Happy Skills Development month!

I’ve had a problem creeping up on me lately, and that’s feeling like I’m getting worse at what I do as a freelancer. I KNOW that’s not true, but I’ve been feeling like my writing just…isn’t good anymore.

That’s not ok. I believe that every freelancer should feel confident in what they do, so I’m taking a lesson from my martial arts life, and going back to the drawing board.

I learned that any time I feel like I’m losing more, getting tapped out, and just not performing well, I need to break out some informational materials and focus a little more on improvement instead of application.

This works for 2 reasons.

First, whenever you feel like you’re falling off, it’s usually an issue of improved perspective and hyper-focusing on your faults. Shifting some time to improvement means you’re not spending so much effort critiquing yourself, you’re just moving forward.

Second, when you work to improve, you actually do tend to get better, so everybody wins!

This month, we’re going to work on building those materials for you. Every freelancer should have a strong library of resources they can turn to to improve latently, or whenever they need to. (If you already have a library, it’s time to refresh.)

Let’s start with the basics.

Regardless of how high-tech your skillset is, there’s a book, or multiple books out there that will help you improve.

If you can swing it, I’m going to suggest buying or checking out the hard copy on this one. Physical books provide both a visual reminder and lack of distractions that audio or e-books just can’t match.

Do some research and pick yours up this week, and if it’s especially good, come over to Skype and let everybody in the group know!

Megan

P.S. This is a chance to help other freelancers out in developing their skills, so if you find anything you really love (even if you want to hype your own site or courses), shoot them over, and if they fit, I’ll add them to the Skillset Resources list on the site.