29/07/2017
The morning started the same as too many others before it: with my collie mix, Gus, trying valiantly to get me out of bed. Valiantly, but unsuccessfully — the best I could muster was a brief flutter of my eyes and a roll in the other direction. My dog may have wanted me up, but I wanted to put off the inevitable struggle of the day as long as I could.
My work as a freelance writer had been s-l-o-w. Days without much work bled into weeks, and somewhere along the way the catastrophizing, negative thoughts began to creep in. This is what failure is, I thought. I was convinced that I’d burn through my little savings in no time and end up broke, not even able to do basic things like feed the dog or pay the bills. Even though, up until that point, things had been consistent and — dare I say — even moderately prosperous for me, I was sure that any success I’d had was sheer luck, and that my luck had run out.
Thankfully, I don’t feel that way anymore. A couple of accepted pitches sparked a crucial confidence boost, and I found myself a therapist to top all therapists. Still, even though things have started to turn around, there are moments when I’m gripped with anxiety about the future of my freelancing career. It’s isolating, and lonely — and, as it turns out, a pretty common experience among people in my situation.
In a 2005 study published in the journal Work and Stress, a team of researchers examined the self-reported health of freelancers using an effort-reward imbalance model (essentially a scientifically verifiable cost-benefit analysis). Developed in 1996 by study co-author Johannes Siegrist, a senior professor at the University of Dusseldorf, the model took both extrinsic and intrinsic factors into account. The former encapsulated external experiences like client demands and compensation, while the latter examined freelancers’ commitment to work, characterized by an “inability to withdraw from work, thinking about it day and night,” Siegrist says.
What the team discovered was alarming. Lead author Michael Ertel, a researcher at Germany’s Federal Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, explains that poor subjective health was reported by 37 percent of the German freelancers who participated. The study also “found a more specific pattern of health problems in freelancers: chronic strain and a reduced ability to relax,” as a result of long working hours in conjunction with an unpredictable workload, he says.
