The small freelancing mistakes beginners often overlook and no one talks about, but they quietly shape your future success.
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A small wrong decision or one small mistake can have a big impact on our daily lives, especially when it comes to freelancing or any business.
I was once a beginner and made some mistakes when I started in freelancing, and honestly, you cannot avoid those mistakes if you don’t know about them and if no one warns you about them.
That’s why this blog post exists – to warn you and make you aware of these beginner’s mistakes that, honestly, you can avoid from the start before you take any action that you will regret at the end.
What are these beginner’s mistakes, and why should YOU avoid them?
Mistake 1: Quitting your 9-5 job immediately without enough savings or an emergency plan.
Being prepared is everything, and actually it’s really good if you are prepared for a worst-case scenario. And it doesn’t mean that you are preparing yourself to fail, but to lessen the negative impact in case there is an emergency.
Yes, I am advising you not to quit your job immediately until you are stable. Why?
Because your monthly salary can help you with these things:
- It will help you to survive the harsh world of freelancing, especially if you don’t have any clients yet or recurring income that will sustain your freelancing business.
- Your monthly salary can help you fuel your freelancing while you are building it on the side. You can allocate a budget for the laptop that you need, a subscription to one of your productivity tools, and more.
- If you want to learn new skills and you have an online course that you want to buy, you can use your monthly salary to pay for this, especially if you haven’t found any clients and projects yet. That you want to use your available time to level up your skills.
- Your monthly pay together with your freelance earnings, if you already started earning from your freelancing – combining them can help you save faster and reach your financial goals.
A few important notes, but they will help you to make a decision about the topics that have been circling around the internet, like this: Do I Need to Quit My 9-5 Job Once I Get Earnings from My Freelancing?
I hope this part answered this question and the one inside your head.
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Mistake 2: Not Researching Enough How Freelancing Works
Yeah, I know. Information is everywhere, and you are confused about what the right answer is and what is not. But I will tell you right now that most of them are correct; however, the information that you have been reading or found online came from different people with different experiences.
Yes, what they are saying is correct, but for you, who have just started, my advice when researching about how freelancing works is this:
- If the information is too vague or complicated, avoid that. Why? Because it will be hard for you to understand the answer that you are looking for. Avoid complicated answers.
- If the information is clear and simple, the person explained it in a beginner-friendly way, and most of the questions inside your head get answered, yes, take that down in your notes.
That is the proper way of researching. And I am sure that you need to do a lot of research all the way, not just before and after you start; you will do a lot of research in your freelancing journey.
But remember the standard rules: learn the basics. Know how everything works, from finding your clients to how to write a proposal and what to do once you get your client and after you finish your project; include also the tax and some fees that you need to pay, like from start to end. Not just how to start freelancing, but research everything.
And please, once you’re done with your research, take action. Yep! You need to move the needle, or else nothing will happen to you. No progress. No results.
Mistake 3: No Self-Assessment Before Starting Freelancing
This is one of the important things that you need to do, because freelancing is not for people who have a faint heart.
Yes! I said it. Honestly, it’s a bit hard for me to say those words because I’m on the beginner’s side, but sometimes, you need to learn the truth, or else you’re just going to make your life miserable without even knowing the truth.
Okay, back to the topic! So, what I am saying is you need to self-assess yourself before you start freelancing.
Remember this: the freelancing industry is very unstable and unpredictable.
Yet lots of people want to do freelancing because of the word “freedom to work”.
So please ask yourself these questions so that you will not be on the side of the beginners, who are always guessing and don’t know what to do.
- Am I emotionally, mentally, and physically ready to enter the world of freelancing?
- How should I take the news if the client decided to end the contract without any warnings?
- Can I work more than 10 hours a day? Like, after my full-time job, can I take another 2 or 3 hours of freelancing work at night?
- Can I handle more than one client or just one client at a time?
- What if I still don’t have a client after three months? What should be my next steps?
These are the maybe, uhm… simple questions, but they have a big impact on you once you’ve answered all of them. Because once you know the answers within yourself, you know what to do. You know the next steps; you can create a backup plan or prepare yourself for the worst-case scenario.
Again, you are not preparing to fail. You are preparing to lessen the negative impact in case something unexpected happens.
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Mistake 4: Unwise spending of your freelance earnings
Again, what is the reason why you want to start freelancing? To earn extra income, right? To ease your financial burdens, right? So, why are you spending it unwisely?
Yes, I get it, the YOLO (You Only Live Once), but please don’t follow this. What I mean is, be wise when spending your hard-earned money. You’ve been working hard to get your first payment.
So why not do these things instead of spending them like one time, big time?
- 100% put them all into your savings. Assuming that you are still working a 9-5 job and you are still receiving a monthly salary.
- 50/50 savings and investment. Again, I’m assuming you still have a 9-5 job.
- 90/10: the 90% is either your savings or investments; it’s your choice, and the 10% – yeah, treat yourself if you really want to. And again, I’m still assuming that you have a 9-5 job here.
These are all the suggestions that you can do for your freelance earnings, especially since you are still building it on the side and you still have the full-time job. I just don’t want you to feel regret at the end and ask yourself, ‘Where did your money go?’ Right?
Final Thoughts:
These are not your ordinary mistakes that you can easily give solutions for if ever you encounter them. These are the mistakes that you should ‘avoid in the first place’ so you won’t experience the negative impact of them in the future.
Because, for example, you quit your 9-to-5 job immediately, and you are not stable, you will struggle a lot, especially in your finances. Or you don’t even have a backup plan in case your client decides to just end the contract. You will feel miserable instead of composing yourself and move on to the next step. You will always think, Did I not do a good job? Or is my skill not enough?
And a lot of negative impact that I don’t want you to experience or at least feel. That’s why I write this post to make you aware of these mistakes that no one talks about. Or if there are some, only a few people are aware of these. And I want you to be wise and aware of your situation.
So I hope this post helps you in a simple way but gives you a good impact at least. And let you know that one small mistake or small wrong decision that you make has a big impact on your life, not only in freelancing, either.
Find Me Here:
- How Exactly Freelancing Works and Why You as a Beginner Should Read This
- Side Hustles I Actually Do (and Recommend)
- Why You Shouldn’t Quit Your 9-5 Job When You Start Freelancing
- Small Beginner Freelancing Mistakes That Have a Big Impact Later
- Work-From-Home Essentials for a Simple and Comfortable Setup
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