My whole life has changed due to freelancing

When I started

As we all know freelancing is one of the ultimate jobs one could ever have. Nowadays freelancing is the new coolness. But when I started for me freelancing was very new to me. 

I heard about freelancing from a friend and after hearing a few things about freelancing I was so excited to become a freelancer and to know more about freelancing.

When I took my mobile out of the pocket the first thing, I searched on mobile was “what is freelancing”.

So, one and half years ago I started freelancing (18 months to be exact). I searched a lot on YouTube about freelancing at that time.

I learned a skill by taking a course on Udemy(paid) and From YouTube(free) were my two major sources of learning about freelancing at that time.

Because I knew about only two learning platforms. Udemy was completely new to me. I invested my money in paid courses on Udemy.   

Then finally after learning a skill, I created a profile on Upwork.

I was searching for clients to work with. And I even started a blog and I started writing about my graphic design services. 

I started getting little traffic to my blog. But I haven’t got any clients yet. I was worried and impatient too.  I was sending them cold emails on a regular basis. 

I was working on both I.e. Upwork and my blog. The main motive of my blog was to get traffic and from that traffic. I can convert readers into clients. 

But it didn’t work, And I became demotivated. And because of demotivation, I stopped writing consistently on my blog about my freelance services.

And I totally stopped sending cold emails to my future clients.

I had no clients to work with I was thinking about quitting. But still, I had hope for getting a client. And I wrote the last post about freelance services on my blog.

After a few months 

After a few months, I got an email from an individual who was interested in working with me. Then he hired me. He wanted me to design book covers.

I designed and gave him the designs. I designed the book covers as he was expecting and he was happy with it.

He paid me a decent amount of money.  And I was so happy because he loved my design. After that, I never looked back because I started getting clients. 

I used to collect their testimonials. And post it on my blog and in my freelance portfolio. It played a great role in getting clients.

And now I can say that my whole life has changed because of that one last post, one last mail. 

But I was not satisfied with this work so I planned to convert the freelancing into a business. But I didn’t know how to do it. 

What I learned through freelance.

1. Learned New Skills

When you do 9-5 you focus only on your work. Most of you never think about learning a new skill (high-income skill).

But I never thought of 9-5 so for me freelancing was the only way to make money because I was passionate about it.

But the problem was when I started freelancing. I knew nothing about it. 

Then I learned about freelancing, how freelancing works. And daily I learned new skills.

In fact, still, I am learning about freelancing and many more skills. I took courses online I watched them for hours.

After that, I never look back, and then I started my journey of freelancing. I always had an interest in learning new things. 

But in 9-5, we do the same things over and over. We don't learn any new skills. Due to this, I chose to freelance over 9-5 jobs. I did a lot of mistakes in freelancing.

But as you know our best teacher is our last mistake. So, I corrected them and kept moving ahead.

But if you want to avoid the same mistake which I did then read this freelancing post. In this, I told you about what mistakes I did in freelancing.

Read this so you can avoid them. I read books too. Books have the power to change your way of thinking. As they changed mine.

After I started freelancing my main priority is to keep learning. Always be a student of life.

2. Learned How To Run A Business

Freelancing is similar to run a business. you are on your own. No one will be there for you. It’s very different from 9-5. The work is very different here. You have to go looking for clients.

Make them interested in your freelance services. Convincing them to work with you. Planning every step on your own. You have to manage your expenses and taxes. 

These are the skills that are never taught at colleges or schools. You learn them by yourself.

Initially, you will fail but you will gain experiences from it, and when you start freelancing business again this time you are not starting from scratch. This time you have experienced.

About how freelancing works. This time you know about finances, expenditure, taxation, etc.

Now I manage everything on my own. I am very flexible at work. I learned all this because of freelancing. If I did 9-5 then I wouldn’t have learned all these skills.

I would have just completed the given tasks. But now, by god’s grace, I am running a successful freelancing business.

3. I Built a network

When I started networking, I didn’t know anything about networking or the power of network.

After some time, I started noticing other freelancers one thing common between them was they have a big network.

I tried thinking out of the box. Instead of just increasing followers on social media I tried something different I followed them on social media.

ALSO READ:- 10 best freelance tools to increase your work ethics

I messaged them personally on their social media. I worked for them for free. I followed every single person on social media who is in the same niche as mine.

We became friends on social media then we used to exchange our personal numbers.

I visited a lot of seminars. I made a lot of friends. I connected with them professionally as well as personally. Instead of connecting with them just professionally, I connected with them personally.  

second thing I did was joining groups on Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. I joined as many groups as I can. I personally messaged the group members we became friends.

The reason why I joined groups is that we have more in common. we shared our knowledge, helped each other that’s how we increase our knowledge in freelancing.

Networking for me was never easy because I used to text them write emails, I worked a lot for building a network. 

But now I am happy because I worked on networking and built a network that made many friends.

4. Being a boss brings responsibility

When I started freelancing, I had no one to guide me. I did everything on my own. Anyone can become an employee.

But becoming a boss and managing everything on your own is not a cakewalk. You can get into depression because of your workload. I used to make all decisions in my freelancing business.

I was the key decision-maker about finances, services, paying taxes, writing the email to the clients. It was so difficult for me to do all those things simultaneously.

But, slowly-slowly I learned all the things and I started prioritizing my work.

And now I can manage all the things of my freelancing business alone and without any help.

Being a boss is so frustrating and responsible work. You must know how to keep yourself motivated throughout the day. If you don’t know then it will be super difficult for you to get work done by yourself. 

5. Learned how money works.

Money affects us in everyday life. We need money to survive. We work every day to make money, we wish for more money every day and every time.

But before managing 10 lakh rupees we need to learn to manage 1 lakh rupees. we need to learn how money works.

We all know this “a key to mastering anything is understanding the basic or the core concept of it” and this is a fact.

In schools and colleges, they don’t teach about money or finance not even at a micro-level. Many of us don’t understand the concept of money.

For understanding how money works first we have to understand the monetary system.

Understanding the working of money is not science nor art. We can only learn about money if we put it into practice.

As I did, I put it into practice when I started freelancing. I myself controlled all finances, taxes, etc. 

I was also a newbie in the financial world. I didn’t even know the ‘F’ of financial knowledge. Slowly-slowly I started learning about taxes and finances.

At that time YouTube was my biggest source of learning. At starting I used to scratch my head because I was not getting anything about money.

you might like:

• Writing freelance resume like professional
• Tips for writing effective email for freelancers
• Outstanding freelancing writing niches for 2021

But slowly I started gaining interest in finances and everything started getting clear. I learned everything about money by myself.

conclusion

so here's how my whole life has changed due to freelancing and you can also change your life.  if you also want to start your career in freelancing then you have to take your first step.

That is creating an account on a freelancing website. and you have to be very careful in choosing the correct freelancing platform. 

If you don't have any idea about which freelancing platform is good or bad then you must read my best freelance websites with less competition. read the full article then select which is best for you.