Every month we run through a series of questions to help you run your freelance business like a bigger business—“self-coaching” your way to better results and a better life. You can view a condensed version of this month’s coaching prompts here. 

Hey!

First up, it’s self-assessment month! It’s our time as CEOs of our freelance businesses to reflect and make notes on how we’ve grown, what we’ve learned, and where we want to go. If you’re new to downloading your spreadsheet, you can do that here. 

Now, let’s get going for July.

I’ve changed my perspective on a few things in my freelance journey...but this most recent one is going to sit with me for a while. 

I’ve always been a big proponent of focusing on “bringing up your lows”...basically focusing on everything that’s wrong in your business to “clean out” the negatives. But a book recommendation has made me rethink things. 

I was listening to the Binks on Switch (How to Change Things When Change is Hard), and it really pushed focusing on the “bright side” of your business...doubling down on the things you’re doing right. 

I’ve started implementing this in my freelance work (and am already seeing results), so this month, we’re working through some questions to help you test it out yourself. Ready? Let’s do this. 

# 1 Are you looking for the bright side?

It’s hard to beat negativity bias, even in our work. 

Our brains are just hardwired to prioritize negative experiences over positive. While this can have a protective effect, it can also mean that we basically forget a lot of the good things that happen to us as freelancers. 

I recognized this in myself pretty early on, which is why I started keeping a lot of all the compliments, wins, and positive surprises that happened to me. 

If you’re keeping up with your Self Assessment, you’ve already got this built in to your processes. But even a simple text document is great to revisit to remind yourself of the positive reality of your business. 

If you’re looking for tips on a good system to keep up with your bright spots, stop by the Academy Facebook group and let's see what we can come up with.