It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it. I am pretty sure the majority of you are familiar with this quote. It’s applied in freelance writing career as well. Providing writing services are amongst the easiest ways of generating income online, although it may take a while to start building up confidence and earn a decent income you can live on.

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Nevertheless, you can just as easily destroy your freelance writing career the same way you built it. This is a “wake-up” article that states 7 insane habits that you should get rid before they destroy your freelance writing career.

Recommended Reading: Popular (But Bad) Writing Advice You Should Ignore

1. Selling yourself short

“If you sell yourself cheap, you will never get out of that hole.” This is another quote that fits like a glove when it comes to selling your services for what you are worth. If you possess a writing talent that is able to deliver content that meets your clients’ needs then you obviously should get paid for the value you provide.

You have your rights as a freelancer. The rights of negotiating your rates and the power of saying “no” to assignments that pay pittance. Don’t sell yourself short, it hurts your professionalism and kills your freelance writing career.

Also read: Freelancers: 10 Things Clients Don’t Like Hearing

2. Overindulging in social media networks

Twitter, Facebook, and any other social media network can have a destructive impact in your freelance career. We all know how important and beneficial they are for a freelancer; however, they may harm your productivity if they distract you from performing your duties.

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To avoid social media distraction, log off all your accounts and stay focused on your tasks. Moreover, set a favorable and regular schedule only dedicated to social media purposes for a proper time management.

Recommended Reading: Powerful Branding Techniques Through Social Media

3. Winking at criticism and rejection

Nobody is perfect. In freelance writing you will encounter a lot of different clients; some of them are rigorous and pay attention to every single detail in the work you submit. Some of your work may contain silly grammar and spelling mistakes, and in others, a weird tone or unsuitable wording. These clients will criticize your work and in the process, will cast doubt on your potential.

However, criticism is essential in any career. One should take it in a positive way with no hard feelings before it fizzles out confidence. After all, critics make a better freelance writer because there is always room for improvement. Objection to criticism and rejection may harm the relationship with your client, as it is often believed that “the customer is always right.”

Recommended Reading: Freelancers: How To Deal With Insecurities

4. Claiming to be an expert

This is common practice among freelance writers. Pretending to be an expert in a certain field in order to increase the odds of getting hired is a misstep. If all you do is research, then don’t sell yourself as an expert.

The moment you state your expertise in an industry, your clients will expect you to deliver high-quality content as a person who really knows the field inside out, not an average researcher who just takes bits and pieces of information and put them together, or worse, plagiarize the work of others.

If you fluff producing compelling work for your clients you will end up losing their trust. Trust is very critical for your business and in many instances it determines success. Don’t push yourself beyond your limits if you don’t intend to put your credibility at stake.

Check Out: Freelancers: 5 Ways To Lose Your Clients

5. Over-stacking projects

Most of the time, you are eager to reel in as many writing projects as possible in order to earn more money. Without realizing the amount of work to be done and the tight deadlines to meet, most likely, you will end up delivering content of dreadful quality.

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Great quality work is what clients want from you. If you muck up while churning out your tasks, you will slowly be digging your own grave as a freelancer.

Recommended Reading: Tips And Tricks For Writing Fast (And Professionally!)

6. Procrastinating

Procrastination is unmistakably a productivity killer that hinders success. It is a formidable habit to deal with. The syndrome of “I will do it tomorrow” has caused the ruin of many careers. You should figure out a way to crack it, or avoid it before it affects you.

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Forcing yourself to get your work started, breaking up your tasks into feasible parts, writing even when you don’t feel like you are in the mood, are among a variety of actions you should implement to avoid procrastinating on your work.

You Might Like: Time-Tracking Mac Apps For Freelancers – Best Of

7. Under-promising and over-delivering

I guess this isn’t the first time you have heard of under-promising and over-delivering. Over-delivering is a sublime tip. Keeping your clientele impressed and oversupplying them with value is great for your business. It leads to repeat business, referrals and ultimately an increase in your income stream.

On the other hand, under-promising is a dangerous habit. You probably don’t want your clients to think that you are not capable of undertaking more challenging projects. That might just make them go to other freelancers first, offering additional work to them just because they didn’t think you would be able to handle the job required.

Conclusion

Generally saying, it’s fairly easy to earn money by just writing for people. In fact, “insane” habits can turn your career as a freelance writer into a notable flop. If these habits cause an adverse effect on your productivity and keep sabotaging your competence as a writer, then, you should cast them aside before they kill your line of business.

