3 Things you Should Know Before Starting Freelancing

You might have seen a lot of articles in which people talk about how amazing freelancing is and how you should try it out and you can become your boss and you might have thought that you should also try out freelancing.

But not a lot of people talk about the downfalls, the pitfalls, and the problems with freelancing and that’s what I’ll be talking about in this article. We want to talk about freelancing, there are 3 things that I want to talk about and I want all of you to understand before you get into freelancing before you try to take this as your career.

Fact #1: You are your Own Boss

That is the fact that you are your own boss and you get to set your own rules and you get to set your own working time and you get to choose when you go out for a vacation, it depends completely on you, it depends completely on where you want to take your life.

There is no cap on how much money you can earn and that’s a good thing but the bad part about this, is that you will always have to work, you will always have to make sure that you are upgrading yourself. 

It’s always you have to make sure that you are going after and getting new clients or customers because again clients don’t stay here forever. You have to make sure that you are getting in front of people so that more people understand, this is the kind of person and this is what this person does.

So I should approach this person and ask if he would be able to do my work, so this is all that you have to do you or have to take the initiative.

You have to hustle hard every single day. It becomes really difficult to just be like to take a day off. I won’t work and I’ll just chill for some time that’s not possible. When you are freelancing, you have to make sure that you first of all take care of your expenses, and secondly, you have to make sure that you are going after and reaching out to newer clients.

Also at the same time, you must have an online community that you have some sort of an online presence. That’s also a really important part.

So this is the number one point, you are your own boss and that is a good thing but at the same time it’s a bad thing because you get to decide how much you want to work, you get to decide how much you want to chill and that at times can be stressful for a lot of people because they just don’t want to take in the pressure.

A lot of times you will feel that there are no clients and you are just at your home and you don’t have anyone that will be paying you for this month.

There will be months in which you won’t have any work and also there will be months in which you will have a lot of work so this is a very unconventional schedule that happens with freelancing so just keep this point in mind.

Fact 2: No Security

The number second point that I want all of you to understand is that there is no security. This is also really important again, as I said, clients do not stay forever and what you have to do is that you have to constantly approach new clients and see if you can work for them.

That’s important to understand there’s no security means that you won’t be getting a paycheck every single month and, in the beginning, you won’t be getting anything. You will be underpaid, you will be consuming a lot of time and just doing some free work maybe in the beginning.

So this all is very stressful when you don’t get a paycheck after every single month and you just feel discouraged. You feel that you should be quitting it or you feel that this is just not the thing for you or even if you do get a paycheck, it’s just really low.

A lot of people complain that I worked so hard and I just got paid like $50 for the entire month and that’s a bad thing but what they do not understand is that this is an exponential hook in freelancing. 

As you are working as you are learning new things so you will be able to charge them more and that’s also a really important point that I’ll be talking about in the coming points.

So the second point is the fact that there is no social security and there is no security for freelancers.

There are ways that you can secure yourself by getting some insurances to make sure that your bills are paid when you don’t have the money because it can happen. It’s completely irregular for freelancers so just keep this thing in mind.

Fact 3: Understand Your Self-Worth

The third point is the fact that you have to understand your self-worth. A lot of times especially in the beginning you will find that you are getting underpaid or you’re working for free and then afterward once you are at an intermediary stage you can start charging people but at that point, you need to understand what is your self-worth?

How much should you be asking for per hour? or how much should we be asking for value-based pricing?

So this is important for you to understand and the only way for you to understand this is by staying aware by having a group of people who are freelancers and just talking to them and sharing your recent orders and how did you fulfill those orders.

All of these things you have to make sure that you are talking with people that are also freelancers and that’s a really important point to keep in mind, understanding your self-worth. 

It’s important because if you do not understand your self-worth, it doesn’t matter if you are working for a new startup or if you are working for a Fortune 500 company, they will always take advantage of you. So, this is important for you to always keep in mind how do you understand your self-worth.

For example, what you can do, just take a pen and paper and write down every single expense that you have once. You can then start to understand that this is what I spend my money on and so then it becomes really simple for you to think about budgeting and then you can take a look at how much do you want to save and how much more do you want to earn.

It becomes lucrative for you to just think that. If you don’t have a cap, you will always feel unsatisfied in freelancing that’s what I feel about these three points.