A Freelancer’s Journal: Don’t Give Up!

My name is Sprout ¹, and I have been writing a bit for Sprout Invoices. I’ll be honest, I am somewhat new to this whole business. Part of what that means, is that I am a bit overwhelmed at the volume of possibilities and directions that WordPress has to offer. I don’t have a lot of experience in programming or website design. That’s part of the reason I like Sprout Invoices. It is super simple. There is lots of customization I can do to bring it to my exact preferences, but it doesn’t require a whole lot. It has made the journey and work that I do easier, because it has taken invoicing as one less thing I have to worry about. In general, I find that it just works well with what I have going. It is our hope that this piece could be encouraging to those looking to figure out invoicing, or just starting out a WordPress site. If you’d like to check out our invoicing product, be sure to check out www.sproutinvoices.com.

Starting out, I don’t feel sure about what the next move is to make, or what decision is the right one. In WordPress user can customize and change and adjust to infinity if they so desire. Long story short, a part of me feels underqualified and foolish in my attempts to use WordPress, or write at all. Yet part of what I have been seeing around me in real life, as well as from Sprout Invoices, has challenged this idea.

My friends and I have been wanting to meet more people in our community. The challenge was made to basically meet our neighbors. This was a daunting task for me, for some reason. I hadn’t really gotten to know my neighbors, despite being there for a couple of years. In fact, I didn’t even know their names. My friends had even said “‘Oh, I ran into them the other day actually!” They gave me a rundown of the conversation and just a general feel for who my neighbors were.

A few days later, I went to check my mail. My neighbor was also checking her mail. The sun was shining. The sky was blue, and it was warm out. All I have to do is say hello, and wave.

A few seconds later, I cross the street over to continue the conversation! A minute or two passes, and I find out that they had felt somewhat similar to me. They had wanted to get to know me, but the previous resident wasn’t very friendly, so they just left them be. We had a really good chat, and years of just no communication were broken because for one minute I was able to push through the hesitation. I will have to do that again, but I am looking forward to it now.

It seems like WordPress, business, and even common interactions are just like that. While not everyone wants to be talked to, and not every situation is the best, pushing through the first minute is the most important. Authors describe the same thing, many over the years have said “Just write! Start!” Once you get going, the next steps come easier.

That doesn’t mean, however, it is always perfect. I’d love to say meeting that one neighbor has yielded perfect results, and from that moment on I could just talk to anybody.

I tried to meet the other neighbor! He was friendly, and it went as well as it could. However, the timing was wrong. For one, it was cold, and he was installing a mailbox. For two, he couldn’t really hear me. While that initiative was there, it just straight up wasn’t the right time. I’m going to have to try again with this man.

All of this is to say, having a passion to do something is great! It’s important to start doing work towards your small business, start blogging, or whatever it may be! It is also important to try to set yourself up for success. This doesn’t mean you spend three hours before writings to arrange your desk perfectly, but it does mean you need to work on setting up an environment you can succeed in. Perfectionism will hamper your ability to complete a task (or maybe even start it!), but throwing caution to the wind will diminish your results. It can feel like an endless loop, but allow me to encourage you not to fall prey to that trap!

Consider: You have somehow managed to get here, trying to figure out what a good next step for your blog or business is. Either you are doing research to prepare for the future, or you are already doing business and are looking at solutions to some issues you are facing. These are not small things!

This is how you get started, as well as improve! Keep working on your passion and your drive. If you don’t know what that is, give yourself permission to try, as well as to fail. Failure is such a huge portion of success. We can evaluate to see what did work, as well as where our ideas failed. Discouragement and frustration are often normal, and often mixed in with some sense of excitement and dread. Looking at history, as well as stories, there are always setbacks. All heroes have moments of weakness, every person has encountered their own doubts. We would love to cheer you on! Also, consider checking out our free plugin on WordPress (search for Sprout Invoices).

If you are a bit further down the road and are ready to pay for a solution to invoicing, with tons of other customization along the way, check out Sprout Invoices. Sprout Invoices provides a way to turn your invoicing into less of a necessary evil, and into a way that provides solid customer service and a bit of advertising flair as well. The choices are up to you! We would love to be part of your solutions for billing and invoicing and keep a huge number of integrated apps that may also be helpful for your needs here.

The business and journey that you are on is uniquely yours. You bring a different perspective and process to your business, and while we cannot promise it will be easy, we want to encourage you to keep on! Do not allow yourself to be intimidated by challenges. If you get stuck with a problem, don’t be scared to reach out for help. Often times, the solutions are just around the corner, we just need to push through the initial feelings of being overwhelmed. Sprout Invoices would love to help accomplish that task when it comes to your billing, and an encouraging word in other spots. This is your passion and your project, and we would like to help you get paid, by saving time and energy on invoicing, as well as helping you provide payment solutions that would be beneficial to your customers. Whatever the case may be though, we wish you all the best success in your endeavors, and hope to see you around again soon!