Freelancing Is Not for the Weak: Here’s the Brutal Truth

Telling you as a friend: go get a job while you still can.

Photo by Darya Tryfanava on Unsplash

⚡You can find this article in video form here.⚡

I need you to know something: freelancing is hardcore.

For most people out there, freelancing might be either the worst or the best thing they ever tried. For some, it’s both. I’m not trying to deter you from starting freelancing though.

Actually, I hope as many people as possible leave tight corporate environments and small companies that work you to the bone and they just spread their wings and fly into the great unknown of freelancing.

But I’m also aware that it will be the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to do. And it’s not for everybody. Actually, it’s for very few people. That’s why most people have jobs and only some people start freelancing and succeed.

Because freelancing is hard af.

What is so special about those people who make it? Sometimes it’s their drive to succeed at all costs. Because it will take all costs.

Also a deep understanding of how the world works and a capacity to fail and fail again until they eventually succeed.

Other times it’s their inability to adapt to a traditional work environment or their deep rejection of authority. Did you notice that many of the people who started highly successful freelance businesses at one point end up in trouble with the law?

That’s because people who have a problem with authority will challenge authority’s principles and will, most often than not, end up getting caught doing things behind authority’s back.

Of course that doesn’t apply to all freelancers, but it does apply to a lot of the ones who get big enough. They have a problem with the idea of paying taxes or doing things a certain way. They want it their way.

It’s one of the first reasons they start freelancing in the first place, to avoid submitting to any form of authority.

But that’s easier said than done. Because no matter what you do, there will always be someone who has authority over you.

You might hate your boss, but few people can be their own boss.

It takes more dedication than you can imagine to get up every morning and start working when there’s nobody pushing you to do it, or even forcing you to. No matter how passionate you are about what you do, work is still work, so it’s still annoying.

That’s why people who want to be successful as a free-lancer long term will need to be very disciplined. How’s your discipline? It’s vital to be disciplined if you want to succeed as a freelancer.

There’s a simple test you can do. Choose something you dislike, but it’s good for you. Like, say, exercising outside. How often do you get up out of your warm bed at 6 AM, put on your stinky running shoes and go for a run in a blizzard?

I bet not very often.

Although you know that being physically active and pushing your body is key to being in good health and staying fit. Well, freelancing feels the exact same as that blizzard whipping your face in the darkness before dawn.

There are 3 major ways that will get you over that:

1. You love the pain.

2. You are obsessed with the outcome.

3. Working for someone else feels like death.

I was watching David Goggins a few days ago. Former Navy seal and ultra-endurance athlete, Goggins tells a story about how he had entered his first ultra-marathon, the San Diego race, to raise money for charity.

During the race, at around 70 miles (112 km), his kidneys failed.

But that’s only half of it. On top, all the small bones in his feet were broken. His lower legs suffered dual stress fractures.

He had blood in his urine and in his shoes. But he was determined to keep going.

This level of endurance and determination can be reached by very few people. It’s way beyond the level of individual decision to keep running while your kidneys fail and your bladder fills up with blood. It’s a cocktail of several massively important driving factors that keep you going despite anything.

In Goggins’s case, that cocktail also includes the PTSD from growing up in a highly abusive environment, a superhuman drive to succeed, and a larger-than-life need to prove that he can rise above anything. Even above broken bones.

His book, suggestively titled ‘Can’t Hurt Me’ seems to be his way of proving to those who hurt him in the past that he can no longer be hurt. An incredible feat of the human psyche overtaking the body’s weakness and limitations.

Just like an ultra-marathon, sometimes freelancing will require everything of you in order to succeed. Maybe not blood in your urine, but blood in your soul.

The constant uncertainty, the feeling that you’re venturing into uncharted waters infested with sharks, not knowing if you’re going to have enough to pay your bills tomorrow, living at the absolute lowest limit of frugality, at least for a while…these things take a toll on your willingness to go on.

They will make you want to curl up at your old desk and let that boss you hated so much before lecture you on what a bad employee you are. This time it will feel like a warm hug compared to what freelancing feels like.

Anything will feel better than not knowing what tomorrow brings. That’s why escaping the 9 to 5 is so difficult.

And that’s why you need massive forces at work to be able to rise above your natural and human need for safety and comfort.

But… and there is a big but here… if you succeed, being your own boss will be the best feeling you’ve ever had.

It will all be worth it, especially if you’re driven by any or even better, all of the factors I mentioned before: you love the pain, you’re set on the outcome, or you have a disdain for authority.

But whatever you choose, remember that pain is a constant part of life, as is authority. And if you also put a life purpose behind it, you might just succeed.

So, what’s it going to be?

Are you going to keep fantasizing about the freedom of freelancing without preparing for the storm that comes with it? Or are you going to do the hard work, face the chaos, and build something that’s truly yours?