Feeling the freelance fear, and doing it anyway
Much to my own complete and utter disbelief, I am almost one year into being a fully fledged freelancer - and I haven’t gone bankrupt (yet). In fact, I am thriving in ways I never thought possible.
But here’s the thing: I am not going to disguise or downplay the fact that although I was absolutely terrified to go out on my own, I was also already in an incredibly privileged position before I took the leap. I had always had the idea of being a freelancer in the back of my mind, a pipe dream that floated into my sub conscious every now and then, but no real confidence to see it through - until I was furloughed in June 2020. Within a month, I had two offers for freelance writing work, one full-time job waiting for me post-pandemic, and an ever-growing dilemma that I couldn’t ignore.
The summer of 2020 will always carry intense feelings of excitement, anticipation, and anxiety, for me - with a tiny pinch of 'what the bloody hell am I DOING, this is insane, I am insane, I can’t do this’, for good measure. It was the summer when my entire life as I knew it changed, irreparably and forever. I set fire to every instinct I had as a 9-5 devotee, turning everything I knew on its head to fit a new goal. My every waking hour was consumed with this tiny new venture that I was nurturing and feeding and putting every ounce of energy into. I didn’t know if it was going to work, but I couldn’t not try.
It was the biggest, riskiest and most heart-led decision I had ever made for myself. I was choosing to honour myself, my happiness, and how I wanted to live my life in a scarily real way. I knew no other way to go self employed other than feel the fear, and then do it anyway.
For me, in those first few months, it was all about the behind the scenes, uninstagrammable, often boring and incredibly taxing prep work that you have to do before you can even think about starting a business. While on furlough, I was frantically searching Google for typical day rates for freelance copywriters. I bought Fiona Thomas’s book Out of Office and read it cover to cover. I scoured the gov.uk website, looking for ways in which I could potentially get arrested and hanged for tax issues. I wrote a list of everyone I had ever worked with, every person I had encountered at networking events and working brunches and gala dinners, every friend of a friend of a friend who might possibly need an over-excited writer to schedule out the odd social post once a week.
I worked all the early mornings, evenings, and weekends under the sun while I was still employed, making it work, creating space in my day to fit it all in. When October very abruptly came around and I was suddenly entirely on my own with a MacBook and a monogrammed notebook I bought myself during an ill-advised 1am browse on Papier, it was jarring - and also incredibly liberating. It was like free-falling off a cliff, but knowing that that was exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Almost one year on, and to be completely honest with you, being a freelancer is just as terrifying as it was a year ago. But I am far more resilient, more experienced and more capable, more able to adapt when things don’t quite go my way. I feel a sense of contentedness and peace in myself that I didn’t anticipate. There are still a million and one things that could and probably will go wrong, but being a fearful freelancer brings me more joy than I ever thought possible.