"A difficult client can have an impact on your mental health"
Matthew Knight breaks down the mental health challenges associated with freelancing. 👨🏼⚕️
I have had a complicated relationship with freelancing ever since I took the solo route nine years ago. I love self-employment but I also fantasise daily about being an employee. I feel blessed that my financial security isn’t in the hands of a single employer, but also resent the dark financial clouds that always seem to be gathering overhead.
All of the above factors aren’t exactly mental health questions, but they do influence my mental health. That’s what I learned from talking to Matthew Knight, an independent strategist and founder of Leapers, an online community supporting the mental health of the self-employed. He launched the peer-support community in 2017 to address what he describes as the gap in support structures for freelancers.
I recently asked him all the questions I’ve had for a while now about the mental health challenges associated with freelancing. Here’s what he had to say.
What would you say are the unique mental health challenges associated with freelancing?
The fundamental foundations of maintaining good mental health are true for everybody – diet, exercise, rest, setting boundaries. The unique things which the self-employed face are a sense of lack of control. In a job, you have a manager and that’s your control system. When you are a freelancer, there are a whole host of things you don’t necessarily have control over and feel overwhelmed by – five, six clients competing over your time, falling sick and not getting sick pay; a client being difficult with you, etc.
Sense of boundaries would be the second-biggest thing. It can be easier for employees to take off their job hat at the end of the day. If you're [a freelancer] on holiday and a client emails you, that is very present. It's difficult to set those hard and fast boundaries and that can lead to a feeling of never being able to switch off. We know from our research that even taking holidays creates stress for freelancers, as opposed to reducing it.
It sounds like I'm painting an awful picture, but the truth is that most people are net happier [freelancing] than when they're in employment. The difference is that the high days are really high, and the low days are really low. And it feels like it's all on your shoulders because you don't have a team that you are sharing the load with.
Is a difficult client actually a mental health issue then?
We talk about mental health with a lower-case “m”, which is a big distinction from having a mental health condition. Everyone has mental health, and it changes over time and is influenced by things. A difficult conversation with a client will have an impact on how you're feeling emotionally. Does that make difficult client behaviour a mental health issue? No. Does it have an impact on your mental health? Perhaps, depending on the freelancer.
This isn’t yoga-and-bananas and lovey-dovey self-help nonsense – it's about the sustainability of your business. You are your business' most important asset. Yet we [often] don't take care of our own recharging needs.
I do find it hard to talk about the mental health side of freelancing. It’s the same thing as with advocating for better rates for creatives. I don’t want clients or other freelancers too think I’m not doing well financially or emotionally. I simply want us to be talking more about rates and mental health as freelancers.
We don't encourage people to talk about their mental health; we encourage people to talk about the things that are challenging them. It’s important for freelancers to talk, period. It helps everybody in the room realise that [whatever you’re struggling with] is actually a systemic issue, or simply part of self-employment – rather than them getting something wrong.
Second, there’s the wisdom of crowds. When you share a challenge, you can be sure that somebody will have been on that journey before and is able to offer input. And if they can’t, someone can say: “That sucks. Do you want to have a cup of coffee?”
That doesn’t mean that you should immediately go on LinkedIn and write about how you’re struggling with all these things. It’s more about building support networks and knowing when and where something is helpful to share, and when or where it isn’t.
Do you think governments should be doing more to support the mental health of freelancers?
They have to play a role in looking after every citizen. Ultimately, the government benefits if more businesses are generating more value for the economy. In the long term, if the mental health of small business owners is not supported, there is more of a drain on the public purse because in the UK they tend to be more reliant upon state health services than private insurance, which means the state is less able to support everybody.
Everybody wins if everybody is looking out for each other. There is no negative downside. There is data that shows that for every pound you put into mental health, you save five pounds on the impact of them falling into bad health.
Could it be a question of more money though? Could better rates, particularly for creatives, address the mental health challenges associated with freelancing?
Money doesn’t solve the problem; if anything it creates more problems. Where money does make a difference, is anxiety around money and regular income. So worrying less about regularity of income helps, but to a point.
The financial insecurity is the one thing everybody knows about before they step into self-employment. Surveys we have done show most freelancers are not cognisant of all the other things that will have an impact on their mental health. Everyone who steps into self-employment is surprised at the learning curve; all the new things they have to do and figure out; how much these things have an impact on their well-being; and that they’ve stepped away from a support structure in a job. People didn't realise how valuable that was because it is quite intangible. When they do find their support network or their tribe, they're so glad. Because they can just breathe out and feel like they [suddenly] have a team that they can talk to.”
Interview by Linda A. Thompson, photo courtesy of Leapers.
PS: Matthew will share his top mental health support tips for freelancers in our next newsletter. Coming to your inbox soon.
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