You’ve heard me say time and time again that copywriting is an incredibly fun and rewarding career.
And it is. But … it’s still a career.
There are inevitably times in life—whether as a freelancer or full-time, copywriting or otherwise—when you just don’t feel 100%.
And sometimes we attribute those crummy feelings to the wrong things.
Cloudy days, an odd text from a friend, a sick family member: a lot of factors in our lives can impact how we’re feeling.
On this episode of the Build Your Copywriting Business podcast, Kate and I are talking about how we deal with the days when we just can’t. Those days can still be productive days—if you know how to approach them.
Listen now for our best tips and tactics (and a few confessions 😳).
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Looking for closed captioning or a transcript? Watch the episode on YouTube!
A Sneak Peek at the Episode
[01:02] How to weather the inevitable ups and downs of business. We know that you’re not always going to be pitching. Sometimes you just fall off the bandwagon and don’t even realize it.
[02:42] Copywriting is an amazing career. It’s still a career and we are still human. The people we work with are still human, which means that we’re going to have good days and we’re going to have not so good days.
[04:41] Just getting curious and asking those questions. Is it from that phone conversation, was there something else that happened from your day? Things that might not normally ruffle our feathers are harder to deal with. That is the sign that I need a vacation, not that I need to change careers.
[09:20] You need to stop everything. Make the time for it. Take that break because you’ll come back to whatever you’re doing that much fresher and instead of something taking you two hours that should take you half an hour.
[09:35] Getting that break will help it be more efficient. But just the clarity that you get from a good night’s sleep or a walk in fresh air, eating something or taking time an extra 20 minutes, half an hour to cook something that you wanna eat. It makes a big difference just to give yourself that space.
[13:05] We don’t default to taking care of ourselves first, which is a flaw in the human design but we default to beating ourselves up first, pushing ourselves harder first when really it would be so much better if we would actually take a real break.
[14:05] When we’re talking ebbs and flows of freelance, I think every freelancer has this moment, it’s not working or why should I go get a nine to five? I learned to lean into those moments to be like, you know what? I didn’t pitch and that’s why I don’t have work right now.
[15:30] So they’re always gonna be slow and we get very emotional. It’s very easy to be emotional as humans. And it’s very hard to take ourselves out of that emotion because we feel it so strongly. When I go have these moments, I pull up my spreadsheet. There’s no emotion in the data.
[17:20] Once that emotion passes, don’t hang onto that panic. Don’t hang onto that stress. Once that passes, feel it, let it go. It really is a matter of looking at numbers. if you’re not happy with the results, what are the inputs that got you to those results?
[19:37] There are gonna be times when things aren’t gonna be great. Take care of yourself. Take time off, but also lean on your community.
[20:54] Before you post, just do think it through. But it is okay to say, Hey! guys I’m having kind of a crummy day. Can anybody offer any perspective? So it’s letting people know what’s going on, but then asking for help. So not just unloading your emotions, but to say, I’m having this challenge.
[23:15] We would start our freelancing careers and it’s just gonna be all right, here I am and here are my processes and here’s what I do every day. That’s never gonna change and I’m done. The reality is life is not like that. Business is not like that. There’s always gonna be a future that we can’t predict.
[25:17] All of the people who were originally big business gurus were like, AI’s gonna take over. They are now all saying, it’s great, but you need a really skilled human to do the actual writing great as a tool, but you need a skilled human.
[26:00] As much as possible try to catch yourself before you go down that spiral. And the CCA students, if you have questions, reach out, ask on a coaching call, reach out in the group. Anytime that you are concerned about anything we want to help you through this.
[28:11] Because this is life, you will have days that aren’t so good. You will have some crummy days and that is absolutely part of the process. But the great news is that they will not last.
[28:39] The only way that you stay, that you turn a crummy day into a crummy week or a crummy month, is if you stay perseverating in those feelings and you don’t take care of yourself and get yourself physically able to handle that.
Must-Hear Takeaways
As with every episode, we highly encourage you to listen to the entire conversation! But here are a few of the highlights:
” You are gonna have so many good days and you are gonna have some off days. How to deal with those off days. And I think really the great place to start is to make sure that you are getting adequate sleep and that you are eating healthy foods.”
” Especially now as adults, we have to be the ones to take care of ourselves and to advocate for ourselves and to make sure that we are being healthy ’cause our businesses rely on us.” – Nicki
” It could be the roads in my area aren’t great. A little bumpy road. A few potholes here and there that need filling. But I get to my destination. I got there. The road got me where I was going.” – Kate
” If you’re not happy with the outputs, look at the inputs and then go back but moving forward, change those inputs to get a different output.” – Nicki
” Everyone learns the pitching lesson, because it’s easy to say until you feel it and realize, oh yeah, I had it on my schedule even, and maybe I ignored it.” – Nicki
” As humans, we have to experience it firsthand for ourselves to actually understand and for those concepts to stick.” – Kate
” Doing the things that we have control over to create the future that we want, as best as we want it. And being as proactive as we can, but knowing that stuff’s gonna happen and we can’t cross those bridges until they actually even happen.” – Kate
” You’re gonna have good days, you’re gonna have bad days, but you will be fine. And in the long run, you are gonna have a very, very successful career.” – Nicki
Mentioned in the Episode
- Ep 157: Are You Living in the Gap or the Gain?
- Ep 134: Keep Copywriting Fun: 3 Must-Implement Business Boundaries
Related Links
- Ep 144: Navigating Ups and Downs in a Copywriting Career – Tammy’s Story
- Ep 147: How to Avoid Freak-Outs & Solve Any Challenge
- Ep 143: Business Builder or Time Waster?
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About the Build Your Business Podcast
Ready to turn your love of writing into a successful copywriting career?
Join professional copywriters Nicki Krawczyk and Kate Sitarz to get the tips, tools, and training to help you become a copywriter and build a thriving business of your own. Nicki and Kate have 20+ and 10+ years of experience, respectively, writing copy for multi-billion-dollar companies, solopreneurs, and every size business in between.
Whether you want to land an on-staff job, freelance full-time and work from wherever you want, or make extra money with a side hustle, the best place to start learning is right here.
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Last Updated on January 14, 2025
