Stuck in the Spotlight or Guided by Starlight?

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What light are you living in as a freelance marketer? Spotlight, starlight, or daylight?

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James Williams, a former Google strategist and expert in focus, believes there are three kinds of attention:
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1. Spotlight attention

Spotlight attention happens when you’re focusing on immediate-term actions. The projects right in front of you. It’s called spotlight attention because it involves narrowing down your focus. If your spotlight gets disrupted, you'll struggle to finish the task.
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2. Starlight attention

Starlight focus helps you apply yourself to your longer-term goals, like projects that unfold over time. This is the light of 'who we are.' You want to start freelancing. You want to grow your business. You want to be a good parent or partner. It’s called starlight because when you feel lost, you can look up at the stars and use them to guide you towards your goals. When you lose sight of your starlight focus, you lose track of your longer-term goals and can forget where you're headed.
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3. Daylight attention

Daylight attention is the focus that makes it possible to know what your longer-term goals are to begin with. How do you know you want to become a freelancer? This is the light of our values and long-term goals. Contemplating these bigger concepts takes reflection and clear thinking. You can only see these topics in the clarity provided by daylight.

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​Getting Caught In the Spotlight​
As freelancers, it’s easy to get caught up in our spotlight and lose sight of our starlight and daylight.

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We get consumed by day-to-day tasks. Meeting client deadlines, ensuring customers are happy, sending invoices, and chasing payments. Yes, they’re important parts of keeping our businesses running smoothly. But, if we don’t actively develop our starlight and daylight attention, we can forget who we are and where we’re trying to go.

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Developing our starlight and daylight requires intention. We need to make time for periods of reflection. Give ourselves space to let our minds wander and think deeply. To challenge ourselves to dream bigger.

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If you’re like me, the thought of this "big think" feels like a guilty pleasure. How can we carve out time for something as frivolous as dreaming about our freelance future when we have a business to run and clients to serve?

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The better question is: how can we afford not to?
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Here are three strategies you can use to help you break free of the spotlight:
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Develop a 10x vision for your freelance future & review it daily.

A 10x vision is a crystal clear picture of your future. To create your 10X vision, take your wildest dream for your freelance future and start to fill in the specifics. Step into your dream, look around and note the people, places, events, numbers, and facts that must occur for your dream to become a reality. Your goal is to describe your future with the same clarity as you can describe your present.
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Take stock of your values.
Clear values are like road signs on your journey toward your freelance future. Values allow you to make difficult decisions like which clients to work with or what services to offer. They are the North Star of your starlight focus. Zero in on your values by reflecting on what is most important and personal to you (not what others might expect). Once you’ve developed a list, define what those concepts mean in your own words. These values can become a framework for looking at the world around you.
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Block time for reflection.​
We've likely all heard or seen the analogy of fitting big rocks, pebbles, and sand into an empty jar. The lesson is that if you start filling the jar by adding sand and pebbles, you will not have room for rocks. We must begin treating our starlight and daylight as big rocks. Every Monday morning, I carve out time for reflection. I review my goals, rate myself on different dimensions, and reflect on how I showed up for myself, my wife, and my business.
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Spotlight, starlight, and daylight aren't in competition with each other. They work together to help you balance the short-term blocking and tackling of freelancing with achieving your long-term vision for your freelance future.

We created the Freelance Marketing Alliance to give you the tools to thrive in your day-to-day while building freedom through freelance.

We're so grateful you're on this journey with us!
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Hit reply and let me know what resonated most with you in today's newsletter.

-Jeff

Freelance Marketing Alliance

p.s. I'd love it if you shared this with three other freelance marketers. The newsletter is in its early days, and we could use your help building our community. 🙏🏼

p.p.s. If you have a topic we should cover in a future episode, hit reply and let me know!

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