5 Steps to Quit Your Job and Become a Full-Time Freelancer
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Looking to quit your job and become a full-time freelancer? Want to be a digital nomad and travel the world? I got your back, friend.
We’re entering a very fascinating period of time where people are stepping into their worth, launching freelancing careers or businesses, and saying goodbye to minimum wage jobs and corporate America. Some call it the Great Resignation, I like to think of it as the Great Wake-Up Call.
If you found your way here from one of my TikToks — welcome! You may want to start at my freelancing 101 post that collates all my major resources when it comes to freelancing, ghostwriting, and everything you need to get started as a freelancer. I’ll be adding to that post as well as I create more resources.
This post is going to be geared toward anyone who is about to make the leap to freelancing from a full-time job and wants to do so as gracefully as possible
Step One: Identify Your Strengths and Skills
You don’t need a degree to be a freelancer, but you do need to get clear on:
What do I enjoy doing?
What am I good at?
Even if what you enjoy doing doesn’t overlap with the Venn diagram of what you’re good at, you can always teach yourself new skills. Taking courses on platforms like Udemy or Skillshare is one option, or you can even find a ton of free resources on blogs like this one!
If you’re good at photography but your heart is in copywriting, go with copywriting. Even though you’ll need to dive into learning how to write, it’s a better long-term decision as the goal here is to pick something that feels as fun as possible. That will always give you a competitive edge.
Not sure where to start? Ask friends and family: when do I seem happiest? What seems to come naturally to me? From there, start to search through freelance platforms for different types of jobs that seem interesting to you. If you’re an introvert that loves writing like me, copywriting or ghostwriting could be a perfect fit. If you love working with people, a freelance project manager or marketing specialist could be fascinating to try. Love organizing? A virtual assistant role could be great for you.
Step Two: Pick Your Craft + Research Your Niche
I talked a bit about finding your niche on my other post about freelancing 101, but finding your niche should be an exercise in leveraging your passion and skills and finding out what people will pay you to do.
Anything related to digital marketing and sales is generally a good place to start: everyone sees paying for things that give them traffic and clicks to their website as a good investment. So, you could do social media managing or copywriting, or you can niche down into something like Pinterest marketing.
When in doubt, scroll through platforms like Upwork and see what the top freelancers are doing to earn their dough.
Step Three: Create Your Financial Runway
Now, it’s time to strategize on how to leave your full-time job in a way that gives you the most runway to get going. It takes time to build up a freelancing career, so if you can start freelancing part-time or on weekends/evenings before quitting your day job, that’s ideal. Regardless, I’d recommend a six-month emergency fund if you can: that way, if you get off to a rocky start, you can at least cover your expenses for six months.
Can’t stash away an emergency fund? Try and cut your expenses down to the bone and buckle in for some long workdays. Start with a skill like being a virtual assistant, and take every job you can. It’s possible to go full-time right away, but you’re going to need to move fast and focus. You also lose some of your leverage: it’s much harder to stand strong in your rates and bid for higher jobs if you’re in a desperate situation. Do your best to get to a savings account as soon as possible so you can start raising your rates and getting to a steadier place.
Personally, I was freelancing part-time and in-between writers’ rooms before I got started, but when I went full-time freelance I was able to cover all my expenses and make $4k+/month right away. I already had a portfolio and a work history by that point, so starting gradually definitely helped me. Not everyone is the same, but generally it takes 1-2 months to start building up to full-time income for most freelancers.
You’ll also need to budget for the expenses that come up while freelancing. Some of the freelancing expenses you might not realize you have to plan for include:
Paying for your own health insurance + funding your own HSA
General liability insurance for your freelancing business*
Incorporation fees to set up your LLC*
Accountant/bookkeeping fees
Website hosting fees
Tools and software you need for your niche (i.e. Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva, etc.)
Saving for your Roth IRA/retirement
*You may not need to start with these if you’re beginning on a platform like Upwork, but after you start making a certain amount of money you’ll need them! The sooner the better as you’ll be able to do tax write-offs for things like office supplies or subscriptions. Talk to a CPA to strategize!
Start outlining your services and use something like my hourly rate calculator to calculate what you need to be earning. You can create fixed-rate and hourly project offerings in your niche, and calculate what you need to cover your current expenses along with these new freelance-related expenses.
Step Four: Market Your Services, Get on Platforms, Expand Your Portfolio
So, you’ve quit your job and made the leap. CONGRATS! It takes a ton of courage to dive off the diving board and believe that there’s something better out there. Most people never do it. So — welcome! These are hallowed halls.
Now, you’re going to enter a cycle of:
Market > Apply > Learn > Grow
As a freelancer, you’re either marketing your skills by building a website or optimizing your LinkedIn, actively applying to jobs on platforms like Upwork, learning more about your chosen craft and honing your skills, or growing your portfolio and business.
When you have free time, pick one of these four things and invest time in them. Don’t get discouraged if one day you’ve completed all your assignments and have no new clients. Use that day as a chance to strengthen your portfolio or write some blogs for your website so clients in the future will simply find you!
You may need to spend some time on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr to begin, but I’ve known freelancers who really drilled down into their website and LinkedIn and got inbound sales that way. I generally recommend Upwork, and I created a course breaking down how I made $100,000+ on the platform.
Remember, a day spent adding to your portfolio or learning a new skill is never wasted. That’s the key to this freelancing thing: always be learning and creating the momentum you want for yourself!
Step Five: Maintain a Structured Daily Routine
In order to keep up the momentum, I find it’s really key for former office workers to create their own routine. That routine may start at noon like it does for me (anybody who said you have to wake up at 5am to be successful just hates night owls) but you should fight to have consistent, daily habits that start at the same time each and every day.
I’m going to once again recommend you read James Clear’s Atomic Habits, a great book that explains why and how to create habits that last.
Here are some examples of the habits you’ll need to get into to become a successful freelancer:
Market: Write one blog post every week about something in your niche/related to your freelancing
Apply: Apply to 30 freelance jobs on Upwork every day
Learn: Take 1 course or read 1 book every month to help you hone your skills
Grow: Add to your portfolio once per month, even if that means creating something that you weren’t paid to do to show off your skills
If you create consistent daily habits, I promise you that you cannot fail.
Bonus: Cultivate a Community and Positive Mindset
One of the biggest issues people quitting toxic industries or day jobs face when going freelance is that they lack support. Your friends and family might be deeply entrenched in the 9-to-5 culture and might see you quitting your job as a potential danger to you. What they don’t see is that most day jobs have had their benefits completely eroded, and that freelancers are being paid up to 10x more than their full-time counterparts.
In five years, projections show that there are going to be more freelancers than employees — so the trends are on the side of the independent professional!
In making this leap, join Facebook groups or seek out other communities that can help support you. Find other freelancers and go to networking events and meet people who are doing what you’re doing.
As a freelancer, you also have an opportunity to work from anywhere, so consider traveling! I’m based in Los Angeles but I enjoy traveling for most of the year, and I love meeting new people on the road. You can read more about my travel diaries and digital nomad tips in this category of my blog.
Freelancing is scary, but companies and individuals need talent like you. Freelancing changed my life, and it can change yours.
Need extra support? Check out my freelancing 101 guide, send me a question, subscribe to my newsletter, or check out my coaching offerings. I’m here to help — so let me know what other resources you want me to make for you!
