Why I’ve Decided Not To Go Full Time Freelance. Yet.

June 15, 2011

I’ve been writing a weekly piece here at GetPaidToWriteOnline.com for almost a year now (a year!) and for anyone who reads my posts regularly, you’ll be aware that a common, underlying theme has run through them — I work in a full time position, freelance in my spare time, but want to freelance full time.

Ever since I was at school, I’ve always loved the idea of working for myself and after trying out a few different careers that could have given me that ability to work from home, I stumbled across freelance writing a few years ago and it seemed like the perfect career.

I set myself a goal when I started to make a concerted effort to develop my freelance writing career that once I’d earned the same amount of money through my freelance work as I did in my salaried role for three consecutive months, I’d leave my salaried position and go full time freelance.

I was fortunate enough to hit that goal within a few months of setting it, but when I realised I could effectively be earning two incomes, I thought I may as well keep on doing so for a few more months — with millions of people out of work in the UK, if I could get two good income streams, letting one of them go didn’t seem quite right.

After working 70 hour weeks for more than few months, things quietened down on the freelance writing front towards the end of 2010 and it gave me time to think.

I decided that in 2011, I’d build up my freelance writing career to a sustainable level again, put some money into savings and then leave my salaried role to freelance full time.

I understood that I’d no longer have two incomes coming in, but the flexibility and freedom that freelance writing full time would give me was — this time — the main lure.

Then I got offered a new salaried position a few weeks back and all my thoughts on freelance writing full time went out of the window.

The new position isn’t related to freelance writing and it’s not some position I’ve wanted to hold since I was a boy — don’t get me wrong, it’s a great role with lots of benefits and I feel privileged to have been offered it — but it’s the fact that I’ve been offered this new role that changed my mind on freelancing full time.

For at least two years now, I’ve seen a full time career as a freelance writer as the Holy Grail. It’s something I love doing, something I enjoy and it could give me all of the flexibility that I could ever want in a career.

When I sat down and thought about — and I mean seriously thought it — I realised that it wasn’t the flexibility and freedom I wanted so much from freelance writing, but the change it offered.

I’m not someone who gets bored easily and I can wile away hours reading books or listening to music. However, I love trying and experiencing new things and when it comes to work, I’ve always tried to get as varied of a workload as possible.

When I was offered this new position, I got the same feeling I did a few years ago when I realised that freelance writing could be my main career and it was that feeling that made me realise if I’d have gone full time freelance, I may have ruined my adoration for it.

My fiancé is a Piano Teacher and when she was leaving college, she was faced with the decision of going to university to study music, which she loved or sociology, which she enjoyed.

She choose sociology for the fact that she loved music so much that she didn’t want to risk hating it after spending three years doing nothing but studying it inside and out.

And it turned out well — she got a 2:1 in her sociology degree at university and worked for a time in a field where she could use her degree while she built up her piano teaching career, which is now her main occupation.

For me, it’s exactly the same with freelance writing — I don’t want to risk coming to hate freelance writing because I’m doing it full time. I don’t think I ever could hate the career that can be so versatile, but I don’t want to risk that.

This new position is a part-time one, so in those days I have free, I can either continue to write at the level I am doing, working with a variety of different clients or take my current employer up on an offer of a part time position and reduce my freelance writing workload — although I’d still be working the same hours as I am at the minbute, I’ve wanted to stop working on a weekend for a while now, so whichever option I choose, I’ll be ensuring I can take a break from the long working weeks.

In all honesty, I’m thinking about the latter option, as it means I can focus solely on the freelance writing projects that I truly want to be part of, rather than working on certain projects just to ensure there’s food on the table and a roof over our heads.

I love freelance writing and my aim is still to have that side of my work take up a substantial part of my working week, but I’m coming across different opportunities at the moment that both allow me to focus on certain parts of writing that I particularly enjoy and also take on new projects that are linked to freelance writing, which are exciting, interesting and have a lot of scope for development.

I’m not entirely sure what anyone can get from this post. I’ve wrote nearly 1,000 words and it’s simply me telling you about my position at the moment.

What’s become apparent to me, however — and hopefully to you — is that freelance writing is fantastic, but there’s often a lot of stress put on new writers to succeed straight away and for established writers to maintain the level of success that they’ve achieved.

Life is far too short to focus on just one or two aspects in both our work and personal lives and I’m making sure at the minute that I’m doing my utmost to sample as much of life as I can.