You know there are sometimes in our lives that we have this inner voice telling us something but we ignore it for a long time and then go through all the ‘physical’ obstacles and then later realize that the inner voice was right in the first place. Something similar happened to me recently.
After I got back from India – I went on frantically looking for a job. I think I attended about 20-25 interviews. I got 3 offers which I didn’t take. While I was interviewing it was becoming very clear to me that the kind of work I am seeking – freelancing would do. But I was really too scared to do that. I was scared to become a freelancer because I was not sure what kind of life it would lead to. Sangita has already made her mind and she became one when she got here, but I was not sure whether it would work out if we both did freelancing.
One thing led to another and after 1 month of searching for a job I realized that the reason why I didn’t like most of the companies I interviewed is because I didn’t identify myself and my values with what the company is trying to accomplish. So, freelancing is one way where I can be very particular about my project selection and totally enjoy working on it.
Now I am a freelancer. How did it change my life? So, far it’s been very good. I am lucky to have some good friends who got me in touch with some really cool people. Slowly I am building up my network and I can totally see all my fears falling apart. Freelancing does made me realize a bunch of things:
- I need to be very self-disciplined. I cannot get up late and stay and work in my jammies all day. It kinda puts me in bad mood by the end of the day.
- I need to move for a change – I mean I cannot work from home every day. I need to go to nearby coffee shop or a park to work
- I need to be very organized with my time. Still working on this one. But my calendar has never been so busy
- I need to be very organized with money. As a process of basically trying to write off most of the work related stuff and in a world where your pay check is not a regular occurrence, I need to be very careful with how I manage money
- I need to enjoy the freedom which I have. No more stay till 5pm policy. If the work is done, I am out and I can utilize that time to go workout or just cook amazing dinner.
Not sure how future will roll out, but in this moment I am really excited to be a freelancer and I totally enjoy the freedom it gives me.
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