The 3 year rule: thoroughly dedicating yourself to your craft for 3 years to truly find success.
Vol. 043
The 3-year rule: thoroughly dedicate yourself to your craft for 3 years to truly find success.
Shift your perspective from the short term to the long term, release your need for instant gratification, and anticipate the long term benefits of patience and persistence.
A quick bite:
The idea of the three year rule will shift your perspective from needing to find success immediately, and it will allow you to embrace the long-game. Through creating ample work for an extended period of time (3 years), you are essentially giving yourself the opportunity (and time) to stumble into success.
Continue reading below…
I’ve been self-employed since 2014. I incorporated what is now Vicarel Studios in 2015. Like many, I didn’t necessarily plan to start a business; it kinda just happened.
But, it wasn’t an overnight success as social media or the internet might lead you to believe.
When things started out, I remember calling, emailing, messaging and trying to get in contact with any freelance graphic designer or self-employed creative that I could find.
I had SO many questions.
One of the main questions I had was very simple: “how the hell are you making it work?!” How are you finding clients, budgeting projects, setting timelines, getting consistent work, getting the fun work: how, how how…
Having fought my way over the hump of “making it work”, I wanted to offer my own perspective on how the hell to make it work.
The most important step: go all in for at least 3 years.
And when I say “all in”, I mean that you must put your all into this. You need to create and share (market/promote yourself) prolifically. You must make sacrifices across the rest of your life.
For a few, it may happen faster. For some, it may take longer; however, three years feels like enough time to say "I gave it a shot."
I’m a firm believer that persistence beats perfection, and through creating ample work for an extended period of time, you are essentially giving yourself the opportunity (and time) to stumble into success — building your dream career is not easy, and it WILL NOT be an overnight endeavor.
The topic of finding traction in a creative business is something I want to demystify. In recent years I’ve been asked by others: “how did you do it: how long did it take until things clicked?” — or something to that effect — and for me, it was about 3 years.
I stumbled on Youtuber Matt Diavella’s video that echoes this message (and I used this as the title for this blog — thanks Matt!).
So, why 3 years?
Simply: you need to look at your career as a freelancer with a long-term vision. You need to stop worrying about today, next week, or even next month, and focus more on the years to come: how does the groundwork you lay now benefit you in the future?
Three years is enough time to stumble, face plant, learn, get up and try again — many times. BUT, I also
Over three years you’ll have ample opportunity for successes, for failures, for networking, for referrals to develop, to hone in on your craft, and to grow an audience. These are the ingredients to finding consistent work that pays the bills.
Frankly, three years is an arbitrary time frame. Some may only need 1 year, while others may need 5. But, the idea is the same: you need to go all in for a while before you’ll find traction.
When I look back at my freelance journey, I distinctly recall trying a little bit of everything, putting in a lot of hours, fumbling and failing almost daily, and only finding traction after sending out a self promotional newspaper ~3 years into my self-employed creative career.
What is it about 3 years that actually works?
3 years allows you to actually get good at your creative craft. You’ll get better at the work itself, presenting, pitching, selling, etc.
3 years gives you ample time for networking and marketing yourself, whether directly or indirectly.
If you’re not seeing traction after 3 years, that’s totally fine.
This doesn’t mean that you’re not cut out for this. Not at all! It’s actually more likely that you’re either not putting in quite enough time into growing your business (here’s how to find more time), or you’re simply putting your time into the wrong places.
Whether you’re 1 week or 4 years in, if you’re looking for ways to find more traction in your creative career I’d suggest putting more time into marketing yourself, networking rigorously, and/or learning how to ask for more money.
The moral of the story here: this shit takes time!
If it was easy and quick, everyone would be doing it. And, I can assure you: time spent building the career of your dreams is time well spent.
