If you are a solo freelancer like me, you might not realize how employee morale impacts your business. Employee, you ask? Sure- you. In this article, I’m going to try to convince you that paying attention to your own personal growth by seeking out off-line activities will improve your skills, your income, and your attitude.

As freelancers, we have the opportunity to make our businesses both enjoyable and lucrative. One or the other alone isn’t really satisfactory. If you just enjoy yourself without making any money, it’s a hobby. If you just go for the dollar and hate it, it’s a job. When you are able to combine them, you have the makings of a career and a lifestyle worth having.

A psychic burden.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Writing for others can be a grind. When a deadline looms like a storm front, all crackly with lightning and ominous intensity, we are liable to just quit and seek shelter. Doing that fails the client and fails us. A commitment for five articles on the proper storage of construction materials can suddenly seem like an insurmountable mountain of pure drudgery; and the title we struggled to earn, ‘freelance writer’ seems like a synonym for ‘wage slave’. How are we to escape this muck and get our enthusiasm and energy back?

Well, I hear drinking heavily is useful, but that costs money (and eventually much more). What works better is simply paying attention to your own needs and creating an off-line life. Not only will this rejuvenate you, but it will tend to make you a more interesting person. Both of these traits will appear in your writing.

Solutions

Here are some off-line, writing related (read that as tax-deductible) activities to try:

• Join a writer’s group. Face to face stuff, not online. This puts you in contact with other writers, other opinions and styles and usually forces you to critique someone else’s work. You can count on learning quite a bit. Even once a month is enough. You don’t want to make this burdensome. What you want is a respite from the love affair you have with your computer screen and keyboard. (Don’t worry; they will be there when you get back.)
• Do some free writing for a cause or hobby you care about. Very few non-profits have the status to turn away free articles. If you have a hobby you love, write something for a newsletter or magazine in that field. It can’t be forced. You need a subject you already have an opinion on and know something about. If it seems like work, don’t do it.
• Mentor- the verb, not the noun. Surely by now, everyone you know, (and half of the people they know) are aware that you freelance. Probably you have heard more than once, “I used to write. Can I make any money online?” Take up the challenge. Mentor someone. Show them the ropes, hurdles and bridges you had to pass over to get where you are. It doesn’t much matter if you are a guru or a novice. Someone needs your help, and in helping that person, you help yourself. There is nothing so beneficial as teaching to lock-in what you think you already know.
• Plan and take a day trip. The planning and the anticipation will expand this from just a mere break, and turn it into a memorable and mind-cleansing mini-vacation. My next day trip combines this idea with a previous one. I’m taking a day off next month to attend a fireworks shoot. With material gathered there I’ll write an article for a fireworks hobby magazine. I’ve been thinking pleasant thoughts about this trip for the last two months. That’s a good deal. Christmas may come just once a year, but you can create your own holidays as needed. After all, you are the boss!
• Veg - power naps, laundry, cooking a nice meal or simply dashing out to the library- any of these can give you an immediate attitude boost. A sort of quick tap on your personal reset button. One guy I knew would get up, have his coffee and start into it. He’d write till he started to lose the rush and then stop, shower and shave, have some breakfast (or lunch) and only then, refreshed and alive again, get back to it.

There isn’t anything really new here. You already know it. But do you do it?

Here are a few more reasons to treat your employee well:

As writers we tend to get absorbed in our work. We mine our own brains for ideas and shapely prose. You need a break from this inner life fixation to recapture a fuller humanity. Trust me, other people sense this in you. They can readily detect if you have a morose, vicarious existence or a vibrant and interesting life. You bring this into your interactions and it shows up in your writing.

Call it spiritual energy if you like. It’s a certain something you can only sustain by seeking out new experiences. I think of it as staying sane.

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