I’m a freelancer in a creative field, and lately work has been… slow. Like, really slow. I haven’t had more than one real job a month for the past three months, and I’m not entirely sure why. On paper, my day-to-day life would probably seem pretty good to a lot of people. I do what little remote work I have in the morning, exercise, go to a coffee shop to work on pitches and try to generate more opportunities, fish in the afternoon/evening, then come home, cook dinner, have a couple beers, and go to bed. That’s basically my routine seven days a week.
The problem is that underneath that, financially I’m barely staying afloat, and I feel like my career has lost momentum in a serious way. I’ve exhausted a lot of my client outreach avenues and keep running into dead ends trying to generate new commissions. I’m also constantly applying to remote jobs since I live in the Mountain West, where there’s very little local work in my field, but my skill set is fairly specialized and the few relevant positions out there are extremely competitive.
What’s messing with me psychologically is that my actual quality of life has improved a lot. I left a bigger city because I wanted a different lifestyle, and in many ways I got exactly what I wanted. I spend time outdoors, I’m less stressed day to day, and I honestly don’t know if I could go back to the way I was living before. But at the same time, I’m ambitious, single, have very little savings, and I’m starting to feel like my bigger career goals may have been delusional. It’s strange because my life looks calm from the outside, but internally I feel like I’m watching my future narrow in real time.
I don’t really know what I’m asking here. I guess I’m just curious if any older guys have been through a similar phase where life improved personally while simultaneously feeling like your career was slipping away from you.