Top 3 Benefits of Professional Freelancing and Why You Should Become a Professional Freelancer
Wouldn’t it be great if you could wake up each morning and do what you truly love, whenever and wherever you want?
You get to pick and choose your clients, type of work or projects and set your very own hourly rates – no boss or board members to determine your worth, it’s just you…you’re the master of your life and destiny.
All of a sudden the toxic corporate politics or backstabbing you as an employee are exposed to on a daily basis become the thing of the past, you are free like a bird and can do, be and have just about anything your heart desires.
But is such a fairytale even possible?
Absolutely!
Others have been doing it for years – it’s called professional freelancing – and so can you…of course, if that is what you truly want?
You could be employed, between jobs or unemployed but what matters is that you’re here right now, reading this blog post…that’s a huge sign that you’re near ready to take the leap of faith and start your professional freelancing career.
Before you do however, I am compelled to tell you that freelancing isn’t something you simply pick up one day and succeed at the next – in fact professional freelancing career is much more challenging than a conventional 9-5 employment, so be mentally prepared.
Considering that I have already written at length on the subject of professional freelancing and gig economy in my other posts such as…
- How To Become A Professional Freelancer In Gig Economy
- Here’s Why Freelancing Platform Is Your Best Friend If You’re a Professional Freelancer
- How To Start A Freelancing Career With Ease And Become A Freelance Superstar
- What is freelancing platform and how you as a startup founder or professional freelancer can benefit from it
I will solely focus on the top three benefits associated with professional freelancing that you can take advantage of as a professional freelancer. So here goes…
1. Do what YOU truly love
To me this is the big one and here’s why…
My whole life I’ve been intrigued by people and have always paid a very close attention to them…be it family, friends, business acquaintances or total strangers in the coffee shops – I’d observe them very closely but not in a psychopathic way but rather with admiration and empathy.
Thanks to my inquisitive nature, I’ve also read a great deal about what makes men and women widely successful and what doesn’t. My ‘study’ of mankind led me to innate talents and abilities, learned skills and qualities we all possess.
Long story short, it became very apparent to me that all those men and women who achieved enviable success in their respective spheres of interest did so mostly because of the passion and love they have had for their calling. That which they did, wasn’t foreign to them but came naturally like a second nature – they’ve excelled at it with relative ease compared to many others who tried hard and failed to come anywhere near them.
You must have heard of or read about some of these exceptional achievers including but not limited to Walt Disney, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Steven Spielberg and Michael Jordan to name only a few. Unlike great majority of the world population which blindly follow the followers of the followers who came before them, these exceptional achievers did that which came naturally to them and enjoyed doing it regardless of what anyone may have thought or said about it.
Contrast that with great majority of people you know today. Chances are that most of them are doing jobs they don’t even like and are mediocre at it at best. The reason is very simple, you can NEVER excel at anything that you aren’t passionate about or don’t have innate talents for, no matter what you say or do about it.
With proper guidance, support, training and education everyone can become an architect, doctor, engineer, lawyer etc. but not everyone can excel at it and be truly exceptional. This can ONLY be done by those individuals who were at birth equipped with necessary talents and developed admiration for their calling along the way because of it – they became very passionate about it and achieved the pinnacle of success.
The point is, do that which comes naturally to you and you’ll not only excel at it but live a very happy and fulfilling life. Don’t ever work for money, doing jobs you don’t like, which may even make you unhappy along the way.
That’s not the way to live a life. Life is way too short for such an ignorant way of existence. Life is supposed to be meaningful and abundant. Instead, do a self-inventory of your talents and learned skills and find out what truly makes you happy…discover your passion and pursue it with all your might.
Professional freelancing is the way to do just that and thanks to global business paradigm shift since the turn of the century, freelancing has been widely accepted worldwide as a viable way to getting things done. Individuals, startups and even medium to large enterprises turn to professional freelancers for help.
Put yourself out there and do it. Start here…
- How To Become A Professional Freelancer In Gig Economy
- Here’s Why Freelancing Platform Is Your Best Friend If You’re a Professional Freelancer
- How To Start A Freelancing Career With Ease And Become A Freelance Superstar
- What is freelancing platform and how you as a startup founder or professional freelancer can benefit from it
2. Work from anywhere and anytime
Do you enjoy waking up in the crack of dawn and fighting the morning traffic to work? How about having to punch in at 8AM or 9AM and punch out at 5PM or later only to fight the same traffic to get home completely exhausted?
I certainly doubt you do, in fact I can’t think of anyone who loves being stuck in traffic on the way to or from work. I am a morning person and love everything about my morning ritual except the drive to the office…that I don’t necessarily enjoy all that much.
So whether you’re a morning person or not, if you could change some parts, if not all of your morning ritual e.g. shower, shaving, force feeding, dressing up, morning traffic etc. and replace it with something of your own liking which you choose to do because you want, would you? Be honest.
Well guess what? Professional freelancing is the way to do just that. One of the main perks of freelancing is the freedom to work from anywhere and anytime. Clearly, you’ve got to make freelancing work for your by being able to continuously find paying clients otherwise, you won’t last long as a professional freelancer and freelancing could become the thing of the past fairly quickly.
As you embark on an exciting professional freelancing journey, you’ll soon realize that one of the most challenging aspects of professional freelancing is securing paying clients. Therefore, you’ll have to be very resourceful and quick on your feet to succeed as a professional freelancer.
Your ability to promote yourself, your services and build qualified prospects pipeline will be the main determining factor in your success or failure as a professional freelancer. So take time to educate yourself on how to build your prospects pipeline and ultimately convert prospects into paying clients on a regular basis. To get started with professional freelancing, you may refer to previously noted blog posts packed with wealth of valuable information related to professional freelancing dos and don’ts.
3. Set your own hourly rate
I don’t care where you from or what professional roles you’ve had in the past throughout your career, you must have felt overworked and underpaid at some point…there’s been that girl or a guy who’s done much less work than you and was paid considerably more than you. We’ve all been there, I know I have and have always wondered why?!
The answer to this question is very simple, because I was completely dependent on another for my livelihood. I let my ‘boss’ and the board members determine my ‘worth’ and set my pay. If you truly think about this for a moment you’ll realize how pathetic and weak position that is to be in.
Being an employee or a ‘modern slave’ is a true weakness of great majority of the world population and without diverging of a subject and going into root cause of ‘modern slave’ phenomenon, you’ve got a great opportunity to move from a ‘modern slave’ to a professional freelancer by taking up professional freelancing.
For the first time you’d get to determine your true worth and set your own rates…you’d get what you deserve or at least what you believe you deserve. There’s no boss or a board members to tell you otherwise, you’re in a total control of your life and destiny. A dream come true, wouldn’t you say?
Wrapping it up
Granted, conventional 9-5 isn’t for everyone, just like professional freelancing or entrepreneurship isn’t for fainthearted. It therefore, comes down to each one of us – you included – to decide what’s right for you, ‘modern slavery’ of freedom that comes with professional freelancing.
Before you make a definitive decision as to how you’re going to proceed from this point on, I urge you to read recommended blog posts and more – Google it – for once you make a decision, whatever it may be, stick to it and go all the way.
Think, act, be.
Author: Dzenan Skulj, a Co-Founder and CEO at Parttimerz. He’s a serial entrepreneur and student of life. Utterly passionate about and strong proponent of entrepreneurship, startups, freelancing and self-development, which he regularly blogs about on his personal blog dzenanskulj.com. Dzenan also actively mentors entrepreneurs on their entrepreneurial journey.
