How to handle rejection as a creative freelancer
Back in 2021, I wrote this comic about handling rejection as a freelancer. I realised that how I handled rejection had a measurable impact on the evolution of my business. I’ve come to understand that if I let myself take rejection to heart, as a form of judgement on my personality / art / services, then I’m going to get discouraged and it’s going to be all the more difficult to put myself out there and represent my work. So I started to change how I looked at rejection and realised that while it’s always going to be a part of my freelance journey, it’s not as scary and meaningful as I made it out to be.
The trick is to separate ourselves as people, our self-worth and how we think about our work from people’s reaction to our services in the moment. Instead, we could look at rejection as a necessary part of working as a freelancer, just like answering emails, sending out proposals, attending meetings, etc. It’s just part of the game.
If you can achieve this separation of you as a person and the clients’ need in the moment, you will notice that it is liberating. You will spend less time ruminating on how your offer should be better, nicer, more like what others do, and instead have more energy to do things that actually have an impact on your work, such as investing in your skills, self-promotion, and delivering the best possible service to your existing clients.
These days, I track my rejection rates in an Excel sheet. (I slacked on it a little, but here is the data I DO have for 2024.) This year, I received 23 requests (that I tracked) and out of these, 10 projects happened. Do I feel bad about that? No, absolutely not! Buying and not buying is normal for any business, freelancers included. So don’t get discouraged, just keep going!
If you are a creative freelancer, you might be interested in a post I wrote about being a self-taught illustrator. You can find that here.