Being happy in your work is important as a freelancer.

 

If you don’t love what you do, you’ll end up avoiding work constantly, and eventually your efforts in freelancing will fail.

 

We’ve all been there, you find yourself going through the motions of your work, not really enjoying it, not progressing toward any of your goals and not having any motivation to improve your work. This is probably one of the worst situations you can find yourself in, especially considering that, as a freelancer, no one is going to tell you to get your butt in gear and get things done.

 

If that’s where you’ve found yourself lately, don’t feel bad. These situations can be caused by any number of things, most of which are all too common. Maybe you’re working so much that you don’t have time to relax, and work doesn’t hold any appeal anymore. Or perhaps you don’t feel that your skillset is adequate, and you’re beating yourself up over the perceived quality of your work. Either way, being in a rut isn’t good for you from a business standpoint or a personal one. Not being happy at work isn’t fun, it drags your career down, and it can really wear you out.

 

The good news is that it can be fairly easy to get yourself out of a work slump. Yes, you can begin to feel happy in your work again. It may take a little extra effort, and it won’t happen immediately, but I promise you’ll be back to enjoying your work before long (if these ideas really don’t work after a week or two, maybe it’s time to switch careers).

 

How to be Happy in Your Work

 

The biggest thing that I’ve found helps me to happy in my work is simply being a little more active in my field. I don’t mean active in the sense of simply doing more work, but finding ways to do it better.

 

To do this I typically look for something in my work that I’m not totally pleased with my performance on, or something closely related to my work that I don’t know much about. For example, for a long time I never knew much about social media marketing, or marketing at all for that matter. So I spent some time and looked up several articles on social media marketing. I actually ended up spending the better part of a day learning about what works on social media sites, what doesn’t, and why those techniques work. Because I took that time to learn a new skill, I have another service that I can offer to my clients. Having something new to offer potential clients, or improving your skills with an existing service can really help you to get excited about your work again, and this is what usually helps me the most.

 

Another method of getting out of a slump is to just take a vacation day. Mind you that this vacation time will have to be kept limited, otherwise the slump will give you motivation to continue your little vacation and you’ll never get any work done again. But, having a little time off to clear your head can really help you to come back to work refreshed and ready to tackle new projects and challenges.

 

I find that the best way to keep myself out of a rut is to continually explore new things in my profession. It helps me to stay fresh and active in the web design community, and helps me to continue refining my skills.
Try reading just one work related-blog post per day. Watch one work-related video or webinar per week. Pick up a book on a new skill you want to learn. Keeping up a constant flow of new information will help you to avoid putting out work that looks stale, and you’ll soon find that you’re back to enjoying your job.

 

 

Want to learn how to connect with influencers in your industry, and use those connections to grow your business? Check out this video course to learn how!