It’s a simple question, but it can be a life-changing event when you decide to start. Making decisions that would greatly impact your life should always be done with extra care and planning. It is true that freelancing has a lot of benefits compared to that of the traditional 9 to 5 job. But we should also check the other end of the coin and see if we can handle the disadvantages freelancing has.
In this article, you’ll find both the pros and cons of freelancing and hopefully be to check for yourself if you’d continue to work for one employer or finally venture on your own.
Perks of Freelancing
Multiple Sources of Income
Working for only one employer could be risky especially when you depend only on that one source of income. When you lose the job, you may need weeks or more to look for a job and start off again with being employed.
Being a full-time freelancer lessens this risk by providing an opportunity to have multiple sources of income. Some jobs are project-based and can be done in a jiffy. This means that you can work with multiple clients at the same time. In addition, once you have the opportunity to settle to 1 or 2 clients at regular pay, things would be much easier.
If in case one of your clients decided to leave, you still have other sets of clients that would provide you for your expenses while you look for another one.
Flexibility
While being an employee, you may have thought numerous times what it would be like if you were your own boss – going to work whenever you feel like it.
Being a freelancer offers you this flexibility. You’re very much free to work during your preferred time whether it is at the wee hours of the night or early in the morning, take things one small task at a time or just cram everything in one or 2 days of the week.
You’re not even required to stay in just one place. For as long as you have your laptop and internet connection, you can just work anywhere you’d like – even when going on a vacation.
Diverse Work Opportunities
As a freelancer, you have the option to choose the amount of workload you want and what type of work you prefer. You could be a content writer in one of your projects, a proofreader in another while being a web designer in your blog.
This would also mean you can settle on one big or multiple projects or do minimal tasks to make sure you do best in your services.
This would also mean you can work as a full-time freelancer or just have it as a sideline from your full-time job!
Self-management of Salary and Benefits
In a traditional 9 to 5 job, you only have to negotiate once on your preferred salary and settle for that until you get a raise. Being a freelancer gives you the flexibility to choose how much you want to earn by either negotiating a higher offer or by simply getting more clients.
No need to wait for the next 2 to 3 salaries to purchase that item you want, working as a freelancer would help you earn it much quickly by just working on more projects. When you finally earned enough, you can settle back to working at your preferred pace and number of clients.
Yes, most clients currently don’t sponsor healthcare, retirement plans and vacation leaves when you’re a freelancer. But as the ‘gig economy’ grows, there are some indications that this will change in a few years.
Roadblocks in Freelancing
Needing constant motivation & organization
Unlimited free time has its own disadvantage. Being a freelancer means you must be able to motivate and organize your time and tasks. Since you can do your freelance work anytime you prefer, sometimes it could lead to procrastination, especially since you are in the very comfort of your home.
A freelancer must be able to efficiently juggle between freelance work, daily household chores, hobbies, and relationships. If you think you have difficulties in submitting before the deadline, or managing your time well, this could be a huge roadblock for you.
Building and Self-funding of Personal Development
We know how important it is to add new or get better at the skills we have to keep our standing career-wise. In a traditional office job, we’d be recommended by our employers to attend these seminars and training for improvement. Moreover, they would be the one shouldering the cost as they see it as an investment with you as an employee.
Since being a freelancer means you are your own boss and your services are your main product, it’s also important to gain skills for self-improvement. Having them would increase the chance of getting better clients and giving higher offers. But, all of these pieces of training and skills would be financed by you, yourself. You’re also the one to choose which skills you’d like to have, so make sure to plan ahead and know your niche. Having one strong point is better than randomly selecting any.
If you think continuous self-learning can be difficult for you, you may find it difficult to build a stable freelance career.
Jumping out of your comfort zone
A person may have great skills in writing, programming, and creative design but then you wonder why he/she still couldn’t land a job as a freelancer. That person may be missing something, and it could be good communication skills.
Being a freelancer means you need to interact with different people – may it be video conferences and interactions with clients or calls from banks and organizations who assist you in fixing your accounts and taxes.
It is also critical to properly market yourself and your services to make sure you attract the right clients. You may need to create blogs, video clips, webinars, and even attend networking parties to increase your reputation. You also need to portray these with confidence to convince clients you are the right man for the job.
If you just want to focus on your skills and aren’t willing to grow as an individual when it comes to the soft-skills part of freelancing, it might take a while for you to be successful in being one.
24/7 Availability
Some may not realize this sooner, but being a full-time freelancer would also mean you are on-call anytime you are needed.
The client called and in need of articles to be edited or re-written? A new project came up and needs to be started ASAP? One of your potential clients wanted to schedule you for an interview? You should be ready to face these unexpected events.
Moreover, as there are jobs that make you earn more by doing more, you may find yourself working for more than half the day. This could lead to burnout.
If you think the random calls for work would be stressful for you, freelancing may tire you out sooner.
In summary
Deciding to be a freelancer can be a life-changing. All of a sudden you have full control of your job, your salary and benefits, your time and even on your own performance and development. If incorrectly managed, life could be more chaotic than it was before.
Freelancing used to be considered just a sideline while you work on your usual 9 to 5 job. But as the job opportunities and salaries can now match that of the former, it’s no wonder people are flocking in and wanting to start their freelance career.
Before taking any steps, always remember to make sure you’ve flipped all the pros and cons of freelancing. If you know that you can work through the disadvantages and can see yourself greatly taking benefit from the advantages, then freelancing could be the right track for you.
