2013 has been a year with so many ups and downs. It has been a year that has caused me to reflect on the life that I’ve been leading to this point and make some extremely difficult decisions. The most recent of these decisions has been to step out of the daily 9-5 grind and pursue freelance web design full time.
This was a decision that didn’t come lightly. It’s a path far less travelled. There are certain generations of workers who look at self-employment and just shake their heads. They don’t understand how self-employment can be successful. They believe in the 9-5 grind and have solid pensions to fall back on if something ever happened. Even my own parents and some of my close friends have questioned the stability of this move. But we live in a different economic time. There is no job security, corporations don’t care about their employees and those pensions…well, read the news and find out how those are going. On the upside to these economic changes, we’ve seen a growth in people taking risks and stepping out of the box with their careers. These people are turning passion (muse projects) and hard work into billion dollar corporations. But that’s not important. It’s really about the other rewards. The ones you can’t buy with money.
One thing I noticed about other entrepreneurs and freelancers is not the financial success they have but their mental richness. They embrace the joys of being able to spend time with their loved ones while still doing the creative work they love. This has been one of the mental struggles I’ve had this past year. Balancing life with the love of creating great work. I recently spent a stint in Calgary working and enjoying the company of family. During this time, I found I was more creative and energized by the work I was doing. I felt engaged and excited for the first time in a while about my projects. I was also able to embrace some new processes to help remove distractions from my life. For example, instead of checking my email every time my iPhone buzzes, I now only check it twice a day. For true emergencies, people will call or text me. It helps prioritize what’s really urgent and what we pretend is urgent.
For years, I’ve been talking about going freelance but never took the initiative to do it. Fear can be an incredible way to hold you back from making choices. I’ve always been blessed to have a few great clients trust me with their projects over the years. But with the support of my family and a growing client list, I’m confident that I can take on the new life I’ve set in motion. This move will allow me the ability to properly tend to the requests of my clients without feeling overwhelmed and accept a lot more work that I’m passionate about.
As of August 30th, I will continue my pursuit to rid my life of the fears and distractions that have been holding me back. I will strive to provide the highest quality of work to my clients through more stable and refined processes. This will also give me the opportunity to spend some extra time on my muse projects that have been neglected lately, mainly Wirefy and Forgetful Chef. Finally, I’ll be able to provide more family support to my incredible wife. I wouldn’t be able to take on this journey without her.
To start I’ve set up a series of tasks that will help get me started on the right foot. One of these tasks is a site refresh with some new work and better case studies. I will also be spending more time putting my thoughts into this blog and guest writing for industry publications.
As you can guess I’m taking client requests now for September. If you would like to hire me for your next project, please send me an email.
