Freelancing Seems to Be the Goal, but Is It Always the Right Choice?
If you spend any time in the mograph social space, you'll notice a common ultimate goal. Freelance. Listen to enough podcasts, look in some slack groups — it seems that everyone who isn't freelance wants to be, and those working for themselves glorify their success.
I spoke of a similar experience, even going as far as to tell my "falling into freelance" story on the Motion Hatch podcast. When recording that podcast, I thought I could achieve all of my goals through freelancing.
But then, when an opportunity to take a full-time staff position arose, I had to grapple with this weird feeling of shame when I questioned putting a hold on my freelance career.
Why would I give up on a career path that had brought me success? Was I giving up for something easier?
The year I started freelancing was incredible. I pushed myself outside my comfort zone, made great connections, and saw myself growing. It felt wrong to give that all up.
I also felt an incredible sense of shame and guilt - would those who looked up to the freelance success story I told consider me a fraud if they found out I was full-time?
So with all this internal turmoil — why was I still considering taking this full-time job? My gut told me it was the right choice — but I needed to dig deeper.
What’s the next step to achieve your goals?
There were pros and cons to freelance and full-time. At first glance, neither was necessarily better.
Looking at these equal (yet different) options, I didn’t know how I would make such a choice. Until I remembered something I did at the start of my freelance journey — The Perfect Day Exercise.
This exercise asks you to imagine your life five years from now. It’s just a regular day, but you think about where you would ideally live, what work you do, and more. But more influential than your ideal future life is how you get there.
What do you need to do to get to your perfect day one year from now, two years, three, four? Most importantly, what can you do right now to reach your perfect day?
So I thought about my goals to get to my perfect day. In my personal life, it was eliminating debt to buy a house with my wife. In my professional life, I wanted to spend more time working on teams of fellow creatives and getting critiques from mentors and colleagues to keep improving my skills.
One opportunity would bring me closer to my perfect day — that full-time staff position.
So is freelancing the best career move?
Not always. Different paths are right at different times.
When I went freelance, it was the right choice to allow me to grow. I had applied to other jobs before fully committing to freelance, and each time I was almost good enough — there was always another candidate just a little better than me. The skills required to be a successful freelancer ended up being exactly what I needed to acquire my current full-time job.
I’ll dive deeper into the lessons and skills I learned from freelancing in a future blog post.
Regardless, freelance isn't always the right choice for where you're at in life. Consider the pros and cons, do plenty of research, and know that you can change your path at any time.
If you’d like to try out the perfect day exercise for yourself, you can download the worksheet for free, along with other resources on the Motion Hatch website.
