Setting Goals As A Freelancer

It’s extremely important to set goals as a freelancer because not only will having goals help move your career along and keep you motivated they also give you a measurable way to track your progress and how far you’ve come. Setting goals can also help you make a more direct path to where you want your freelance business to go and it can cut down the time it requires to get you there as well. Overall goals are a very useful tool for  adding a little bit of good pressure to your business in such a way that can push you to reach new heights you may not have been able to reach otherwise.

When you first begin setting goals it’s important that you don’t do it in a random way otherwise you’ll just find yourself running in a lot of circles without any real meaning or direction. Your goals aren’t there just to push you forward relentlessly and without purpose - they’re there to assist you in creating the type of life and of work that you want. And because you’re a freelancer, meaning you don’t have a boss keeping track of your progress or performance it’s up to you to set those standards and bench marks for yourself. The best way to go about this is to begin by deciding what it is you really want and then following that up with goals that help you achieve just that.

So what is it that you want out of your freelancing. Do you want more money? More time? Fewer clients? More clients? Better rates? Is there a new field you want to move into or a different aspect of your work you’d like to pursue? Whatever it is sit down and make an effort to really decide what it is you’re looking for and then come up with some specific measurable goals that will help you achieve that faster and more efficiently.

Now when you come up with these goals make sure they’re dependent on you and not other people. For example you can make the effort to create ten new pieces of art to sell, or talk with fifty new clients a week, or something along those lines but you may not be able to control how many new sales you get or whether or not you make a certain amount of money. You can certainly influence those things but you don’t want to run yourself ragged trying to bend the entire world to your will. Those types of goals will only stress you out in the long run and usually don’t get you any closer to what you want.

Instead come up with goals that support you in the efforts you make to achieve them. Be sure that you’re goals are measurable as well. Goals like “make more money” don’t really work because how will you know when you’re “making more money” - when you get a five cent raise? That’s probably not what you’re looking for so make sure that your goal depicts exactly what it is that you’re looking to achieve and that it states it in a measurable way.

It’s also important that your goal has a very clear and established deadline. You don’t want your goal dragging on for years without completion right? So make sure that your deadline is reasonable but also pushes you a little bit out of your comfort zone so that you have to work hard at it. Goals that have ridiculously tight deadlines will become overwhelming and soon you’ll give up on the whole thing entirely and that doesn’t do you any good either. So make your deadline and stick to it but don’t drown yourself in work in the process.

You also want to have goals that make sense for your overall vision of your freelancing business. If your ideal business has you making higher rates and accepting less clients so that you can have more free time then having a goal of finding a bunch more clients just because it seems like the right thing to do to further your business isn’t really the best idea. Instead you’ll want to be doing something like investing more time in bettering your product or increasing the value of your service so that you can raise your rates and thereby reduce the number of clients you need which allows you to have more free time.   So make sure that your goals make sense for whatever it is you really want out of your business and don’t be setting goals that you think seem “appropriate” or “realistic”. Set goals that make you want to dive into action right away. With goals like that you’ll be much better off when it comes time to do the actual work it take to get there.

Which happens to be the next step. Once you’ve got your goals mapped out it’s time to figure out what you can do to make them a reality. Just think in terms of baby steps here. You don’t need to rewrite your business plan or anything - and you’re not launching an attack plan here either. Just find a few simple things you can do every single day that will get you closer and closer to your goal. Whether that’s making a few more phone calls, putting together a portfolio, taking a new class - whatever it is just find something measurable that you can do and then continue to do those things every single day until you reach your goal.

The hardest part here is just taking action. It’s so much easier to sit in the “planning phase” of your goals then it is to actually start working on them. It takes a lot less courage to rewrite your goals on paper, outline, organize, and alphabetize them than it does to actually get out into the world and start making things happen. A lot of this hesitation comes from the various fears we harbor. Fears of not being good enough, of failing, of losing money, time or resources etc. These fears are usually unfounded but they often seem more than real enough at the time and that’s all it takes to stop your goals dead in their tracks. It can be difficult but the best thing to do is just feel the fear and do it anyways. Don’t let your comfort zone hold you back from accomplishing what you really want in your business.