The capability to obliterate habits that will eventually become dead weight for your career as a freelancer is really important. If you cannot keep them away from your lane, you will be destroying very soon what took you so long to build.

Some of you may look forward to Feb 14 as a day to celebrate your love, while others treat it like any other Thursday. Technically Valentine’s Day isn’t restricted to a celebration between two people who are dating, or in a relationship. Valentine’s Day can be celebrated with good friends, family members, or just about anyone who is lucky enough to be loved by you. And this is even more so with the start of new relationships.

If you are hoping to declare your love for someone, surprise them by asking them to go steady with you, or just to remind them that they are always on your mind, we have 5 creative ideas you can try this Valentine’s Day.

Recommended Reading: 30 Gift Ideas for Valentine’s Day

1. Love Declaration? We’ve Got It Covered

Declaring your love for someone face to face may be easy for some of you but if you really want to make it special and announce it to the world, we have a way that can make everyone take notice. Rather than just share one declaration on one page, why not share it via your social network covers?

You can do it with Facebook Covers: Be My Valentine, [angel's name]!

Check Out: 40 Creative Facebook Timeline Covers (PSD template included!)

Or juice up your Twitter header to reflect your love story like Ken & Barbie did here.

Try this idea out with other social networks that you and your better half are on.

2. What Will Our Baby Look Like?

Warning: this may freak some of you out, so try this at your own risk!

If you and your partner have played with the idea of having kids, this may be a fun thing to do. Grab two photos, one of you and one of your partner and drop by Baby Morpher to see what your future kid may look like.

1. Upload both photos into the app.
2. Choose the gender of your baby or click ‘Surprise Me’.
3. Choose your kid’s skin tone, or click ‘Surprise Me’.
4. Finally, click the ‘Show me our baby’ button at the bottom. Results may vary.
5. Share the photos to your partner by sending it to her Facebook, Twitter or Email.

3. It’s A Love Poem, Baby Just Say Yes.

If it is too late for you to setup something elaborate like a dinner with a string quartet, or a home-cooked candle-lit meal, then let’s take to social media to save the day. This is a bit tricky, but I think it is worth the effort: Schedule a string of love ‘lines’ to your other half but put it on all of your social networks. If you want to up it even more, schedule them so that the storyline can be followed.

1. First, create your love poem:

Hey, we’ve been together for a while,
And this may sound rather crazy,
But here’s me popping the question,
Be my Valentine, Call me Maybe?

2. Next, schedule line after line of your poem to your social networks.

We are going to try this out with Twitter.

You can do this the manual way and wait to release your lines, or schedule them. Check out how: Social Networks – How To Keep Up Like A Pro

4. Invade their Screens!

We’re guessing if things are getting serious, you can at least get into their phone or tablet, right? Why not change their lock screen view to surprise them? You can put a love note there, a picture of you, or a ring? Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a rush, but you get the idea.

You know what? If your partner has an Android phone and if you have the skills and time for it, you can even customize their home screen for a completely, one-in-a-million look.

More Examples: 40 Really Cool Android Home Screens For Your Inspiration

5. Hide Your Surprise Behind QR Codes

QR Codes are touted as a great marketing tool to connect offline customers to online materials. But it’s also a great tool to hide, then execute the surprise you’ve planned. Your Valentine’s Day plans can be turned into a treasure hunt with proper use of QR Codes.

Nowadays you can use QR Codes to link to a Youtube Video (created just for her), a location on Google Maps (where a romantic dinner will be), to a phone number you can immediately call or to a website URL or Facebook page (See Idea #1).

Even better, now you can put designs on QR Codes, change it to a color that is not black and white, or print it on a cup or a T-shirt with services like qrstuff.com. Personalize the bejeesus out of that Code and gift it to her on Valentine’s Day for her to claim her surprise.

Bonus: 3 more Creative Ideas

1. Create Stamp Cards

You have a certain photo that you wish to send to someone on Valentine’s? Why not turn it into a unique stamp card. They have collections of templates for you to choose from. And you can even set a prize for every tenth stamp they get.

2. Surprise Him/Her with rotating wallpapers.

An extension of Idea #3, play instead with the wallpapers on her computer. Manage a set of photos or wallpapers of your choice and put your favorite lines and inscriptions in. Then set them in slideshow mode.

3. A message in a Playlist

If your partner is the kind who cannot live without his music, you can hide your messages in their playlist. If you are up for it, you can arrange the song titles to spell out a message, or just hide a completely unexpected message in one of the song titles.