Avoid These 5 Mistakes When Going Freelance

5 ways I sabotaged my own career when first going freelance.

Deciding to quit my job and become a full-time freelancer was the most exhilarating and terrifying choice I’ve ever made.

I’ve been writing online for a few months as a side-hustle, but as my numbers started to grow, I came to the point where I had to keep doing what I was doing or bring it to the next level by putting my fulltime effort into it.

While the benefits of being a freelancer seemed alluring, I was held back by the risk of leaving the comfort of paid employment.

After crunching numbers in excel, trying to consider about a million different failure scenarios, I was finally confident enough to leave the safety of salary, insurance, and fixed work hours behind.

I gave my notice, signed up for about a dozen different freelance sites, and was ready to rock the world.

And the world was ready to see me crash & burn.

On my first day of “work,” I settled down in front of my computer, fresh coffee in the mug, and expected orders to start flowing.

After about a week of my new online existence, all my worst fears started to appear. I wasn’t bringing in enough gigs, I didn’t get paid enough, and my house of cards started falling apart.

So, by looking back at my first period of freelancing, I discovered 5 essential mistakes sabotaging my own development.

When I was writing as a side-hustle, I specialized in writing articles related to personal finance, investing, and financial self-improvement. Leaping to full-time freelancing, I started applying for jobs outside my niche to ensure I had a large enough backlog and jobs coming in.

I started doing translations, ghostwriting, and all the gigs I received. Finding myself writing about boner pills, plumbing, California visitation rights, porn, and Asian startup markets.

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