The Art of Balance: A Guide for Freelancers

We hear a lot about balance – how to balance your work and personal life, how to work out your capacity, and how to freelance without impairing your mental health.

But what does it all really mean? How can you run a successful business AND look after yourself at the same time? Let’s take a look!

Freelancers: What is balance?

In August 2022, I burned out. Hard. I was working everyday (weekends included) for a toxic client – and it look a lot of work and support to re-direct my business.

It was all about balance. I had to learn how to balance my work and my personal life – and I needed to understand exactly how to build a sustainable career that actually worked for me.

Adding balance will mean different things to different freelancers, but there are a few common threads. It means setting clear boundaries with clients, taking regular time off, and learning to focus on services that work for you.

In this blog post, I’ve put together a few handy tips to add balance to your business. They’re all things I’ve done for myself since burning out – and they’ve made a huge difference to my freelance career.

You’ll also find a cheeky little link to my brand new ebook – all about how to find balance and thrive in your business. More on that later!

3 tips to add balance to your business

Let’s take a look at how to add balance to your life – a guide for my fellow business owners, founders and freelancers.

1. Set your freelance non-negotiables

Your freelance non-negotiables are boundaries you won’t negotiate for any of your clients. You might never work at the weekend, for example, or you might need to pick up your kids from school every day.

These non-negotiables can help you set clear boundaries and maintain balance in your business. It’s important to remember that you’re not an employee. You’re allowed to do what you want, when you want.

Don’t let a client treat you like an employee. When I burned out, a fellow freelancer reminded me that YOU are the manager, not your client. If something isn’t right, it’s up to you to fix it.

It takes time to get out of the 9 to 5 mentality – I’m still getting there myself!

2. Re-direct your business

To add balance to my business, I needed to change how and when I worked. However, I also had to re-direct my freelance services.

When I burned out, I was stuck working for a client on social media work. It wasn’t my passion – and I’d let her completely obliterate all my boundaries.

In the end, I “fired” my client and I started looking for more work in long-form SEO content, like blog posts and articles. This was what I wanted to do when I first went into freelancing, so I needed to re-direct my focus.

This helped me add balance to my business. It helped me realise what jobs I did and didn’t want to do – and it pushed me to start building a business I loved.

Find out more about how to re-direct and re-focus your business in my new ebook – ‘The Art of Balance’. It’s the resource I really could have done with in 2022!

3. Define what balance really means to you

Before you add balance to your business or your life, you need to define exactly what balance really means to you.

• Does it mean spending more time with your family?
• Does it mean only taking on one project at a time?
• Does it mean making time for an important hobby?

Create a clear routine that works for you – and make sure to use a shutdown ritual, too. Coined by professor and author Cal Newport, a shutdown ritual is what you do at the end of the day to ensure you don’t think about work once the day is over.

It gives you the space to see work as work and rest as rest. Your business and personal life go together when you work for yourself. You need to nurture both to build a sustainable business for yourself.

Do you want to add balance to your life in 2025?

I discuss all of this and more in my brand-new ebook: ‘The Art of Balance’. I’ve put together all the advice that helped me get through burnout and thrive in my business.

‘The Art of Balance’ covers…

• Red flags, boundaries and learning to say “no”
• How to work out what balance really means to you
• Narrowing down your focus to achieve your goals
• How to avoid burnout and love your business

… plus much more!

It’s for busy freelancers, business owners, creatives, side hustlers and remote workers in need of a bit of balance.

There’s a common misconception that owning a business should be all or nothing, but there can be a balance. These days, I work on great projects with clients who respect my boundaries.

I’m slowly building a sustainable business that works for me. I’d love to help you get there too.

How do you build the right work/life balance for you? Do you have any tips to add balance to your business? Have you ever experienced burnout?

Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below 🙂

Happy reading x