Don't Let Success Go To Your Head

Don’t Let Success Go To Your Head

Feb 19, 13 • In Inspiration

This is a guest post by law student and part-time freelancer, Malds Menzon. He’s into fitness and healthy living, so check out his blog at http://thefitpinoy.com/

Will Smith’s grandmother was a wise woman. She told him:

Don`t let failure go to your heart and don`t let success go to your head.

As freelancers, we know all about failure.

Freelancing is not easy, and we’ve all failed at least during the early parts of our careers.

But I don’t want to talk about failure (at least not directly) in this post. I want to talk about success and how it can lead to failure if we let it get to our heads.

The Story of a Freelancer

A while ago, I met someone on my old blog (it’s currently down and set to be re-launched in a couple of months) who was really interested in freelancing.

She showed a lot of interest in working online and asked a lot of questions so I did my best to answer them.

Attractive woman holding her head Like most people, she had her inhibitions about it. Can you really get paid? How do you get your money? How do you avoid being scammed?

The usual fare.

She was already working but she wanted something to supplement her income and decided that freelancing was worth a shot.

So after our quick back and forth conversation on my blog, she jumped on oDesk and applied for a couple of jobs.

She was hired in just a couple of days, lucky. She got an easy data entry job, finished it and got paid.

She went back to my blog and left a couple of comments telling me that her client gave her full marks for the job and an “A++++” on the feedback comment.

She was elated.

Of course she was. She got a big break really early. She found a job quickly, it was easy, she got paid, and she was given the best feedback possible.

“The rumours about internet success and financial freedom were true after all,” she must have thought.

Her horizon widened. She had found new land to conquer, and it excited her.

But that’s not the important part of her story.

She told me that when she was hired, she was so happy she almost took a leave from her current job just so she could finish the assignment quickly. But she didn’t, thank goodness.

Good thing she was able to reign in her euphoria and not let it override her common sense.

This post is about the mistake she almost made. It’s about how something so good can cause you to do something stupid.

The lesson in her story is simple.

Don’t Be Rash

Back in college I used to go on a lot of retreats, the most common ones being silent retreats since we were a Jesuit run school. If you’re religious, the feeling you get during these retreats and shortly after is an unexplainable bliss.

It can be considered nothing short of a kind of “high.” It’s actually very similar to the feeling you get when you succeed in something for the very first time (remember how happy you were the first time you earned money online).

You feel invincible. It’s like you could do no wrong and that every obstacle in your way can be overcome by the sheer strength of your beliefs.

You’re brought to the very heights of passion and your soul becomes drunk with euphoria.

It’s a wonderful feeling, but very intoxicating.

I don’t know about everyone else on the retreat, but that’s how I felt.

I came down from Tagaytay (we had it there) thinking I’d just found my calling in life.

When we got back to Manila though, one of my friends, a Jesuit brother (he’s a priest now), told me that I should never make any major decisions right after a retreat. He said that the spiritual high will cloud my judgement.

Wait a couple of days or a week and reconsider.

I could have been a Jesuit if I didn’t follow his advice.

I never forgot what he told me. The lesson was simple, but powerful.

Never make major decisions when you’re euphoric from success

businessman jumping into the air Wait for your head to fall from the clouds, and when your feet are on the ground again, reconsider.

But let me bring it back to freelancing, since this is after all a freelancing blog.

Let’s take going full-time as an example, since it’s something that we all have to think about at some point.

When you finally get that amazingly high paying project, when you’re finally getting job offers, when your income online is starting to edge closer to your income offline, when everything seems to be going your way—stop, sit back and look at your situation with calmer and more objective eyes.

Don’t pull the trigger right away and say “I’m going full-time.”

Let your feelings settle first. Wait a couple of days, or a week, or even a month.

And finally, when you’ve sufficiently sobered up from your drunken elation, that’s when you think about it very carefully.

Are you really earning enough?
Will you be able to consistently get jobs?
Do you have enough money saved up in case things go wrong?
Will you be able to find another job if things don’t go well?
What about the benefits you’re getting at your job? Will you be able to earn enough to replace them?
What happens if you get sick?
Have you thought about taxes and how much you’d have to pay if you go solo?
Can you support everyone that’s depending on you?

These are just some of the things that you need to ask yourself. But if I had to sum everything up, the main question would probably be:

Are you really ready for such a drastic change? Or are you, perhaps, just too euphoric to think straight?

I’m not trying to dissuade anyone from taking risks. We all have to take risks to move forward, but we should be level-headed when we decide to take them.

Don’t let your feelings control your actions.

Being passionate is a good thing because it’ll keep you going. But always remember to temper it with reality and common sense because those will keep you from failing.

Malds is a law student, part-time freelance writer, and newbie internet marketer who enjoys blogging. In his spare time he likes to surf, box, and train in muay thai. His dream is that someday he’ll be able to do these three all day everyday which is why he’s working hard now so that he can live a lazy and laid back lifestyle in the hopefully not so distant future. If you’re interested in reading some of his stuff or if you want to get in touch with him, you can always find him over at his fitness blog.

best practices challenges freelancing freelancing lessons freelancing success inspiration

About the Author: Guest Blogger

Guest bloggers are welcome to submit interesting and insightful posts in relation to freelancing and the Pinoy freelancing community. Visit http://thefreelancepinoy.com/write/ for the guidelines and steps on how to become a guest blogger on TFP.

