Do What You Need to do to Succeed
^^ Listen to a recording of the article below.
^^ Listen to a recording of our discussion about “You Need to do You Need to do to Succeed.”
When I transitioned to freelance FT, my biggest enemy was me.
I knew this though.
This story has two parts. Here goes:
First, my friend’s dad makes fake limbs. One of the things he does for kids is to fit them with the fake legs before they wake up from surgery. The first thing amputees often do when they wake is look for their missing foot. To lessen the shock, they wake, look down, and see two “feet” under the covers. It helps with the mental shock of losing a leg.
Now it’s back to me and my anxiety for part 2 of this story.
For the first 8 months of my first year as an independent artist, I kept an unread email in my mailbox at all times. It wasn’t even an email from the potential client; it was just some unread (and, therefore, bolded) junk mail
When I opened my inbox, it appeared as if I was getting replies.
Sometimes I was legitimately getting a very small amount of business, and sometimes I merely had my “fake foot email” in there.
Like the prosthetic foot on an amputee I knew it was fake, but it soothed my irrational monkey mind so I could focus and get back to work, which led to me getting clients later on.
My point is - you need to do what you need to do to succeed, as long it doesn’t hurt anyone (including you).
A fake email is extremely silly, right? I mean, if I mentioned that in the crowd of people, someone would probably have a smart ass thing to say?
…but I did it because I knew myself and knew what I needed to do to keep going.
Do what you need to do to keep going.
Even if it’s “dumb”
Go. Win.
❤️
Written by Sarah Dahlinger
Discussed by Sarah Dahlinger and Sarah Forde