What are your freelance business plans for 2010?
Do I mean 2009? No, I mean 2010.
I ask simply because the further you look forward, the more likely you are to achieve some remarkable results.
Many freelancers and small business owners work within a very short time horizon.
For instance, a typical freelance copywriter might look forward three or four weeks, anticipating the next few jobs that will come in. A working week or month comprises looking for new work, executing current work and billing for past work.
In fact, this circular process, within a very limited timeframe, pretty much describes the way I managed my own freelance business for many years.
I knew I could pretty much depend on bidding for and acquiring new freelance writing assignments week by week. So I didn't really worry much about the future beyond a horizon of a few weeks.
Past experience had taught me that each month tended to work out OK. Some months were better than others. But the bad ones were compensated for by the good ones.
The trouble is, I only achieved what I anticipated achieving.
That is to say, by looking ahead just a few weeks at a time I was unconsciously limiting what I could achieve.
As soon as I started to think a little differently about my business, and look forward one, two or even five years ahead, everything changed.
I no longer just looked at this week's work schedule as being the normal grind, on the way to a month's decent income.
Instead, I began to plan for where I wanted my business to be in five years' time, and then judged every assignment and every day's work against my goal.
I would ask myself questions like:
"If I spend two days on this assignment, will it bring me closer to my goal for the year? Or will it get in the way or slow me down?"
"If I don't take on this assignment, is there a much smarter way in which I can use the time to get me closer to achieving my goals?"
Now that my own time horizon takes me several years into the future, I am much better able to escape the self-limiting habits I had as a "typical freelancer".
I no longer thing of what I can achieve within a month.
I think in terms of what I could achieve in five years.
So...what are your plans for 2010 and beyond?
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