I’ll never forget looking at a post on social media of another freelancer sharing about her journey in the freelance space. She was celebrating her two-year freelanciversary and I remember thinking – two years as a full-time freelancer… Wow. That is the dream. To live and work as I please. 

And now, It’s been almost four years since I left my last office job, three years working as a full-time freelancer, and two years working as a full-time voice actor. 

There are so many pieces of advice I could share with you in today’s episode but I’m going to keep it simple.

Here are the five big thought nuggets I want you to have and munch on.

1. Something is only impossible until someone makes it happen.

Regardless of where life takes us, at some point, in the words of Air Force Major Charles Hodges during the cave rescue in Thailand back in 2018, “You’ve got to do 

something because if you don’t do something now the decision will be made for you…”

I’m not sure where you are in your journey right now, but the first indicator that became apparent to me before I made the jump into full-time freelancing was that I didn’t seem to fit in with any office I worked in. Sometimes it was my co-workers, or the general building aesthetics with generally horrible paint color choices, but most of the time, it was the sheer nature of the work and how it was done. 

I didn’t like that I had to work the way someone else wanted me to and during a set time someone dictated of me. No matter what the job, law firm, university, parks system, or cashier… none of these roles connected with who I am. There was always a division that ran deep. But guess what? It wasn’t the office’s fault. It wasn’t my coworkers’ fault. IT wasn’t even my boss’s fault. They were simply working in a system designed for them that they chose to be a part of. At that point, it became up to me to figure out what I needed to do and when. Because that system is more than happy to take me in and swallow me up every time. 

So eventually those questions started to come to mind – what would “different than this” look like for me? What is the impossible dream I have for myself and what I do for work? And, better yet, if it’s impossible, why have I seen so many other people do it? 

Especially now, freelancing and working from home are part of the everyday working conversation like never before. Whether you want to attribute that to covid, or advances in technology in communication, which I’d wager it’s definitely a mix of a bunch of factors, this is reality. You can do whatever you want if you’re willing to do a bit of research and learn how to make it work for you and your desired lifestyle. 

Three years ago, I had no idea the kind of lifestyle my family and I would be able to live like we are today. We’re not making so much money we have no idea what to do with it, but we are making a living doing what we want when we want because we decided we wanted to do so and because we’ve designed a system that works for us. 

2. Work with what you have until you have more to work with. 

This is basically my working motto. And if you’ve been around awhile, you’ve heard it many times. 

This idea is important for many reasons. Firstly, It lets you know there is a way to get started without having to build an entirely new door to walk through, and 2. You don’t need to spend an arm and a leg as a beginner. 

If you want to know what you need to get started today, listen to the five essential tools episode and check out the free mini-course, linked in the show notes. 

Because here’s the deal, if you spend let’s say $1000 on gear to get started only to realize later on you didn’t need half of what you bought, or, worse yet, you didn’t give yourself time to try out the gear before you bought it. Not only are you out of time and money, but you haven’t even given yourself time to experiment and learn about yourself, your voice, and your business needs before jumping the gun. So be sure to assess what you have, work within those limits, and be ready for your next moment – the moment you realize you’re ready for level 2. This will vary from person to person but if you stick with it, you’ll know when it’s time to buy a new piece of equipment, start working on your demo, etc. 

3. Why not you? Why not now?

Like we just talked about in the last point, I had to come to the realization that others were doing what I wanted to do, working how I wanted to work. Was there some special skill they had that I didn’t? Was there a magical well they had partaken from that I just needed to find?

No. And as Gina Horkey, of Horkey Handbook, always says, why not you why not now? Because there is no well, pill, potion that will show you exactly what you need to do, it shouldn’t stop you from digging in, learning from others who have done the thing you want to do, and start laying out a game plan for how you’ll make it happen. 

4. Involve those closest to you. Make them a part of your impossible dream. 

If you’re familiar with the musical the greatest showman, you’ll recall that Hugh Jackman’s character, PT Barnum, first became successful because his family was walking alongside him and cheering him on to make his big dream happen. It wasn’t until PT decided to go off on his own to pursue a seemingly unrelated endeavor where his family couldn’t go with him that he started to veer off of the path they’d already agreed upon. This caused strife and a close ending to his family unit as he knew it. 

And I’ll give you a personal example of this in our life – recently, I decided I wanted to take on a very big and serious endeavor with my podcasting and narration talents. Long story short, I did not include Jeremy in this idea. I knew he’d say no. I knew he wouldn’t want me to do it – to veer off. So I didn’t share my ideas with him. Worse yet – I’d already started making decisions without him about this project he had no idea about… 

Yep, a recipe for utter disaster and heartache. And that’s what happened. I went off on my own and caused an issue within my family. I say this because as entrepreneurs it’s so easy to see the next glittering thing. And we’re creative so we can and will make anything happen. But the reality is – the project offered nothing to my life except a new creative hobby which I definitely do not need right now. And it created such chaos in my family unit that I’m slapping myself even now thinking about it because that is not the dream. That was never the plan. And while dreams grow and plans change, including those we love will not only help us to feel motivated and encouraged to keep pressing into what we really want to do but it makes the success we do have so much more full and rewarding. 

And this is why you need to…

5. Set up a simple system that works for YOU and how YOU work. 

We’ll dive into this in more detail in next week’s episode, but this is by far what took me from a struggling freelancer to, “I don’t feel like entrepreneurship is total chaos.” 

Like anything in life, wearing a smartwatch to help us get our steps in, setting an alarm so we don’t oversleep and lose out on precious time, ordering curbside delivery so we can get back to our day… we have tools and processes in place everywhere in our lives to help us live and work more efficiently and in ways that work for us. So why not think of your freelancing work in the same way? 

Having a system, and a simple one at that, to help keep you focused and motivated is the key to unlocking your entrepreneurship mastery. The biggest takeaway from this one… it’s got to work for you and how you work. Otherwise, you’ll be starting from scratch every day. And that is a miserable and oftentimes lonely place to be in when you work for yourself. 

I’ll give you examples of how this works in my life and work and what you can do to set up a simple system for yourself too in next week’s episode so stay tuned.