What No-One Tells You About Working For Yourself

There will be people who look at the life of a freelancer as charmed. There are definitely some enviable qualities about it. Work flexibility is a huge plus, as is getting control over all the money made by your work. But it can be a surprising departure from many of the norms of all the other work you’ve done. Those norms might be limiting, but they’re also comforting. So, the surprises can be exciting or scary. Either way, if you want a good start to your solo career, getting savvy about said surprises can offer you the resilience to keep going past them.
 
The first part is the hardest
When you first decide to go freelancing, whether it’s part-time or you’ve cut ties with the old job, it’s a rush. The idea that all the fruits of your labour goes directly to you can feel like a high. But it soon wears off when you realise that it will take a lot of work to get your first job. There are often periods as a freelancer where you won’t be making money from it, but finding the first job tends to be the longest of those periods. You need the funding to sustain yourself for some time, as well the stomach to keep branding and keep working while you get nothing in return.
It’s an entirely different ballpark
The idea of working for weeks and even months without pay is just one of the dizzying new experiences awaiting you as a freelancer They’re not all bad changes, either. Some can be a net positive. However, the fact is that freelance life is different and if you can’t acclimate to the change, you will have trouble deriving any satisfaction from it. For instance, that flexibility that seems like the best part of the deal comes with the caveat that you still have to work hard, you just have to manage when you work. Without the ability to structure your own time, freelancing starts to look a lot like doing nothing and is liable to pay as much.
 
Clients can be pretty terrible
You’ve got clients! But they’re all terrible people. It’s sad to think that, but it’s true that you will just have some unpleasant, rude, angry and toxic clients during your career. If you can identify the warning signs before taking them on, you can dodge a bullet. If every request is urgent and super-important and they complain when you don’t email back in an hour, that’s a bad sign. If they’re trying to take control of what your prices are, that’s a bad sign. Sometimes, beggars can’t be choosers and you have to slog through with a client that you can barely stand. But most of the time, you can afford to swerve them.
The job isn’t enough
Freelancers need to be skilled in their field. That’s obvious. But it’s not enough to be skilled in the field alone. You have to learn plenty of skills to go with it. You have to learn time management, as we learned. But you also have to learn the value of branding yourself and marketing to spread that brand. You have to learn how to qualify leads so you don’t waste your time on dead ends or potentially horrible clients. You have to learn how to take care of your work environment and any tools you make use of. The job isn’t enough to make a career. Some high-level business thinking is necessary. Some people aren’t ready for that responsibility. If you’re in those shoes, it might be worth putting off the freelancing career until you get a little more experience.
Isolation is a big problem
The job also isn’t enough to fulfil your every need as a person. It’s easy to take it for granted when you’re in a traditional job, but having co-workers to shoot the breeze with and personal bonds to enjoy is a big morale booster. Without that morale, it’s easy to drop the ball on the career. If you’re a person who has no problem working alone and rarely feels lonely, then you might do just fine. For most people, you need to work to find those connections. This is a good reason why freelancers should choose their base of operations carefully. Networking events provide just as much opportunity to make chums as a shared office does.
The life of a freelancer isn’t easy. You will have some terrible clients. You will have periods where you’re just not making money. But if you can find your self-determination and persevere, the freedom and the eventual value of success is more than worth it.