Why should you become a freelancer? It’s said that you’d better get busy living your own dream or you’ll get busy creating someone else’s. You’ll have excuses. You won’t have the time. You’ll get super excited about it, then doubt yourself. Rinse. Repeat.
Thinking about becoming a freelancer? Maybe you’ve been a freelancer and you’re thinking about giving up and going back to the 9 to 5? With over 50% of Americans having some kind of side hustle, freelancing is the right path to be on.
When the road becomes more difficult (and more exciting) you know you’re going in the right direction. Just keep your feet moving down that street. When the tide feels like it’s against you it’s really pushing towards you, trying to let you in.
How do you feel about your job?
As humans, with extraordinary brains, we’re amazing liars. A large majority of people despise at least one major element of their jobs. If you’ve had enough with your current place of employment, you know that sinking feeling that spills over from Sunday night to Monday morning. The one where you’re living the same day over and over again.
Mondays Are Better as a Freelancer
Got a perpetual case of the Mondays? Waking up each Monday with the dread of going to work at a place you only mildly like, with people that you’re only mildly akin to, to make money that you’ll later spend on multiple forms of quick satisfaction––you and I both know that’s not living.
Your Life Path
Working “for the man” is not emotionally easy to break away from, but it’s much more possible than we’re led to believe. Each time you put one foot in front of the other, you forge a new path for yourself.
This path does not necessarily lead anywhere just yet. So, you can’t know what will come of walking in that direction.
Something inevitably will come from your efforts. If you, like most of us, have been told that you’re supposed to Zig, then you absolutely must Zag.
“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
Barack Obama
But how on earth are you going to become a freelancer? You’re already committed to your career, you’ve already come so far. What you do becomes a huge part of who you are and who other people think you are. That’s where the emotion comes in.
Emotion (n.)
– Merriam Webster Dictionary
1570s, “a (social) moving, stirring, agitation”, “move out, remove, agitate.”
Becoming a Freelancer
To become a freelancer, you have to start believing you can be one. Start doing something on the side, anything at all. Get a massive handful of spaghetti and throw it at the wall. More than one piece of pasta will stick, just chose one that speaks to you, for now. Any piece at all.
But, you don’t wanna waste time, right? Doing this could be precious time misspent by pursuing something that is not your “true calling” in life.
Honestly, you have more than one.
The constructs that have been set up by society are often necessary to keep us moving forward, but they are not the know-all and end-all. And, they certainly are not tailored to your individual needs.
Talents have been grouped, categorized and placed in neat boxes to make sure that we all keep forgetfully shuffling down the path that has been laid out before us.
Rules are Made to be Broken
But, really, how do you think the human race came up with the rules? They made decisions. Which means that any decision you make to move forward will do. To paraphrase Nike: Just Do Something.
How to Become a Freelancer
You’ll find a lot of advice out there about how to get started as a freelancer. The thing is, not any one person or entity can tell you exactly what it’ll be like. But, you can get a good idea before (or while) delving in.
Try a small project on the side. It doesn’t need to be perfect, you just need it to be something.
In business, they call it the “Minimum Viable Product” or MVP for short. Your product or service will do better if you just start it and stop worrying about how it will be perceived. If after trying out your product or service, you start to garner some interest from the crowd, you may have yourself a winner. If not, try the next piece of spaghetti.
Pros to Freelancing
- Freedom
- Unlimited earning potential
- Personal growth
- You can make up your own title
- Level the playing field
- Tax write-offs
- You could even do a bit of calculated gambling: The ability to throw caution to the wind and invest your taxes into stocks before handing them over to Uncle Sam (every quarter).
- You can’t get laid off or fired
- Considerably better work/life balance
- You get to choose your coworkers (you know how they say you can’t choose your family? Find the right co-working space and that saying becomes a myth).
- Working with awesome clients.
Cons of Freelancing
- Saving for taxes (and willingly moving large chunks of money from your bank account to the government’s bank account)
- Penalties for not paying quarterly taxes
- Health care is damn expensive
- Having to deal with social media
- Building the discipline to get out of your PJs every day
- Some loneliness
- Working with not-so-awesome clients
- Clients not paying
- The feast or famine nature of freelancing
You can do whatever you want to in life. To do something different, you just need to reprogram your mind a little bit.