5 Compelling Reasons to Start Freelancing
Freelancing is one of the most powerful ways to jump into the laptop lifestyle as a digital nomad or lifestyle entrepreneur. But many people postpone living their dream lifestyle because they don’t really know where to start.
When my wife and I explain to people that we are digital nomads and full-time RV’ers, many people say something like, “That’s so cool, I wish I could do that.” And when I ask them why they don’t, their answer is usually something like, “I don’t know how I could make a living on the road.”
The reality is that many options exist for lifestyle entrepreneurs. Freelancing is just one of them, and it has some powerful benefits for anyone who wants to create an income that is both location-independent and time-flexible.
As long as you have a digital skill set that small and medium businesses need, you have the potential to earn a lucrative freelancing income. Some examples of common skills for freelancers are: social media marketing, copywriting, content marketing, digital ads, and software developer.
Here are 5 compelling reasons that you may encourage you to get proactive and investigate how freelancing can be just the ticket to help you reach your lifestyle goals.
1. Freelancing Creates A Location-Independent Income
When structured correctly, freelancing can bring you an income that is completely location-independent.
We say that an income is location-independent when it really doesn’t matter where you are located in order to generate your income. As long as you have your laptop computer and a good connection to the internet, you can work.
Your freelancing clients won’t care so much about where you are located. What they do care about is that you deliver quality work that meets or exceeds the requirement. And, that you deliver that work on time, or even early. This means that you can work pretty much where you like.
Personally, I’ve worked on the beach at the Gulf of Mexico, in a lounge chair by the pool, on a picnic table in the Sam Houston National Forest in east Texas, and in the mountains of Wyoming. Other people I know travel from country to country living a more jetsetter lifestyle.
Freelancing can also be time-flexible. This means that, as long as you manage your work to deliver it on time, you can actually do your work at any time of the day or night that you choose. And, you have the freedom to not accept work assignments if you choose not to.
2. There’s A High Demand For Freelancers
It is very true that there are more freelancers in the global marketplace now than ever before. It is also true that the demand for freelancers is higher than ever before, so there’s no danger yet of having a glut of GOOD freelancers on the market.
Many small and medium sized businesses are venturing into the arenas of social media marketing, content marketing, or even software marketing for the first time. They really need work done by people with specialized skills, but they don’t have the need or budget for a full-time employee to do these tasks.
This is the perfect opportunity for freelancers to step in and provide these skills as needed for a few hours a week for a given client.
3. Freelancing Expands Your Creative Talents
In the traditional corporate world, just because employees develop new skills doesn’t necessarily equal an increase in income for those employees. Employers pay for skills that they need at the time. If you master a new skill that your employer doesn’t need, you’ve essentially wasted your time.
In fact, in the corporate world you tend to get shunted into a given career path, and opportunities for growing your skills are mostly limited by that career path. And, shifting over to a different career path can be hard.
That’s not true in the freelancing world. You can start freelancing with just one or two skills that you are really good at. As you add and master additional skills, you can begin offering them as services, as well. As you add more services, your income grows and becomes more stable.
This allows you to truly explore the full breadth of your own creativity in your work.
4. Get Paid What You’re Worth
People often say that the competition is intense in the freelancing world. That’s true, particularly for freelancers who have mediocre skills or who don’t deliver for their clients reliably and consistently.
However, for freelancers who have excellent skills and who are outstanding at meeting their clients needs, that competition is your best friend.
The market forces of supply and demand really work in your favor when you are a quality freelancer. You have the full flexibility to adapt your skills and services to those that are most in demand in the market.
And, as you consistently meet or exceed your clients expectations, you’ll find that the number of clients you have and the number of jobs that they request from you will go up.
As that happens, you can gradually raise your rates that you charge to each client. You have a choice of letting your income continue to grow. Or, perhaps of eventually becoming more selective about the jobs that you accept and working fewer hours overall.
5. Gain A Better Work/Life Balance And Overall Happiness
All that I’ve discussed so far in this story leads to one overriding benefit of freelancing…
CONTROL.
I remember vividly the experience of coming to a powerful realization…
Once a moment of time has passed, it is gone forever. And, by virtue of doing one thing in that moment of time, I forfeited the right to do anything else in that moment.
Unfortunately, at that period in my life, a large percentage of my moments of time were being dictated by someone else. My own sphere of control was very small. I found myself being acted upon much more often than I was acting purposefully of my own will.
All the benefits that I’ve described in this post about freelancing allow you to take control of more moments of time in your life. This allows you to broaden your sphere of control and act purposefully of your own will much more often.
Doing this gives you the second overriding benefit of freelancing…
CHOICE.
You can choose what you want to do in more of your moments of time. And as a result, you can choose to bring those elements into your life that allow you to have more balance across all the key areas of your life.
You can choose when you work and when you don’t work.
And, you can choose to eliminate activities from your life (like commuting) that don’t contribute either to your income or to the things that you value most.
Most important, you can choose how many hours you don’t work. And in those hours you can take specific actions that bring into your life those things that will make your life richer and more fulfilled.
Did This Help You? If so, it would be awesome if you hit the Subscribe button below, so you get an update when I publish my next story.
Also, I publish several times a week, so if you’re not a Medium member yet, you’ll want to go here to get started, so you can read everything I write.
See also:
