Is the freelance life right for you? Or are you mentally built for your day job?
These days, information technology seems every bit if everyone is either a freelancer, or wants to become ane. And while there are no official statistics in Singapore, co-ordinate to the American weblog Freetrain, 53 meg people practise freelance work in the US – which translates to a whopping i-third of the American workforce.
With then many people swapping out their office cubicles for a desk at home a la Carrie Bradshaw, you accept to wonder if freelancing is something y'all should seriously consider. But I'm hither to tell you that not everyone is cut out for a life untethered from a daily office job.
READ: Commentary: Stressed? Your relationship with your boss may be playing a role
The error many people brand starts from the assumptions made in the last sentence: That every bit a freelancer, you tin do what y'all desire, whenever you want and live happily ever after having luncheon with your tai tai friends and leisurely working on deadlines between your boom appointments and yoga sessions.
Wrong.
At the risk of simplifying things, freelancing is right for you if:
- You hate the inhuman crush of the daily commute, or the bladder-busting morning traffic jam on the CTE.
- You've missed a lot of milestones, say a birthday dinner, or your child'southward first steps and first words, considering yous were stuck in the part or on a work trip.
- You resent working so hard and making and so much money for your boss in exchange for a comparatively depression fixed salary.
- You accept an obsessive-compulsive, Type A personality. In other words, you set a target and you lot practice everything y'all can to achieve it.
- You take a supportive family. Nil builds self-belief better.
- You're not afraid to network and schmooze, whether information technology'due south on LinkedIn or having coffee with a potential client. Because no i will know who y'all are or what y'all tin can offer if you sit at domicile all mean solar day and wonder why no i is calling you.
- Y'all love a challenge. Every day will bring you new problems to solve and obstacles to overcome.
READ: Getting more slumber might country y'all that promotion
On the flip side, freelancing is probably not right for yous if:
- You lot don't have savings of at least six months to a yr. Information technology volition take you this long to ramp up your business to a level where you earn a halfway decent regular income. In the meantime, you need to eat. Which leads to the side by side point.
- You have a lot of financial responsibilities such equally a mortgage, car loans, aged parents, children or a fondness for expensive designer items.
- Y'all have no discipline. A successful freelancer will take a fix daily routine and puts in the same, if non more than, number of hours as a "total-timer".
- Yous similar company. For the about role, freelancing is a alone experience. And in the beginning, at to the lowest degree, yous won't be able to beget a co-working office.
- Yous are the shy retiring type who is likewise embarrassed to chase your clients for payment. Many businesses will put off paying you lot for your services for every bit long as humanly possible.
- You have a thin pare and believe that "no" means you're worthless.
- Your home environment is chaotic and filled with more distractions than Candy Vanquish. See signal four.
In other words, despite appearances, condign a freelancer is no walk in the park. Besides coming to grips with simple spreadsheets to go along track of your accounts and expenses, and substantially running your own business organization, yous'll demand to be patient and dogged.
The jobs won't come in immediately and there will be moments when yous actually feel nostalgic about your hateful boss. For the virtually office, you will work with lovely people, simply there will likewise be nightmare clients who will make you want to swallow nails.
Just hither'south the signal: If you lot're unhappy in your job and you've been unhappy for a while, how else will yous e'er know if y'all were meant to do something else? Besides, where does it say that you have to be unhappy to make a decent living?
A few months agone, a friend of mine died suddenly from a heart set on. He was but 44. Most of u.s.a. think he had been over-stressed by his high-pressure job. I call up him saying once that he'd love to buy an organic subcontract in Malaysia, settle downward and raise chickens.
Since his death, I've often wondered if – at the beginning of the year – Tony had known he wouldn't alive to run across Christmas, whether he'd accept quit his job and followed that dream.
I guess we'll never know now.
After practising police force for viii years, Daven Wu saw the fault of his ways and became a full fourth dimension freelance writer and editor. He has never looked back.
0 Response to "Is the freelance life right for you? Or are you mentally built for your day job?"
Postar um comentário