The Realities Of Freelancing

I get asked a lot about what I do for a living and once I've spoken the word 'Freelancer' the questions roll off the tongue much easier for them than for I to answer them. I don't have one set, specific job title and I work on a variety of different projects of all from which I earn different and variable incomes. People tell me how lucky I am to be able to work from home and boy, do I know that I am. I am thankful every single day that I can wake up and look forward to getting on with my day alongside the joy that I get to call the things I do in my day work.

There are upsides and downsides to freelancing. A lot of people have told me they think I sit at home all day and play about on the Internet which isn't strictly untrue because I do. Some sides of freelancing require me to be on social media a lot - either my own or another business' accounts tweeting and pinning for them. I'm lucky to be able to do it with one hand on my phone and hold my three year old in the other during the times when life just gets in the way of your scheduled working hours.

So I thought I'd tell you a few things about freelancing, both the positives and negatives.

MONEY WILL BE TIGHT
This is a big one for me with a rented house and a family including two little girls who need looking after. Sometimes I can have enough money to feel like I can go out and treat myself to something nice but mostly every penny is accounted for and even some missing. There will be times that I'm undoubtedly late paying my rent or when I eat a lot of tinned foods for a month so the girls can eat more fresh foods and in those times it can be difficult. Boyfriend only works part-time at the moment so we essentially live on one wage when you combine the two. We don't go out often (once every 4-6 months is about average), we don't eat in restaurants, we don't have a car or any big luxuries and really we just try to live within our means while having the best quality of life that we can. I don't earn a lot from freelancing but I prioritise the things that make my life worthwhile just under the things I need to buy to maintain such a life and everything else is just a bonus.

SCHEDULING YOUR OWN WORK DAY IS FANTASTIC
I adore being able to wake up in the morning and work at 4am if I feel a burst of energy and inspiration. I like being able to take my daughter to school and do the food shopping at 10am when it's quite quiet before going back to work after the errands have been run. I like being able to be with my family when they need me and not compromise on time with them because I can work late into the night if I need to. I do try to stick to scheduled office hours with regular breaks because it puts me in the right head space to get on with things but truly, scheduling your work day to suit your own needs and being able to be flexible around life is extraordinarily brilliant.

YOU WILL ALWAYS BE BUSY
Even when you're not busy and you're instead spending your time worrying about being able to pay the bills due to the lack of work on your desk, you will be busy. You'll end up advertising your services, creating things to alert people to your work as a form of self-promotion, creating more and more content to fill the void and to keep your mind active. Social media really helps and hinders - it's both a fantastic source of communication and a dangerous inviting black hole for procrastination but I promise, you'll find a way to make that part of your busy schedule one way or another.

YOU WON'T TAKE DAYS OFF BECAUSE YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO
I find I take no days off from working unless I am absolutely of no use to myself. If I can type and sit up, I can work. If I'm thoroughly immersed in things due to general life, I will still make time for work at the end of it. It becomes a living breathing entity that you want to feed by creating and just fuelling the desire to work more. Once you have found something you love to do - even when you are completely stressed and wired, kind of hate yourself a bit and want to cry - you will always find a way to keep doing it. It can be so hard, so busy and so demanding but the passion brings you through.

YOU WILL ALWAYS WORRY ABOUT NOT BEING GOOD ENOUGH
In any job I think we all worry about being good enough, achieving more and hopefully shining for our abilities. Being a freelancer can often make those feelings so amplified they feel like they never have a moment of silence. Often I wonder if I will ever be able to make this something I can do long-term, if I can adapt the way I need to, improve and become worthy of hiring. You worry your work isn't good enough even when your client is very happy to pay you and loves it themselves and you wonder if you're enough. In a team there's blame to share but when it's just you, your ideas, your time and your worth is truly being put under scrutiny it can be quite tiring brushing away the negative thoughts and worries that infiltrate every piece of work you ever put out there.

EVERY DAY IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN I THOUGHT IT COULD BE
With my physical chronic condition that's rather variable it's hard enough finding work I can do let alone holding it down for more than a month but every day is a positive day now. I am terrified it could all end tomorrow, of course, and that a 9-5 that'd be gruelling for me would have to be back on the cards but each day I wake up with motivation and positivity even when there are e-mails in double digits by 8am already and the handwritten notes are piling up. Knowing that not only can I play by my own rules but also create something every day and learn more and more as the days go by? It's worth it. It's all worth it.

I'm not done with freelancing. I think even if I do end up having to work 40 hours a week in an office, I will always create and I've no doubt that in a year or two there'll be more projects to come. Sometimes I wonder if I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none (not all trades but, you know what I mean) but I shake that thought away as quickly as it comes because I am so fortunate to be able to do this and to provide for my family, build a life and be happy about it every single day. I may never become a wealthy entrepreneur from any of this but if I can build a life of my own design, I'm winning my own race.