It's worth it to me.
• It stops you from having a power struggle with yourself. I don't know about you, but a budget always made me feel like I was doing something wrong. If I were budgeting, I'd spend that money where I was supposed to (that diet thing again), but feel mad, resentful and guilty about not getting to have the fancy conditioner. Now that energy is freed up to earn the extra money I need to afford the fancy conditioner.
  
• It lets you want things. My spending plan also includes a number of so-called accruals--that is, things I can't afford now but that I want. Before using a spending plan, I always treated those things as luxuries, not realizing that some were literally necessary and others brought me joy. Now I can have accruals for things like a new computer as well as new boots. I don't have to do it right. I can just do it.
  
• It helps me prioritize. The great truism of money is that you can have anything you want but you can't have everything you want--at least not all at once. So I've had to sit down and figure out which thing I want first, or most. If it's a matter of saving for a computer or an ergonomic chair, a spending plan lets me put both on the list but then helps me see that I get to have one first. Which do I prefer?

Obviously, your mileage may vary. For those without such an emotional connection to money, a budget I'm sure would be fine.

Recently I sat down with a writer friend and helped him create a spending plan. He'd never had one because he thought he first had to increase his income. While increasing income is a noble goal, creating the spending plan actually gave him joy. He got to see that even on his small income, he could put a little away for reserves and even have some things he really wanted but didn't think he could afford, like accessories for his bike. It was great to watch the spending plan create some space and breathing room in him.

Tomorrow, I'll share how to create a spending plan.

Photo by Jeff Keen.

Serenity Tip: One hard thing a day

If serenity is about accepting what you can't change and acting on what you can, then this blog has spent a lot of time discussing how to let go and less about how to act when acting is called for.

Here's my suggestion of the day:

Make a list of all the hard things that make you seize up when you think of doing them--and then just try one step towards one today.

Such a list has the potential to cause more suffering than it alleviates--at least at first. Getting clear about what is stopping you, and looking at each big scary thing in its face, can feel torturous. It can look like a mountain or the Grand Canyon, depending on your sensibility. Either way, it seems like something you can't conquer.

The good think is you don't have to conquer everything at once.

If you have a business plan you may have your list of what Franklin Covey calls "big rocks" already written down: Make $X this year, break into certain publications, etc. That's a great thing. That plan should also give you steps to make those things happen: If you want to increase your income significantly, what mix of clients/projects will bring you to that income level? How much work is required?

Take one of those big things and break off a small piece to start on. Today. Don't hold back. Don't block out the business plan because it seems more like a pipe dream.

Just start, with the faith that something will shift, even if you don't get the results you want in the timeline you've determined.

If you don't have a business plan, chances are your list of scary Big Rocks may seem like a wish list instead of an action plan. So maybe your first big hard thing on the list is to finish or start your business plan. It's not too late. Gather a friend in your field and meet once a week for an hour until you get it all down. It doesn't matter if it doesn't get done till June. That just means the second half of the year will be that much more serene and prosperous for you.

The key here is to remember that mountain doesn't have to scaled today. Just make a start on it, some small bit. And then show up for it--and your business--again tomorrow.

Getting Over Outsiderism

One of the things I loved about Jacqui Banaszynski's recent guest posts on this blog is how frank she was about the challenges of looking like you know what you're doing and feeling the opposite. In the post on fear of seeming rude when you do the kind of persistence that leads to great stories, she said:

[T]he discomfort with self-promotion is very familiar. The same mother who taught me to hold my own in a sibling tussle also taught me that it’s bad manners to go bragging on yourself. And yes, she taught me to mind my own business, not be nosy, not pry into others’ affairs, etc.

Quite the dilemma for journalists, yes?

I’ve known a lot of journalists in my time who are flat-out hustlers, and I say that with admiration — perhaps even envy. They can charm, schmooze or bully their way into almost any situation and come out with the goods.

Not me. I’ve always believed — sometimes naively — that good work will get you noticed; and if not, good work should be its own reward. I also tend to lean more towards doing what works for the bigger group than for my own “score.” (Studies indicate that may be, in part, a gender-based tendency.)

I bring this up in particular because a coaching client of mine recently admitted that part of her hesitance to query had to do with feeling like she should be at a different point in her career by now. She described her main newspaper job as being with a crappy paper. She's been a full-time mom for several years now. How can she compete, she seemed to be asking, with people like me, who went to journalism school, worked at lots of papers, and is established?

