Are you afraid of freelancing? It’s not easy to take a risk. It’s not easy to put yourself in control of your own income. It’s far easier to complain about your boss or the organization that you work for. We all have so much money insulting our place of employment, complaining about co-workers, and claiming that our boss is incoherent. It’s fun and easy.
There really is no way to avoid pain when trying to reach your goals. With that being said, let’s jump right into today’s piece.
Why should you stop being afraid of freelancing?
Because it’s always going to be scary. When you work for yourself you have absolutely nobody to blame. Everything is now on you. It’s never going to be easy. There are no short cuts. There are no guarantees. That’s tough for most of us to swallow. We’re used to the simple employment model:
- Show up at work.
- Get through the day with lots of caffeine.
- Count down until 5pm.
- Leave and forget about work.
- Repeat.
The freelancers model is a bit different:
- ALWAYS HUSTLE!
- Find more clients.
- Go hard.
It’s easy to become a self-parody, to complain about first world problems and to make excuses that prolong execution. Eventually you have to wake up. You have to get something done. You can’t just keep on hiding from the world. You can’t be afraid on unleashing your ideas.
You have to commit. It’s too easy to avoid commitment. Until you commit, you haven’t even tried. There’s a lot I wish I knew about freelancing. However, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I totally believe in on-the-job-training.
I’ve failed miserably in the past. I’m not afraid of committing Even if it means failure. What’s the worse that can happen? This isn’t a matter of life or death.
How can you crush your fears of freelancing?
I have two proven strategies that I’ve employed myself to slap the fears of freelancing across the face.
Find a client.
You need to find a paying client. You have to find at least one human being on this planet that’s willing to pay you to do what you do. Until someone pays your or you make your first dollar, you just have a hobby. There’s a huge difference between a hobby and a business. A hobby is fun. A business is fun and pays you. What do you have?
How can you land your first client?
- Job boards.
- Word of mouth.
- Referrals.
- Facebook.
Read more on my post for finding freelancing clients.
Hold your job.
Never ever quit your job until you have a plan. Anyone that tells you to quit your job and follow your passions needs to be slapped across the face. What kind of careless advice is that?
You need to hold your job. You can freelance on the side, weekends, and on your lunch break. You don’t have to go all in. I don’t want you to be homeless. If you hold on to your job, you’ll have nothing to be afraid of. You can play around with various freelancing ideas until you find something that works.
This leads to an all too common question…
Are all of the good ideas taken, Martin?
Absolutely not!
Execution will always beat any idea. Waiting for the perfect idea is the biggest waste of time possible. I waited forever to launch my first blog and it was an utter waste of valuable time. Whatever your idea or freelancing service is, get it out to the freaking market! Stop waiting!
Grab a copy of my book, Start Freelancing Now, off Amazon, and see what happens. I GUARANTEE you that you’ll start making money before you even get half way through the book. You owe it to yourself. Throw those useless resolutions away.
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