Mentality Shift of Freelancer
WRITTEN BY David Yu
Freelancing is more than a paycheck change. It’s a state of mind.
Some mentalities might work in a regular 9–5 jobs, but it could be detrimental in a freelancing career.
- Weekend mentality
The other day I asked my freelancer friend, “How was your weekend?” He said, “It’s Friday, dude” That’s when I realized that my weekend is not limited to Saturday and Sunday. After some reflection, I noticed how becoming a freelancer had shift my perception on day-off. 9 to 5 jobs have trained us to feel happy on Friday and feel awful on Monday. But as freelancer, you are the boss of your own time. You decide when you should take day-off. With this control, there is also great responsibility that comes with that.
2. Job description mentality
“I didn’t sign up for this!” We often hear this phrase in movie when something has went south and the main protagonist has some regret about his past decision. The same epiphany can happen in work. It happens when your boss has asked you to do something that’s not even slightly close to your expertise. It happens when you’re an introvert and the company requires you to scream out discount prices to strangers while dressed in ridiculous uniform(true story).
But when you’re a freelancer, you did sign up for this. I did sign up for this when I agree to work for a client, and I love it. When doing something uncomfortable, I don’t focus on how uncomfortable it is anymore. I think about how the client trust me to overcome any obstacle. That trust helps me to accomplish task that I thought I would never achieve.
3. Security Mentality
In the past, I often measured the security of my livelihood by how much I can make. Although doing the math to check your finance is important, the mentality of always feeling insufficient and desperation has led to me saying “Yes” to things that didn’t align with my values. Taking random projects for the money, it was only distracting me from my path to become a software developer. The feeling of being insufficient is still there, but I don’t let it control my decision because I made a new friend, and his name is “priority”.
Even if you’re not a freelancer, I hope this can help you in your career and life. If you’re thinking about shifting to freelancing, the mind is a great place to start. Thank you for taking the time to invest in yourself. Have a great day.
This article was originally posted in Medium.com.
