Freelancer — A risky fairytale. A sensation of the freedom emerges when…
By: Arunas Kacinskas
Tags: Lifestyle, Freelancers, Hipster, Coffee

A true freelancer is the one who wears his beanie like a soldier

A sensation of the freedom emerges when you hear this word. Someone who manages his own time and get's pay for it. Everyone would love to be him or her, cause look at those cool kids in those coffee shops stuck to their Macbook screens. Amazing, isn't? Holidays all the time and you look trendy as well. No bosses, you dive into the work whenever you feel to, but on the other hand, where's a big risk you will go homeless in the second if not help from your relatives. Does it sound still like a fairytale? I guess there isn't a straight answer to it. To go freelance is like praying for someone to give you a job, it's such a random act of accident if even it happens you will be able to cover your ass for the moment, cause the payment for your time and job you did will reach you only after a month or even later. So, the question is "How in the hell you can afford that red beanie and the newest Nike shoes with your shiny Macbook?" You should calm down now because the answer is pretty simple. It's their mom and dad, supporting their ambitions to maintaining their expensive lifestyle because if you are a busy freelancer and do have loads of the projects, the coffee shop is the last place you want to be. Responsibility for your own time and earning makes you a bit vicious wolf, so to grab your pray you need to be concentrated and calm. So for me, a coffee shop is not the place to find your inner peace. The best case scenario you will be able to listen to music on your headphones and replay to your emails. That's it. The rest's only pretending of working hard. Do you still have the guts to pursue the freelancer lifestyle? If so you will need a desk space. It could be your home, office, co-sharing space, literally anything that will contain Internet, computer, chair and little plant to breathe oxygen. So you almost settled to kickstart your career now, but "Hey" whatever you do remember you need projects to survive and drink your pricy coffee and here comes the biggest challenge and the worry of how to get a sweet dollar for what you do. You will be surprised to realize that it all starts with recommendations and the people you have worked before, so if you a person who put some knives in your previous co-workers back forget any work coming from them. The only thing that can bring work these days is social media platforms, even if you not so good or selling something dodgy if you're exposed to many people where is a big chance that you will get inquiries. Which is good news! Congrats, they want your skills, but put your enthusiasm asides and swallow like a piece of chewing gum. With great power comes, great responsibility and in other words, you will need to manage your time, expectations and face the reality as it is. Firstly, I hope, I presume that you have been working in your field at least couple years, so you have the experience to put the price or the value on your time, cause you will need to tell the realistic price, so both sides would be happy about your work and pay. This is very important, because of your sweet character you might losing money and at the end of the month the rent will come and you will have to call your mom again and ask for the money transfer. If you know how much your time is worth, then congratulations it's a big success. Now you can attack your clients with that positive and polite energy and send loads of the emails, promotion materials and just say "Hi, I'm available for work!". There's no secret to it really, it's mainly a piece of luck and persistence to prove that you can deliver. Like myself, I had made mistakes in the past and probably won't hear from some clients, but that's life. Tough as it is, you will need to pick yourself up when you fall down because remember there's no one to do so. Still sounds like a thing you want to perceive? Again, it's only for that red beanie you can wear like solder to prove everyone that you are a freelancer. Imagine, you now settled in front of your monitor, which again you got because dad thought it will be a great investment in your future, but that's not important. What is important is that you have an enormous amount of time to do whatever you want. Just name it. And from here all those young bloods are going to coffee shops to show how hard they work. Why? Well, they need acceptance from society and prove them that they are talented and hardworking as you. But from my experience, you need to wake up as early as possible, come to the office, try to shut down social media, open the taskbar and nail each of the daily tasks on your screen, only then, after some time you can expect the emails start filling your inbox. You're almost a freelancer! Just remember to put aside 25% of your earnings to pay taxes and from now on you should be able to hang around the coffee shops. You handsome, red beanie, hipster millennial! I'm proud of you!