How to Become a Freelancer – Tips for the Still Unsure Guy
September 29, 2009 | Thoughts & Words By Oscar Del Ben | 14 Comments
I have been doing freelancing consulting for over three years now, and even if I had to start from zero with my business, I still think it was one of the best decisions of my life. I can’t describe the freedom of having no boss and have the opportunity to work my hours when I want to. Yes, I still have to work at a particular time for some clients, but in the end I wouldn’t turn back to the point where I was previously with my life.
But what about you? Are you still working long hours for someone else who is keeping all the profits of your work while leaving you unsatisfied and maybe underpaid? If the answer is yes, you have now the opportunity to change it, and it’s not that hard as you may think. Anyways, it is perfectly acceptable if you are working for someone else and you feel ok doing that. There’s nothing wrong with it, really. But if something inside of you is burning while reading this post, then you know that you are not doing what you love, and I want to help you to change that.
Facing Your Fears
Believe me or not, the biggest reason you are not fulfilling most of your dreams is fear. Fear is something that’s built in with us, which should prevent from doing something dangerous. Unfortunately, it also prevents us from trying new things and making major changes in our lives. You shouldn’t let fear to stop you from achieving your goals. You weren’t supposed to be a slave of it when you were born, televisions and society taught that to you.
One of the best skills you can learn is to face your fears. Every successful person (that is you) knows how to face fear and how to find a solution. I’ve written a list of 4 steps you can use to face your fears. Use them to discover what’s holding you back from making your decision:
- Write it down. The first step to face your fears is to write them down. Sit down alone with pen and paper and start writing. Be specific. If you fear to not have enough money to cover your bills, or that you are not enough experienced to do the job, write it down. Don’t be afraid of doing this because nobody is watching, and this exercise is great because you are likely to discover more about yourself.
- Find a solution. Now create a second list and write a solution for each fear you have previously written. What needs to happen for you to stop your fear of being broke? Perhaps having recurrent customers and a few products is the answer for you. Whatever your answers are, list all of them and proceed to step three.
- Make a plan. At this point you should have two lists, one with your fears, and one with the solutions to your fears. You now have to write a plan that you would take to get rid of your fears. Remember that this point alone, depending on what your fears are, could be a business model itself. And when you do this, you’ll start to see how easy it is in reality to realize most of your goals.
- Understand failure. Now that you have listed your fears, found a solution and made a plan, you are already 95% ahead of most people, because most people don’t write goals and when they do it, they often don’t create a plan for them. There’s still one thing I want to clarify at this point. Failure is not the opposite of success, but its integrant part. Even if you fail at something, that doesn’t mean you are not good enough. Every successful people fails before succeeding. I’m telling you this because you shouldn’t be afraid of failing, but instead you should learn from your mistakes and do it better the next time.
Finding Your Skills
So you have decided you want to kiss goodbye to your boss, but you still have to find what you are going to do. If you are reading this post, chances are that you are already a technical person (designer, photographer, writer, etc). so you already have a range of skills people would pay for. But even if you are not a technical person, there are still hundreds of things you can do, from creating online businesses to manage other people.
Whatever you would like to do, at this point you have to be creative and look around at what other freelancers are doing in your niche. Remember to always look for the best people you can find, because you want to become one of the best folks out there.
Don’t worry if you don’t have the skills right away. Those are easy to gain if you have enough motivation, just don’t offer what you can’t already deliver, and continue to grow every day.
The Secret To Unlimited Freedom – Having Your Own Products
Being a freelancer it’s not always like living in a dream. There will be days when you’ll be sick, and days where it will be hard to find new customers. That’s normal for every business, but unfortunately if you are working for yourself, nobody is going to pay you when you are not working. At least this is what they told you.
The good news is that you can create (and you really should) some sort of products that generate a passive income for you and protect you financially when you are sick or when you can’t work for whatever reason. There are unlimited ways you can create a passive income, for example you could: offer monthly hosting and maintenance to your clients, selling digital products online (photos, e-books), creating a blog, creating an information website, etc.
Whatever you want to do, it will take some time for it to generate a constant amount of money, but the good news is that it will increase every day if you constantly work on it. The more you work and diversify you assets, the more you’ll get out of them.
You Don’t Have to Leave your Day Job Right Away
You are now very excited and you’re heart is going fast. You are ready to give your notice to your boss. Not so fast. You still have to figure out a lot of things about being self employed, and while you’re excitement might be high now, you want to think about a few issues before making the big jump.
In particular you want to think if you already have the skills, the knowledge and a solid network to start your business right away. If the answer is yes, then by any means leave your job today and get started as soon as possible. But if the answer is no, you may want to take a different approach.
Fortunately, you can start your own business without leaving your day job. Many people do this, and they are able to experiment new things in the evening and weekends while still having a solid income to pay their bills. All you want to do is to start building your own assets in your free time and see what’s working and what’s not. You also want to network with other people who are already successful in your niche. You’ll be surprised by how much you can learn from others.
When you’ll start to grow, you’ll have the opportunity to say goodbye to your day job and focus all your attention to your own business, and you’ll already have a solid income. You could also move to a part time job if you are not sure yet. Whatever you do, if you do something every day for your business, you’ll be able to leave your day job sooner than you think.
Conclusion
Many people tend to overestimate what they can do in one year, but they underestimate what they can do in five years. The truth is that time is going to pass anyway. Make your decision today and five years from now you’ll be glad you did it. Good luck.
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Hey Sneh, thanks for giving me the opportunity to write this. I hope your readers can benefit from it.
Oscar
.-= Oscar Del Ben´s last blog ..I’m Joining the Power of Less =-.
Thanks for writing this wonderful piece Oscar. I am sure it will be very useful to people looking for inspiration and motivation to strike out on their own
Heya Oscar!
Great to see you writing here! It really seems like the freelancing thing is working out for you:) Hope you can inspire many others to do the same
Cheers
Diggy
.-= Diggy -Upgradereality´s last blog ..Why learn martial arts? =-.
Very Good! I want to be Freelancer & it will motivate to me.
Thank a lot for your time to write this.
This article is so encouraging me to start a freelance career.
Thanks a lot. I shall write my own list now.
What an excellent and original article. I never thought about fear of taking the plunge, but I think the author has a very valid point, and even provides a good solution. Thank you for taking the time to write this.
Maaaaaaaaaan .. thank you ..
Hey Oscar, really good tips Man and thanks to Sneh for giving such a good opportunity to him that he deserve.
Thank you all for your comments and kind words. I hope some of you will make the big jump at some point.
.-= Oscar Del Ben´s last blog ..How to Find Motivation – A Simple Guide =-.
Thanks a Lott OSCAR!
This is a great article for anyone, like myself, who is looking at making the move from a 9-5 job to full-time freelance. I love the quote:
Thanks so much for the time and detail you put in to this post. The short list will be really helpful to me. And understanding that failure is an integrated part of success is huge. I think I’m still learning that one.
Thanks again.
.-= Kyle Steed´s last blog ..Redesigning Myself Part 2 =-.
Thanks Oscar, this article was exactly what I needed right now. Tonight it all begins!
This is very interesting – ‘The Secret To Unlimited Freedom – Having Your Own Products’ … and something that I’m giving a fair bit of thought to in preparing to make the transition. Very useful advice there … many thanks.
WoW
Awesome article to became a freelancer. Thanks for sharing this nice post.