Once you’ve begun to take action the momentum of you moving towards your goals will help keep you focused on track. There will be times where your motivation waxes and wanes but the important part is to keep moving and keep making progress. Those periods of low motivation will happen but having a system and a set of reminders to keep you focused on your goals can make things a lot easier when it comes time to push through and keep making progress.

Having visual reminders of your goals posted around your working environment as well as having your goals written (or typed) up in places that you can see them can work wonders when it comes to keeping you on track. Some times it can be really easy to “forget” about a goal for a little while but if it’s important enough to you then put up those reminders so that your goal is constantly fresh and on your mind. Techniques such as these prevent you from using the “I forgot” excuse and encourage you to take repeated action every day to achieve whatever it is that you want.

It also helps to have a reward system working for you that allows you to reward yourself and celebrate any small successes you may have along the way to reaching your goals. These rewards are important because they help you enjoy the journey of completing your goals instead of just waiting for the end progress to bring you the results you want. It’s also a good idea to choose goals that you know will have a satisfying journey as well as a good end result because then you aren’t trudging away doing work you hate - you’re doing something you enjoy as you make progress to something else you want.

As you move through the process of completing your goals it can sometimes be helpful to see out friends or family to help keep you motivated and support you throughout the process of achieving your goals. However, be forewarned, this only works with family members and friends that genuinely want to see you succeed and have your best interests at heart. If you’re having a down day and you go talk to a friend that does nothing but whine and complain as well you aren’t setting yourself up to make any more progress towards your goals that day and in fact talking to such people can do a great deal of damage when it comes to your goals. Negative or doubtful people can deter you from your goals, bring down your self esteem, and ruin your belief in yourself and your ability to achieve your goals. All it takes is a couple offhand comments about how you probably aren’t going to make it anyways, how it just isn’t going to work, and how no one else has done it so why should you be able to.

Small suggestive comments like that can do more than enough damage to actually cause someone to sabotage their own efforts (consciously or unconsciously) and prevent any further progress on their goal. This is especially important to be aware of as a freelance artist. The freelance artist field is one of the most competitive, narrow, hard-to-break-into fields out there and because of that there are plenty of people who will tell you that artists are a dime a dozen and that the odds of you becoming successful - or even breaking even - are slim to none. Be careful who you share your goals and dreams with because they can have a big influence on how you move forward with them. If there is someone in your life that you feel will be supportive of you then go ahead and share your plans - they may have helpful tips or strategies or even a few resources that can make your journey a little easier and a little shorter. It’s also especially wise to seek out a mentor that can assist you in this way especially if you can find someone from the particular field that you’re looking to be successful in. These people have blazed a path for you and are often aware of shortcuts and easier methods that you might not have discovered quite yet. Seek such people out and ask for their assistance in any way you can.

Above all the most important part of setting and reaching goals as a freelancer is to simply have enough faith in yourself to believe that you can get whatever it is that you achieve. Big goals and visions, like building a business from scratch, living successfully off your art, or heading down a path no one in your field has tried before can seem very overwhelming at first but if you pursue and keep at it with little steps each day you will soon see the accumulation of a great deal of hard work and progress and eventually you’ll make it to wherever you want to go. Once you get in the habit of setting goals and moving towards them it will become much easier to accomplish them. You’ll gain the will power to work towards things that are important to you even if you don’t feel like it that day. You’ll have the courage to disregard the opinions of those who say what you want can’t be done, or is impossible to achieve, and even more importantly - you’ll prove to yourself that you absolutely can have anything you want, do anything you want, or be anything you want. There’s little in the world more powerful than that. So take some chances, plan well, work hard, and remember to show up with little bits of progress every single day and before you know it you’ll be setting new and bigger goals and living the life of your dreams.