You'll score eventually. Be patient.

In the past 48 hours, I’ve consumed roughly 12 hours of NFL. I’ve watched as more yards got run than plays got stopped, seen a team emerge from their imminent 0-2 status to clinch a game in the final 3 minutes, and another team rebound to new heights and a 2-0 lead with their back-up quarterback after their star QB had a season-ending accident last week.

We’re only a week into the NFL’s regular season and we’ve seen our share of daring athletic feats and bone-headed moves. (The Eagles’ receiver, DeSean Jackson, is a prime example of the lethal cocktail of talent and hubris.)

People ask me why I like football. I don’t entirely get the game to be honest. I do know that a team has 4 attempts to make a play and if they can’t, they need to rethink their immediate game plan. I know there’s a ton of strategy that goes into plays, that the quarterback may not be the coach but he has to a lot of quick-thinking and improvising on the field – often singlehandedly calling the play that can make or break a moment and determine a team’s success.

And that in the end, no single person on the team is any greater than any other, star QB or not, cause it takes all of the players working together (and parking their egos aside) to make it the post-season.

As it happens, football also happens to be a ripe metaphor for a freelancer due to many common, shared parallels:

• Be The Underdog: Peyton Manning & The Colts proved to us this week that sometimes smelling repeated defeat is all you need sometimes to catapult your motivational spirit to the next level. In my own experience, my confidence is never higher then when after I’ve failed at something big-time and can find within myself that driving force to start climbing back up the hill again.
• Let The Chips Falls Where They May: This one is hard, especially when you like to plan ahead, need to know how things will play out, and if you’re like me, even Wikipedia a movie while you’re watching it to see how it all unfolds. There’s a lot to be learned through process and results-oriented people need to remind themselves of this. Just like a football game has 4 quarters, life is also cyclical with its share of ups and downs and turning points. Learn to live with them and you’ll be much happier, or so people tell me!
• Embrace The Unknown: One of the reasons I dig football so much is cause there’s a lot of taking chances which sometimes results in zany, WTF-were-you-thinking moves, but I love it all the more when people get away with “the unthinkable,” debunk the system, and make up their own set of rules as they go along. Call it the rebel in me, or simply the idealist freelancer which hopes that risk-taking moves, such as working solo, will pay off one day.
• Make Time For Pep Talks With Yourself: In football, the coach takes “time outs” to amp up his players, get them focused, energized and feeling good.  In life, we need to make time for these moments too and just as often if not more often than just once a day.  On days I feel low I tend to build my confidence back up again talking it out with friends, family, or if all else fails a giant boost of caffeine! My sister swears by lists. Create a long list of things you like about yourself or your life. #1 on my list is the fact that I have the time in my day to write a meaningful post for my blog, make a mean pot of chicken soup on a seasonably Fall day, and feel a strong sense of accomplishment by 5 PM.

Balance happens where we least expect to find it.

Below are a few things that could have saved me some major hassle, not to mention temporary insanity meltdowns, when I started on my home office-in-a-box/freelance business.

It’s my hope that these words of wisdom (WOW) will also benefit those of you adjusting to life as solo entrepreneurs:

• Invest In Your Physical Space: Part of the reason I settled into more of a makeshift office scene from the get-go was because freelancing for me was a temporary gig and not part of my long-term plan. Only, the more time that went by and the more I found myself with freelance work, the more I discovered that idle objects such as a proper desk, lighting, and file cabinets were critical to providing me with an organized environment suited for doing work. And whether or not I wanted to admit it to myself, uncomfortably slouching over my laptop sitting on the couch 12-18 hours a day still qualified as me working and earning money so why not invest in a home office that acknowledges that? And saves me from a future of bad posture?
• Time Tracking Widgets Are a Gal’s Best Friend: The more clients and accounts I worked on, the more things got complicated so I started looking for the best tool to track and log my hours. To find the best tool,  I posted a question on LinkedIn’s Q&A forum and while I got some pretty interesting feedback and networked a bit (always a plus) with respondents, I ended up finding the Harvest app through my Yahoo widgets. I can access the widget and start logging hours when I start working, juggle multiple accounts for single or multiple clients, and can later import all this info into a handy, dandy invoice. Harvest does this all on it own and saves me the headache of needing to go back and count hours. While it’s always recommended to do your due diligence just to keep track of your hours, Harvest helps out in a pinch!
• Keep Your Support Crew On Speed Dial (or Gmail Chat, Facebook, or Twitter): It’s important to stay upbeat and positive and who better to keep it real than your intimate crew of like-minded entrepreneurs. I have a group of a few gals and we Gmail Chat or Twitter ourselves into sanity (in the form of silliness) throughout the day, sharing our tales of woe and elation as we try to meander ourselves through the ups and downs of our freelancing lives.
• It’s Ok To Do Group Events: As a freelance writer, networking isn’t always my bag, but it’s a necessary evil for those of us trying to drum up business and it helps facilitate us continuing to do what it is we love to do. I was at a loss for finding pertinent, relevant events (Mediabistro wasn’t a broad enough group for my technology tastes) until I came across Gary’s Guide. Simple in its interface, it lists all major networking events for technology and entrepreneur meet-ups for 11 metropolitan areas, including New York, Boston, and San Fran. I always find an event on there that’s interesting and potentially a good hook for my line of work.