What I told her is similar to what Banaszynski intimates above: Guess what? We all feel like we don't belong.

To illustrate, I told a story:

I went to Columbia Journalism School. Fancy, right? The best journalism school in the country. You'd think we'd all be walking around possessed of a level of confidence not experienced by mere hacks. We were the chosen ones, those who, the school's administrators constantly reminded us, would Save Journalism For The Next Generation.

You'd think that, and you'd be wrong.

Instead, there was a joke in the school: In our yearbook (because, in addition to being journalism nerds we were regular nerds as well), writer and former stand-up comic Barry Lank wrote a humor piece about how he didn't deserve to be at the school: Some guy named Bernie Link, or something, was out there somewhere, wrongly denied his spot at the illustrious school.

It was like the whole school had a case of impostor syndrome.

And it's not isolated just to students. Recently, on a professional freelancers board I frequent, someone posted a question with the title: "Do You Ever Feel Like You Just Don't Know What You're Doing?" The question got 13 responses, often with the reply, "All the time."

So if you're struggling with your right to be part of the group that calls itself full-time freelance writers, I'll tell you a secret. Feeling insecure is almost one of the requirements for admission. Just know that everyone is trying to find the next assignment, the next gig, the next piece of work that's going to make her career path make sense.

We do this job despite the fear, not because we're free of it. Maybe there's some level at which that fear is removed, but I haven't found it yet. I'd be willing to wager that the writer you most envy has his or her bouts with the same insecurities. There's always someone more honored out there to which we can compare ourselves.

So let's apply the serenity principle to this: If serenity comes from letting go of what you can't control and focusing on what you can, then feeling like you don't measure up definitely falls into the former category. It's antidote?
Get into the groove.

Finding and working on a query and a story you love--getting out of your brain and into your subjects' lives will--remind you that, though you may feel like you don't belong, you are exactly where you're supposed to be. The job will start making sense. You'll see that maybe you have something to contribute after all.

It's the thinking about it that bogs us down. So don't think. Do. Whatever's next on your to-do list, just do it. Get excited about your job. As Richard St. John said in one of the TED Talks I posted yesterday, passion and getting into the flow is key to success. Enjoy it.

Photo by TimWilson.

Serenity Enemy: Recession Fears

If you read any portion of the news these days, you're hearing all about the iminent or current recession. It's enough to make anyone panic in their half-off shoes. And if you're self-employed, perhaps even moreso.

Yesterday, I posted to a freelance writers Web site seeking advice on how to cope with the recession, and here are the suggestions I got:

* Be choosy about which clients you take on: Stick with stable companies. Start-ups may not be the best option right now.
* Market yourself like crazy: Sales is always a numbers game, and even moreso now. Get those queries and marketing proposals out the door, and increase the number you do.
* Build relationships: You're more likely to get the jobs if you have a connection with the editor. Set aside time every week to meet with editors or other writers. Not only is this great support, but these are the folks who are going to offer you assignments.
* Don't be precious about assignments: Take what's offered. You can't always do your dream assignments.
* Build up your reserves: Now more than ever, it's important to have money saved to support yourself during down times that may be even more inevitable now. Some self-employed friends put 10 percent of every check into a prudent reserve. Can you afford that? I can't, not right now. But I am putting a smaller percentage aside.

And I would add to all of this:

* Be mindful of how *your* business is doing, not what the news says.

The last four months have been the most abundant of my short career as a freelancer. It's not hitting me yet. What is hitting me is the fear of recession and what it can do to me. There are lots of reasons for this but one of them is experiential.

My first memory of a recession affecting me was in 1987. Black Monday didn't just conjure images of the Depression, which I was studying in school, but brought real worries to bear: My dad owned his own business and it didn't take long for all his clients to dry up and for the business, funded by his retirement savings, to go under. It was a bleak moment in our family, but we recovered from it.

The important thing for me is to let go of that body memory and focus on my 1 percent: What can I control in this situation? How many queries I send, how much contact I make and how much money I save. The rest, unfortunately, isn't up to me. And the more I focus on what I can't control--the U.S. economy, my clients' freelance budngets, etc.--the less serenity I have and the less energy I have for doing my part.

What's your worry about the recession, and what's the one thing you can do today to help yourself?