You’ve probably heard of the Serenity Prayer:

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Most design freelancers and studio/agency owners live the inverse.

They:

• Try to change the things they can’t: like trying to get a client to buy something they don’t want, or the fact that some prospects just don’t value design as much as you want them to.
• Ignore the things they can: like pricing better, setting stronger boundaries, marketing consistently, or replacing bad-fit clients.
• Lack the wisdom to know the difference: so they burn energy wrestling with the immovable and leave easy stuff on the table.

When things are going well, it feels like everything is and was in your control.
When things are going poorly, it feels like nothing was in your control.
Neither of those things are true.

Being the boss means you’re responsible for choosing the right battles and avoiding the wrong ones.

The wrong battles

Here are some things you can’t change no matter how hard you try:

• Economic shifts
• Algorithm changes
• Leads ghosting you
• Competitors stealing your ideas
• Clients losing funding mid-project
• A prospect’s nephew doing it cheaper
• Emergencies, whether yours or your clients’
• The fact that projects don’t always go according to plan

I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s the way it is. Don’t waste your energy and move on.

The right battles

Here are the things you can change:

• Your daily habits: how you spend time, what you measure, where you focus
• How you price your work and structure your payment terms
• The way you manage your pipeline to avoid feast-or-famine
• Your positioning and the reputation you build in your niche
• The systems you put in place to reduce decision fatigue
• The marketing you do consistently (or don’t do at all)
• The clarity of your proposals, contracts, and scopes
• The help you hire—or fire—so you don’t burn out
• Who you pitch and who you stop chasing
• What you say yes or no to

These aren’t always easy, but they are available to you. They’re the difference between running a business and being run over by one.

The wisdom gap

The hard part isn’t making the changes. It’s knowing which bucket a problem belongs in.

Before you burn a day (or a week) on something frustrating, ask yourself:

1. Can I actually control this?
2. If yes, is it worth the effort right now?
3. If no, what can I adapt or change instead?

Every hour spent fighting the immovable is an hour stolen from fixing the things you can control.

The prayer, rewritten

So maybe the real prayer for running a design business goes like this:

Grant me the serenity to accept the clients, markets, and circumstances I cannot change,
the courage to change the pricing, boundaries, and habits I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference—before I waste another ounce of energy.

Join 63,400+ subscribers to the weekly Dan Mall Teaches newsletter. I promise to keep my communication light and valuable!