12 Responses to Don’t Let Success Go To Your Head

Malds says:

February 19, 2013 at 10:11 am

Thanks for letting me guest post again Stef .

Reply
- Stef G. says:
  
  February 20, 2013 at 1:01 am
  
  No problem, Malds! Thanks again for writing for The Freelance Pinoy.
  
  Reply
Lui B. says:

February 19, 2013 at 9:10 pm

Hi Malds,

Great job on this post. I agree that success–be it in freelancing or something else–can never be achieved overnight. It takes a lot of patience, planning and risk-taking to get there. Unlike other solopreneurs, I never planned to be a freelancer. When an opportunity knocked on my door a few years back, I instantly jumped on the freelancing bandwagon without knowing what could happen next. I soon failed big time and even thought about quitting a couple of times. But I learned a lot and my persistence paid off.

Greatest lesson? Never quit your day job without a solid strategy. And always remember, freelancers are only as good as their last projects.

Thanks for keeping my attitude in check!

Reply
Malds says:

February 19, 2013 at 10:03 pm

Thanks for the insightful comment Lui.

The sudden rush of success can be intoxicating and it can lead to some bad decisions. So it’s always important to hold ourselves back and wait till our emotions settle down before we make any major decisions.

You’ve learned some awesome lessons, thanks for sharing them.

Reply
Stef G. says:

February 20, 2013 at 1:12 am

Great post Malds! Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

While I’ve never been an employee, I do agree that humility and a level head are necessary for success, especially when you’ve finally tasted the fruits of your labor and you’re revving up for bigger and riskier goals. With all the excitement going on, you may make rash decisions and end up with the wrong choices. The consequences could cost you your happiness, time, and even money.

What you can do is to analyze and know exactly when to take hold of the right opportunities and let go of those that may not work for you. It’s a tricky skill—one I have yet to learn and master—but it pays off and is much more fulfilling.

Reply
Malds says:

February 20, 2013 at 4:37 pm

^everything Stef said

Reply
Zion says:

February 22, 2013 at 6:03 pm

This is definitely true. Just like Stef, I haven’t yet experienced being an employee (unless you consider being a tindero at your own sari-sari store) but I do know that you shouldn’t just jump in the freelancing bandwagon without any back up plan. Freelancing is not for everybody. A lot of people get burned out easily since they don’t have many projects and easily give up on finding some for themselves.

Decisions should be made by your mind and not by your heart, this lesson I learned the hard way during high school.

Reply
- Malds says:
  
  February 23, 2013 at 10:53 am
  
  haha high school??? Is this some sort of early romantic heartbreak lol?
  
  You’re right, freelancing isn’t for everybody. It’s not an easy thing to do everything yourself. So it’s important for people to really think of what they’re getting themselves into before jumping into full-time freelancing.
  
  Thanks for dropping by and contributing your experience Zion .
  
  Reply
Glori Surban says:

February 23, 2013 at 3:46 pm

I had to bite my lip from laughing out loud. This post is for the “me” several months ago.

I was already unhappy with my previous employment so when I tasted some success, I quit. LOL. When I think about it, I was just waiting for an excuse to leave my old job. I now realize I could have gone about the transition better, but even though my introversion told me to take it slow, it was one of those rare times that I didn’t listen and just plunged right in.

I’m not saying everybody should do the same, but sometimes, you have to take risks.

But yeah. Think long and hard, people. :p

Reply
- Malds says:
  
  February 28, 2013 at 6:25 pm
  
  It’s good everything seems to have worked well for you Glori .
  
  I know some amazing people (not personally lol I read about them) that succeeded right after getting fired or after quitting a stable job so there are some rare instances when being impulsive can work for you. But like I said, it’s rare for things to go so well. Real life is harsh so it’s always better to be prepared.
  
  Reply
Ram says:

March 8, 2013 at 1:02 am

I can relate to this blog post. I have this full-time offer in great company, I’m happy with freelancing but very interested with the job, I want to grab it on that day but I’m happy that the company gave me some time to think and after 3 days, I realized that freelancing is something that I want to pursue right now but someday I am looking forward to work full time since I directly freelance when I graduated from college.

Reply
- Malds says:
  
  March 8, 2013 at 10:34 pm
  
  Cool. You’re sort of like in the reverse situation of what I wrote about hehe. Pero pareho tayo, my first job ever (excluding working as an RA in school) was a freelancing job din. So I can understand why corp jobs can be attractive. Dami kasing differences nila sa setup like workplace community, a bit more structure, benefits, etc…
  
  But the main thing that made me stay with freelancing (and now blogging as well) is the freedom I have to work wherever I want and work on only things I like. So I doubt I’ll ever be attracted to a corp job again, unless it’s something like as a consultant or something very liberal like that.
  
  Reply