I’ve Been A Freelancer For 4 Years. Here’s What I’ve Learned
6 things I wish I'd known when I started 🤍
This piece is for anyone desperate to be a freelancer but doesn’t believe they can be.
For anyone new to freelancing who wonders when (or if) things will get easier (they will!).
For the freelancers a few years into this journey—I see you! And I celebrate you.
And lastly it’s for past-Bella, the girl who 5 years ago was still employed and just a couple of months away from making the best decision of her life.
We made it!🥳
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1. It really doesn’t matter what your corporate boss thinks of you
Before I quit my full-time job, I felt like a bit of a failure most of the time. Getting promoted was extremely difficult and required a lengthy business case that always felt like a slog, working as I did in a creative role (copywriter/organic social media manager).
The agency’s clients were, mostly, nightmares, and during one review meeting, my manager told me she couldn’t see me ever being a leader. I believed her.
For a long time, I couldn’t see a way out. Becoming a freelancer felt like such a big leap—something that other people did. I told myself that I didn’t have enough experience, enough money saved up, enough connections to make a success of it.
Until one day I realised that the company I worked for and the way the people made me feel was a reflection of them, not me. I didn’t have to keep myself small if I didn’t want to. I could leave and redefine what ‘work’ meant to me. I could make more money. I could prove my manager wrong. And that’s exactly what I did.
*Incidentally, my old manager is one of the best people I know. When she said ‘leader’, I believe she meant a ‘leader’ running an agency… which I don’t disagree with. Still, her evaluation was a blow since back then, I equated ‘leader’ with ‘being my own boss’.
2. Working a lot isn’t a bad thing if you enjoy it
4.5 years into freelancing, I’m pretty good at maximising my time and managing my client workload as efficiently as possible. If you’re interested in how, you can check out what a typical day in the life looks like for me and my top time-maximising tips.
That being said, I do—for the most part—really enjoy working. I love it when a new enquiry lands in my inbox. I love it when a client asks me if I can add other services to their retainer. I’m extremely lucky to work with great people and do fun, creative work. I’m not an advocate of toxic productivity, nor am I very good at relaxing. After a few days of doing nothing (a long weekend, for example), I miss my routine of exercise, personal projects and—you guessed it—client work! Not the coolest confession, perhaps, but an honest one.
I think a big reason for enjoying my 9-5 (my version of it, anyway) is because I make plenty of time for passion projects. Here you can read more about the novel I’m writing and the SEO project I’m working on.
3. Personal development is really important (+ worth paying for)
When I first started as a freelancer, it took several months before I had any spare money to invest in personal development.
But as soon as I’d saved a bit of cash, I began researching courses that would help me with the business side of things. Someone whose work I’d followed for months was Shannon from The Social Bungalow. She was, and is, doing amazing things in the online business and marketing space, and though at the time it felt like a huge investment, I knew how beneficial her programs would be. I wasn’t wrong.
Investing in oneself when there’s no separate ‘training budget’ like there was at my ex-corporate job is scary. But it is so, SO, worth it. Not only for the lessons you learn (and how quickly you get up to speed on things that can take years and years and multiple mistakes to acquire) but for the confidence you gain from believing in yourself. Believing that you are worth investing in. Which you are!
And yes, of course, there are lots of overpriced courses out there that promise the world and deliver much less than expected. If you ever have questions about whether so-and-so’s course is worth it (particularly someone with a degree of online ‘fame’), message me! I’ve taken many courses at this point and can almost certainly provide some insight.
4. Friends in the same boat are everything
As well as investing in my personal development early on in my freelance career, I also signed up to networking groups. Some were free, some were paid.
I’ve written before about how I learned to love networking, but my biggest takeaway is to try and find a group of people you can meet with regularly (at least for a few months).
That’s what I did with the Women in Business Network (WIBN). For almost 18 months*, I met up with a group of women running a variety of businesses (inc. a copywriter, mortgage broker, yoga instructor, singing teacher, and more) every month online and in person. Not only did these meetings bolster my confidence as a fledgling freelancer, they also connected me to new clients, and—most important of all—introduced me to one of my best business (and now, life!) friends, Emma.
Having Emma (who, incidentally, is an amazing copywriter) to vent to, to sense-check tricky client emails with, to discuss pricing with, and to generally have by my side through the ups and downs of freelancer life, has been the greatest gift.
If I hadn’t found her at WIBN, I would’ve kept looking until I did. Everyone should have an Emma in their life.
*It was c*vid during this period, which meant I stayed with this networking group for a little longer than I normally would have!
5. Time and experience will be your biggest teachers
I appreciate how futile it is to say this to a new freelancer, but truly—time and experience make everything easier.
In the beginning, it’s hard. There’s no two ways about it. You charge too little. You don’t set firm boundaries. Your work seeps into the evenings and weekends. Clients inevitably take the p*ss. And because you’re new and trying to build a name for yourself and just want to do a good job and develop your portfolio, you do things that a more experienced freelancer wouldn’t.
That’s okay. That’s normal. It doesn’t mean you’re rubbish and not cut out for self-employed life.
Quite the opposite. It’s the freelancer rite of passage. 99% of us have to go through it. But I promise that very soon, in the not-too-distant future, you’ll feel like a boss with a capital B. Someone who does a fabulous job but knows how to push back (politely) and charge what they’re worth.
6. Comparing yourself to shiny revenue posts is a losing game
This might be the hardest lesson of all. Particuarly because for me, when I first became a freelancer back in early 2020, I (and the rest of the world) was soon locked in my home with nowhere to go but Instagram. And boy, how Instagram was FILLED with ‘Learn how I make $10k a month!’ posts back then… FILLED!
If your job requires you to spend time online like mine, you cannot let competitors’ posts about their seemingly endless success get to you. This is easier said than done, I know.
Because the posts about how much revenue someone has made, the awards they’ve been nominated for, the press they’ve been featured in, the traffic/engagement rate/client enquiries they’ve generated—none of it tells the full story.
Revenue isn’t profit. Award panels are political. Press features are so often about who you know. Website traffic and social media engagement… are those results organic or paid?
Do not compare yourself to surface-level social media updates. You have no idea what’s really going on behind closed doors.
Case in point—I haven’t posted on Instagram in a couple of months (which is NOT good and something I’m remedying asap) because I’ve been so dang busy with client work 🤪
So don’t believe everything you see… or don’t see, for that matter.
I hope you enjoyed this newsletter!
If you’re a freelancer, I’d love to hear your experience in the comments below. And even if you’re not, I hope you took something from this post 🤍
The biggest takeaway for me is that we are so much more capable than we think. See you next week x
I’ve been self-employed for 23 years, all my working life (or at least, since I was 17), and I think your third point in particular is incredibly important. I have always believed that it is by investing in yourself that you invest in others…and investing isn’t always about paying for something.
So helpful to read this! I want to invest in myself and my business by signing up for some business courses soon but need to earn a little bit more first. I will definitely take you up on the course advice offer when I do. Thank you! 🙏🏻