How to stop thinking like a Freelancer.

I keep falling in the same trap: Some kind of blockade builds up in my head and keeps me from taking vital next steps in building my new company. But I think I finally know what the problem is.

It seems like these last weeks, I keep on running into the same problem again and again: I know I have foundational tasks to tackle, things that will help building my new business, but when I approach them, this feeling of not having the right tools to solve these tasks creeps in. And then they just vanish—as if, unknowingly, I just shove them somewhere deep down in my head, not wanting to think about them anymore. I’m not doing this consciously, it just seems to happen to me without my own doing and I’m seemingly not able to stop this behavior, as I don’t catch myself actively doing it.

At recently founded creative studio Very Good Looking, my business partners and I have coined this ‘thinking like a freelancer’ and are discussing methods to break through it. But where to start?

”The secret sauce: putting in the hours and suffer.“

The thing is, I have been a freelancer for over two decades now, and besides a short, two-year-stint in a permament position at a German fair fashion house, I don’t know any different. What’s more; Even though I’ve been in the lead for various projects and teams all the time, I’ve always worked with little to no budget and am very used to make something out of nothing. And when I say ‘used to it’ what I really mean is ‘don’t know how to do it differently’. The secret sauce to the things I did so far has always been ‘putting in the hours and suffer’ and I think we can all agree that that’s not the right approach to build something sustainable and future-proof. I can not keep going on like that!

I don’t know how to plan out resources because I never had any. I don’t know how to outsource jobs and devolve power because I never did it before. It’s not that I don’t trust others, I just genuinely don’t know how it works. It feels a bit laughable to be honest, to actually see me write this down, put it into words, because at the same time, of course I know it’s not exactly rocket science and it’s not that I actually do not understand. I’m just having a hard time letting go of my work identity, I guess. I’ve gotten used to look at myself as a lone wolf, making the impossible happen, yada yada, all of that self-centered storytelling I created in my head to romanticize the lack of resources, visibility and combatants. 

”Now I can finally let my guard down.“

It seems I’m having a hard time accepting that I’m not alone in this anymore, that I don’t need to keep my guard up. It’s time to understand that I can trust all these wonderful humans I have in my life, all of whom crossed my way (basically all thanks my creating a vegan lifestyle magazine) and all of whom volunteered to help make it into something bigger and better, with more reach and more impact. I will, futhermore, have to face the fact that I’m not going to be able to do all of this on my own.

So that means that I have work to do. I will need to let go of old beliefs about myself and the way I think work works and welcome new and real partnerships, collaboration and team-spirit into my life, more than ever. It’s a bit scary, not gonna lie, but pretty amazing at the same time.

Working on it.

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Eric Mirbach is the Founder and Creative Director of Vegan Good Life Magazine, Co-Founder and CEO of newly founded Berlin-based creative agency Very Good Looking and Co-Founder and Head of Brand for ethical outerwear brand Embassy of Bricks and Logs.