It is about a month and half into my freelancing career. I would be disingenuous if I didn’t say that it has been super intense. The hardest thing has been creating protocols, and learning the nuances of each client. I did anticipate this, but reality is always different when you’re living it.
In my life I’ve had a lot of difficult times, and it’s usually during those moments that I grow the most. Right now is a growing moment wether I want it to be or not. I am starting a freelance career basically from scratch (which just might be crazy) and I’ve also decided to break my credit card habit at the same time. This is not for the faint of heart.
Why on earth would I decide to put myself through all of this hassle? Because I know that I’m capable of getting to the other side. You know, like in an action film where the hero has to go through a jungle, escape flying poisonous arrows, and jump over a waterfall in order to get to the prize that they seek. I am the hero of my own story.
Despite the stress and anxiety that I’m feeling, I haven’t felt so alive in a really long time. I wake up at 6:00 a.m. every morning, I brainstorm, and I make things happen. Every single day.
After years of allowing my overachieving self to languish, I need to prove something to myself. I need to prove that I can do whatever I put my mind to. I need to prove to myself that I can set a goal that to many is unattainable-and attain it. That I can figure out the unspoken ins and outs of: finding love, losing weight, or growing a freelance business.
Adversity is where “the magic happens.” Where those who can manage the bull crap that life throws at you, are able to learn a lesson, and turn it around to their favor.
Adversity comes into your life at different moments-when you can’t handle it and when you can. If you feel like you can’t handle it, you have to dig deep and believe that you can. If you feel like you can handle adversity, you have to be careful about becoming cocky. Dealing with adversity requires a cool head.
The lesson that I’ve learned is that I am able to handle adversity whenever it shows up in my life. Adversity walks hand in hand with success (almost always). If you look at the following successful people: Lisa Nichols (motivational speaker), Payton Manning after his neck injury, and a large number of the personal finance bloggers that I follow.
I embrace adversity when it shows up at my door, I don’t fight it. Because I can kick its a@@. I just think of creative ways to handle whatever situation that I find myself involved in. I’ve found the following to be true: things change, they always do.
Do You Find That Adversity Seems To Walk Hand In Hand With Success?
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All your freelancing posts scream to me “quit your job already! You can do it!” We have slightly different circumstances but I do find your posts encouraging and enlightening. And I agree – you’ll be a success!
Right now it’s a little intense because I’ve been working and the payments are just now starting to come in. So, that lag time has been stressful. After April I’ll be good-but it’s been real in April LOL!
That is really great to know that you know how to work around, Michelle. It means that you’re getting better and learning something in each adversity you deal with. Kudos!
If you don’t learn then you’ll always be upset when crap happens..and it always does LOL!
I do agree with you that adversity and success go together – hand in hand as you say. Thanks for sharing your thoughts because I often need a little (or a lot) of nudging to accept that as a good thing and embrace the challenge as you are doing.
Trust me-I have to work on accepting this too. But, I’ve learned over time that this is always the case so I’ve decided to embrace this reality instead.
If it was easy, everyone would do it! 🙂 Although it would be nice it had more easy times than challenging times! I think adversity happens to everyone, but it’s the most successful people who come out the other side and have learned something or grown from the experience. Hope those checks start rollin in!
Happily, the checks have begun coming in. I have several clients that pay bi-weekly so now it will stagger every other week. Now, I would like to start focusing on freelance writing gigs which I haven’t even begun looking into.
Sometimes it’s hard to overcome your fear and take on the challenge.
Why do you think it took me so long to make changes? LOL! I knew that there would be some pain along the way. And I was living, in some ways, a very cozy life.
This is a good observation that I seldom have put together. I’ve had a lot of personal adversity in the last year, maybe I need to reevaluate and give it a positive spin. Thanks,
Don’t get me wrong-right now I’m annoyed with myself. But, I know that I just have to push through. What my relatives had to go through back in the day is 10 times more challenging than what I’m dealing with now. So, I just try to learn from my tough times.
Good for you, especially for working on breaking the credit card habit! I quit credit cards cold turkey back in August and that was a ROUGH transition, even with my normal job. Keep up the great work!
In retrospect I probably should have done this before my trip. I wasn’t ready for it. It hasn’t been rough not using the cards…it’s been rough waiting on cash to come in as my invoices are paid. Yawzas!
I love this! People tend to run when faced with adversity. Instead, we need to face it head on because the other side of it is sweet, sweet success!
Face adversity head on and kick its butt!