Saying goodbye to Making a Living
And hello to Your Freelance Ally <3
Hello! It’s Ebs. This newsletter is changing – instead of talking about my relationship with work, I’ll be talking about my relationship with freelancing. It’s a small tweak, but it means the content will be a little more niche. I’m calling it ‘Your freelance ally’.
Going forward, this newsletter will explore the emotional realities of freelancing. I’ll share my learnings and adventures with you as someone who has taken an unorthodox, free-spirited, and instinctive approach to career-building.
If this new lens isn’t your jam, please go ahead and unsubscribe. If you scroll to the bottom of this email you’ll see the ‘unsubscribe’ link. Or you can head to my Substack homepage and unsubscribe from there. Thanks so much for being a part of things so far.
This is the first time you’ve heard from me in a while.
I took an extended break this winter – nearly three whole weeks! I haven’t taken that much time off since I started my business six years ago.
Taking time off should feel easier by now. It isn’t. The second I stop, I feel like I’m falling behind. I try to remind myself that this is a byproduct of capitalism; we feel guilty when we’re not productive.
A tiny part of me also worries about how I’ll feel when I finally stop. Maybe I won’t want to go back to 100 miles an hour. Maybe I’ll do the coffee shop dream that so many of my knowledge worker friends share – buggering off to a sleepy town, starting a cafe, and never opening a laptop again.
So I guess you could say I have a weird relationship with time off. And that’s minus the logistics of actually booking a break.
There’s the physical side of taking time off – notifying clients, completing the final bits of admin, and setting up the out-of-office. Then there’s the emotional side – convincing myself that work won’t disappear between now and my return, that terrible feedback isn’t waiting for me in my inbox, and fighting the urge to launch my phone into a nearby river.
The emotional side is the hardest part for me. My freelance and personal identity are intrinsically linked; they snake and intertwine so intricately that I’m not always sure where one begins and one ends.
And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried, late last year, about running out of things to do when I’m not working. I wear ‘freelance’ like a badge of honour because it is for me. Six years in, freelancing is the longest commitment of my life.
But this break did exactly what I needed it to do – it reminded me exactly who I am when I’m not doing freelance work. I’m the child who loves Christmas, the sequin-stacked socialite with a conversation starter for each guest, the host who plies you with food and drink and love. I’m the quiet writer who lights a candle, nestles into a cushion, and gets lost in her next short story.
This break gave me time to be, and also time to think. So I’m doing things differently in 2024. I’m guarding my personal identity and freelance identity with equal gusto. I’m letting both exalt themselves; holding space for each, allowing one to feed into the other.
This month, the resources section is full of stuff I explored during my winter break. Things that made me think differently about freelancing, goal setting, and creativity. I hope they’re useful for you too.
The resource section
🃏If you do any kind of creative work, I’d recommend getting your hands on Pip Decks. They have decks for strategy, storytelling, and innovation. Each card contains an exercise or tactic to help you think differently and problem-solve. We used them for an internal strategy day last year, and they helped us discover new freelance avenues to explore in 2024. Preeeetty cool.
📈I’m not great at goals, but thanks to this vid by Ali Abdaal, I’m actually making progress on the stuff that matters. This 16-minute gem was recommended to me by a pal (thanks, Lauren!) Ali takes you through three different frameworks that help you turn your goals into simple weekly actions and behaviours. No more setting and forgetting, friends.
✍️This one’s for my fellow writers: The National Centre for Writing has some bloody brilliant courses on creative writing. I recently completed an introduction to creative fiction, and what surprised me most was how supportive the community is. I’ve made wordy friends and learned so much about storytelling. What more could a gal want.