Resumes and freelance profiles are not sales in the traditional sense. If you want to do better in freelance, you'll want to reframe how you think about it.

Putting that aside, I highly recommend the book "To Sell Is Human" that reframes "sales" as something more, i.e. convincing a child they need to brush their teeth before bed is also "sales"

It was one of the books that helped me through this, The Challenger Sale if you want to read something more akin to traditional sales.

Another avenue you should consider is getting a professional resume / career coach. A good one will ask you questions about what you want in a job before looking at what you've written. They bring experience and have seen 1000s of resumes to know what works, and are tuned into how that changes over time.

> But I just. Can't. Get. Moving.

Another book recommendation, "The Now Habit"

books are going to be much better than what you read online

1. they get you away from the portal to that anxiety

2. they are long, thorough, well thought out, with many examples/anecdotes for you to potentially connect the dots through

• it_is_beautiful

  yesterday at 8:12 PM

  Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check them out.

  > I highly recommend the book "To Sell Is Human" that reframes "sales" as something more, i.e. convincing a child they need to brush their teeth before bed is also "sales"

  It sounds like there might be some overlap with my favourite book, Never Split the Difference (:s/sales/negotation). Quote:

  ---

  Life is negotiation. The majority of the interactions we have at work and at home are negotiations that boil down to the expression of a simple, animalistic urge: I want.

  “I want you to free the hostages,” is a very relevant one to this book, of course. But so is:

  “I want you to accept that $1 million contract.”

  “I want to pay $20,000 for that car.”

  “I want you to give me a 10 percent raise.” and

  “I want you to go to sleep at 9 p.m.”

  ---

  > Another book recommendation, "The Now Habit"

  I've heard of this one, and tried a few systems. Right now I'm reading Getting Things Done, and I really like it so far. It emphasizes simplicity and developing a system you can trust so you have less running around wild in your brain.

  I think my two big problems are:

  1. Lack of writing experience generally; and

  2. It's hard to explain, but I'm very much stuck in my own head. I do put myself out there, in personal life and professionally, but I tend to have this sickly feeling that grows until I delete my public profiles (professionally) and let most relationships go (personally). I guess I'm "Prone to isolation". This is a big problem in life, but I know I can't just easily solve it, I need to solve it by taking action in my life, like trying to work in my field. I can't wait until I'm perfect to start living and taking action, it's the action itself that will change things. But emotionally, I'm so twisted up that it's hard to get anywhere at all.

Start with this while I come up with a thoughtful comment of my own.

https://www.swyx.io/marketing-yourself

• it_is_beautiful

  yesterday at 11:49 PM

  Thanks, this is really practical advice. The consistency is difficult; for reasons not (fully) understood to me, I often isolate myself after a mounting internal pressure, described in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139449

  Don't feel you have to add anything more, but if you have advice not covered in the article, I would love to hear what you have to say.