Freelancer’s guilt is part of the job. Here’s how to navigate it.

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I feel the most guilt at the end of the day when I haven’t “done enough”, specifically when I don’t get to the stopping point I planned for. It’s an unsettled feeling that I fell short. I don’t feel like a failure, but definitely disappointed and frustrated that I didn’t reach the imaginary goal post I set.

This is one way I’d describe my version of freelancer’s guilt. It is that unique angst that comes with running your freelance practice by yourself, and the pressure to get it done is all on you.

Guilt with freelancing usually creeps in when you feel like you haven’t done enough, you’re working too much at the expense of other priorities, or you’re second-guessing your decisions.

A certain level of guilt is a good thing, as it means you care about the work you’re doing and want it to all work out. Same. While it’s expected you’ll feel guilty sometimes, it’s a problem if it’s continually coming up, distracting and discouraging you from feeling good and moving forward.

Being self-employed for thirteen years in June has taught me that this guilt is not a problem to be solved, but a reaction to be managed. The process that works for me when handling guilt is naming it, changing it, reframing it, and offsetting it.

Naming It: Identify the guilty moments

The first step to understanding when guilt is entering the room is naming it. When I start to feel emotional highs and lows during work or explicitly about work, I try to categorize what the feeling is and where it’s coming from. Sometimes it’s guilt, but not always.

Naming the guilt helps it feel less random, opaque, and confusing, so I have more clarity and self-awareness on how I might proceed from there. Sometimes naming it helps diminish the seriousness and makes it feel smaller. A reminder of sorts that it’s my brain’s reaction to the daily stresses of work and life.

My suggestion when you start to think you should have done more or acted differently is trying to name what feelings you’re experiencing. When I feel pressured or down on myself about work, I’ll say: “Here comes the guilt.” I hope that it feels a little more routine and less like a crisis to be resolved, which is usually the case for me.

With that said, it’s not a universal exercise, as research shows that “affect labeling” can help reduce emotional intensity for some, but for others, studies indicate naming has made them feel worse about negative experiences. Experiment to see what works for you.

Changing It: Take action at the source

With certainty that I’m experiencing a moment of guilt, sometimes the source of this feeling is something I have control over and can change for the future. You often have more agency than you think, especially when self-employed.

This is an ideal scenario as it’s a moment when you can take action to adjust your circumstances and remove or lessen one of the ways guilt affects you directly at the source. That doesn’t mean there’s a quick fix, just something you can change for a better outcome later.

The source of your guilt might be working too many hours. If this is persistent, maybe it’s time to track the projects you’re working on and reorganize your schedule in line with your capacity. That way, you’re able to better manage your workload so you’re working more reasonable hours.

If you’re feeling guilty about not delivering for a client and you’ve exhausted your options, one helpful move is having a transparent conversation with them on how you can adjust your approach. That’s better than not delivering, suffering in silence, and not getting their input on how to fix it.

Or maybe your inbox is a source of daily guilt as you’re not able to respond to your messages quickly enough. In this case, you could change the tools or processes you’re using to manage your inbox and surface your most important emails that need an immediate response.

One way I changed course is by adjusting my to-do list at the end of the week by removing items that I didn’t get to that were never really a priority to begin with. I used to review every task on Friday that didn’t get finished and feel bad that I hadn’t completed everything I intended to.

But realizing that doesn’t accomplish anything. I’ve started to simply delete some of the tasks I didn’t get to, as they weren’t necessary anyway. These nice-to-have tasks didn’t happen because they’re not a priority and aren’t connected to important projects or milestones that move the business forward. So instead of dwelling on them, I delete them entirely at the end of the week if they’re not actually necessary. This little shift helps remove some guilt at the source.

Reframing It: Adjust the dialogue in your head

In other moments, I change the narrative to attempt to diffuse the guilt. When a work thing is continually bringing me stress, anxiety, and guilt, I attempt to reframe it. The keyword is attempt as I’m not always successful at convincing myself of another way of thinking of a stressor.

But when there’s no action to take, it’s always worth the effort of considering how I can think of this work challenge differently, so it’s not so heavy and becomes more doable in the process.

I’ll ask myself questions like:

• Is this worth feeling guilty about?

• What if I just accept this as normal?

• If this isn’t going away, how do I make this something I ponder about less often?

• Who can I speak with to see how they’ve navigated this?

• What’s a way forward here, instead of continuing to dwell on this?

• Which aspect of this do I genuinely find interesting and worth focusing on?

Answering these has helped me move from overthinking to considering a new solution and sometimes, even distracts me enough to tackle an entirely different task. There’s certainly tasks you don’t want to distract yourself from, but when you can, it’s a great mental trick to get unstuck.

Offsetting It: Recognize your accomplishments

When the guilt has nowhere to go, another way I try to make myself feel better is offsetting the negative by focusing on the positive things, like what’s going well at work.

Considering your accomplishments, satisfied clients, and the milestones you’re most proud of about your freelancing efforts can help put things in perspective, at least it does for me. I’m trying to minimize or shut down the guilt that’s surging by saying to myself, “You’ve done enough.”

This is when it’s helpful to have a swipe file of all your wins to sort through as a reminder. For me, I look at my LinkedIn profile to reflect how far I’ve come. Writing that sounds a little ego-heavy, but it puts me at ease that I’ve done hard things and will persevere.

Maybe the positive things you reflect on have nothing to do with work, like the great things you’ve got going on in life that your income helps support, like hobbies, your family, etc.

For me, that’s knowing my loved ones are proud of me. Simply the thought of it makes any work calamity or guilt trip seem inconsequential in comparison.

Whatever counterbalance can help offset your guilt even for a moment is worth it.

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