What do you know now that you wish you knew then? It’s a question that gets asked of many people at many different stages in their lives and I’ve found myself looking in the mirror about this query. I’ve been a professional freelance writer for five years and, it makes me wonder, what would I tell my past self?
Absolutely, I know a lot more about running a successful home-based business now than I did when I first started out. It’s not just about the logistic and administrative duties, like handling sales tax and invoicing, but it’s also about the day-to-day. As Ray reminded me, Scrooge McDuck once taught us that we need to work smarter, not harder and that’s a philosophy worth remembering.
But that’s not what I would tell my past self. I don’t know if it would be valuable advice in the first few days of freelancing, but I would tell myself to expect the income plateau. It sounds obvious enough, but this is really something to take to heart.
In each successive year of freelancing, I steadily increased my annual income in leaps and bounds. It really did feel like the sky was the limit. I wasn’t rich, by any stretch, but the increases were encouraging. Then, it hit me. The plateau. I tried working harder, but it didn’t get easier. Soon, I had to learn about working smarter and adapting to the situation.
For example, I’ve started making some strides in shifting from selling services to selling products. The book is a big part of that, even though it hasn’t been as lucrative as I had hoped, but I am working on an e-book for release later this year too. Through tactics like these, I aim to increase my passive income so that I don’t have to rely nearly as much on my “active” income.
And that is how I intend on overcoming this plateau and reaching for the next rung in the ladder. These goals are more than carrots on a stick. They have meaning and I am motivated to reach them. So, Michael of five years ago, recognize the plateau and learn how to get past it.
“work smarter, not harder” I live by that 🙂
Yes Michael, that is good advice to yourself.
The same plateau hits the person trying to lose weight or the weight lifter or the runner. Mix it up, don’t put all your apples in one barrel. Try some different things to break through to the next level.
I like the post too much basically the theory of hard work and smart work. By doing smart work one can earn a lot rather than hard work………..
I’ve hit plateaus when it comes to weight lifting and it does get discouraging. You just need to keep moving forward.
I would say to myself, don’t sweat the small stuff. When I first started out of was way hypercritical. I didn’t give myself enough room to fail and try over, if i failed i gave up and moved on to the next. Slowing down and weighing options is important. So slow Down and allow yourself to fail would be advice i would give myself.
Okay, I think the Top Thinker this month is going to be a bot with all the junk comments that have such poor grammar and make no sense whatsoever.
I’m probably gonna turn of subscribe to comments on posts that I comment on because it’s a waste of time to read those comments. I really do read all the comments when they come to my email because I want to discuss things with others, but reading junk comments isn’t worth it.
Ya!You rae right here.I am totally impress to read this nice post.It is a good advice with have a good collection of nice collection of ultimate thought.
Thanks
Raj………!
For myself, I think I would tell myself to be more out going, and to work harder. I would also tell myself what things would of worked back then had I know what I know today as far as making money online. I would probably tell myself a few of the stock market trends while I am at it too, lol.
-Jean