How to Avoid Creative Burnout and Grow Freelance Career

Unrealistic deadlines, long working hours, non-stop work, lack of inspiration, and so on. If you are constantly battling with any or more of these, you are on the path to suffering creative burnout.

Creative burnout is very demotivating and you start to doubt your abilities. It can impact your career and your life.

 

Case Study:-

Bob once had a client who would take weeks to define a requirement. But once the requirement is defined, he would constantly follow up day and night pushing Bob to complete the task as soon as possible. While the client would have utilized this time to define the next requirement and save on time. The client never focused on defining a backlog of items for Bob to complete. 

 

Needless to say, this project ran for years with no sign of getting completed. The client was frustrated because of slow progress and so was Bob. Bob was delivering his work faster than he usually did. This impacted the quality of output as well. Bob tried explaining this to the client; he pretended to understand but never acted on it. Client was frustrated because of slow progress but he never realized the root cause is his slow requirement defining process. It was the client’s poor time and project management skills that caused the creative burnout for him and Bob.

 

In this article, we will touch upon the strategies which you can adopt to avoid creative burnout and take control of your freelance career.

 

How to Avoid Creative Burn Out

 

 

Know the Causes of Freelancer Burnout 

In the above case study, we saw how bad project management caused creative burnout to a client and our freelancer Bob. The deadlines were unrealistic and constant follow-ups created an invisible negative force around Bob causing frustration and loss of work satisfaction. The client avoided the work delegation, he was expected to trust the freelancer Bob once hired. A client’s job was to define the backlog of work items with realistic deadlines after discussing with our freelancer Bob and letting the freelancer do his job.

 

 

Don’t fret about missed opportunities 

There are times when people make bad decisions. So if you think you were the right fit for a position and you were not hired for it, it’s okay. It was a bad decision by the hiring manager. It’s okay even if you missed the opportunity because you were not prepared for it. It’s more important to realize and work on it rather than fretting about it. Work on the next opportunity don’t fret about missed opportunities.

 

 

Don’t judge yourself by other people’s accomplishments 

All of us have different starts, paths, and ends. Our life question papers are different. So the answers would also be different. If somebody else accomplished something great and you have not YET that doesn’t mean you are not capable enough. It’s just that you are still a work in progress. Focus on your goal and keep working towards it. Don’t compare yourself to others.

 

Case Study: Bob was working in an organization with one of his friends Terry. Terry was very motivated and had always aimed to buy a supercar one day. Terry worked day and night towards this one goal. He did side hustles to make money and save. He finally was able to buy a supercar. While Terry was focused on his one goal to buy a supercar, Bob was also focused on just one thing, saving the money. He didn’t focus on client satisfaction or creating more sources of income. His only goal was to save money. Now as soon as Terry bought the super car, everything for Bob changed. He started feeling demotivated and had a sense of burnout. He lost interest in his work and in the end, Bob was fired due to his poor performance. Bob is now not able to save any money. Bob ruined his life just by a simple comparison. While Terry just focussed on his goal and achieved what he wanted.

 

 

Don’t over-commit 

It’s okay to over-commit for a few days to win the client’s trust. But, you cannot sustain for a longer duration by over-committing yourself. Be realistic when committing something to somebody. If you are not able to fulfill your commitment then it would be a worse impression than committing realistically and then delivering it on time.If you are habitual of over-committing then you are bound to feel burned out as you would be constantly struggling to fulfill your commitments finding little to no time for yourself.

 

 

Practice time management 

Time management is essential to understand what you can do at what time and whether you would be able to deliver it on defined time. It plays an important role in defining your commitments to clients and work. It helps you have a perfect work and life balance.

 

Case Study – Our freelancer Bob was excellent at finishing the work. He never failed to deliver anything. However, he was never able to deliver it on time. If he promised to deliver something tonight, he would never be able to meet the deadline. He would require constant follow-ups from clients to deliver the work. While he was working hard to meet the deadlines (defined by him) but he was never able to meet them. The reason was simple he was not practicing time management. He would promise to deliver something at XYZ time without thinking if it would be possible. As you can guess, this turned out to be in a situation like unrealistic deadlines for him and caused him to burn out before time.

 

 

Eliminate distraction

As a freelancer, you have to make the best use of your time. Your time has to be as productive as it could be. You can achieve this by eliminating all distractions during working hours. This would allow you to complete your work on time, with quality, and with ample spare time to work on your next gig or spend on a vacation with family. After all, this is what freelancing is about. Be your boss. Take control of things.

 

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Posted at - Mar 27, 2022 & Last Modified at - Mar 28, 2022