When we are starting out in business, we are often so excited to have any opportunity to do the work we love.
We may offer what we do for free to those around us. And this can feel like such a positive; a fantastic opportunity and really exciting to us.
This can also benefit us by helping to build our confidence, experience and processes in our businesses… versus no work at all.
Soon when we do take on our first paying clients, often this eagerness we have to do the work we love – and sometimes our desire to please our clients – can allow more work than we first agreed on to creep into what we are doing.
Or we didn’t have a clear agreement around how much work we would do, at all.
We can feel as though we are grateful to our clients for choosing to work with us, and for giving us an opportunity.
However, over time, as we work for free or overwork for the amount we are paid, we start to either resent our work, our clients or both.
We can also find ourselves in a position where we don’t have more capacity to take on paid work, because we are overworking, and being underpaid for our existing clients.
So how do we stop working for free, or overworking for our clients?