On today’s show I talk about how the pandemic is forcing some of us (me included) to pivot and how we need to find our own resilience to be able to pivot and work on our freelance business. I don’t actually want to pivot right now. I like what I was doing with my business and where it was going. But I don’t have a choice, as I’ve lost clients and projects and need to replace that income. I had an anchor client that was about 48% of my income. I knew that was risky; I knew that wasn’t recommended. You should aim instead to have several anchor clients, no more than about 30% of your income. Now, that anchor client is on hold, so I’m forced to pivot—and I don’t know for how long. Some days I am optimistic and know that if I work hard I can get new writing assignments from regular clients and past clients. But I still feel sad and upset and annoyed that I lost clients and have to do other things now. My husband reminded me that I’m in mourning, mourning for the type of business I had and the client I liked to work for every week. Grief is about loss—it doesn’t have to be only about death. And the uncertainty can sometimes be the hardest part. That is called “anticipatory grief.” We have no idea how long this will continue or what things will look like in a few months, a year or two years. You are allowed to be sad, annoyed, upset. You’re allowed to grieve for what you had just a few months ago. You’re allowed to grieve for all those plans you had for 2020. (So many plans!) Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from hard times. Think of it as mental toughness. Think of it as “bouncing back.” Being resilient doesn’t mean you won’t still be worried or scared or sad at times. But if you can find your own resilience, you can start to figure out how to better manage this sheltering-in-place and how to manage your freelance business. You can start to accept this pandemic and economic collapse for what it is and start to look forward at how life might change and what you can and need to do. I don’t want to be Pollyanna. I know some of you have lost all or almost all of your freelance income. I am sorry. That is scary. But resilience means figuring out what you are going to do with your time now and how you can plan for the future, even if it’s not possible to get work right now. Maybe you can pivot, but maybe you can’t. Maybe you need to focus on applying for unemployment and loans and seeing how you can downsize. A PositivePsychology.com article cites the American Psychological Association, which describes several factors that contribute to resilience. These include: The capacity to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out. A positive view of yourself and confidence in your strengths and abilities. Skills in communication and problem-solving. The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses. Having a strong self-esteem and confidence in yourself is really helpful right now. But what if you don’t have those? You can build a stronger self-esteem. Just to name a few tips: Allow yourself to feel a wide range of emotions. Now is not the time to bottle up your emotions or hide them. In fact, so many people are feeling similar feelings. Plus, people are really understanding right now. Focus on self-care. What helps keep you going? What helps make you happy? We would all do well to get more sleep, eat healthy, drink more water. But what unique things do you love? Another way to find your resilience is creating a structure and routine. That has been hard recently as everyone’s routines have been upended. But now we’re fully in this pandemic and we’re going to be here for a while, so what new routine and structure can you create for yourself? But remember to give yourself some grace. Don’t beat yourself up when you fall out of your structure. Just get back on the horse and try again. I’ve been working on getting up early—after sleeping in most days till 8 or 9 a.m. during the first six weeks of my shelter-in-place. I also