Self-employment Week: 74
When I had a job, all I wanted was to work for myself & so I followed the quickest path to self-employment.
And I stopped making an effort once I found work that made me enough money & gave me the precise level of freedom I was looking for.
A lot of self-employed people will tell you, that the only success that matters on this journey is simply waking up each day and still being self-employed. But now that I’ve been doing it for over a year, I’m feeling more confident in being able to simply keep it going.
And so, I want more.
I want more than money & freedom to work from home.
The advantages of being self-employed are so much more than getting to travel the world. I’ve realized that for me, the true benefit of this life is being able to be picky about the work I do.
As I've been contemplating what "more" looks like, I haven't actively pursued additional work or tried to get any more clients than I already have.
But over the past few weeks, I’ve had a few people reach out to me with different types of work opportunities.
Getting to explore & consider these different opportunities has got me thinking a lot about the things I value & what I expect my experience with work to ultimately be like.
I ended up accepting one of the gigs & rejecting a few others. And through that, here is what I realized I tend to look for in work now that I’ve been doing it for a while.
(in my order of importance)
Type of work
What the work looks like in its simplest form. What does every hour of doing what you’re getting paid to do look like is super important(to me).
My reliazation prompt:
When I think about sitting down to do the work, does it make me feel excited?
Often when we pick a job, that tends to be the last thing we think about. Our priorities are always first,
The name of the company
The salary
Equity
Our job title
People we know who work there
City
Stage of IPO
Perks
& then lastly what we’re going to be spending time doing & working on.
My conclusion - I always want to be as close to creative work as possible. It is highly unlikely I would accept work that had a majority of operational tasks.
The person I would have to communicate with
This might sound really unimportant but especially being a freelancer that works with small businesses, the person I have to interact with the most to get my work done has a huge role to play in what my day looks like.
For eg:
I live in IST. Working with someone who lives in EST is better for me than someone in PST.
Working with someone who doesn’t enjoy meetings a lot is better for me than someone who can’t communicate without needing to get on a ‘quick call’.
Working with someone who doesn’t have control & trust issues is a better experience than with someone who struggles with that.
Now, I may be quick to judge someone for this. But I would rather be wrong than commit to something only to leave after a month.
So, during all the initial back & forth that happens when we establish how we could potentially work together is time for me to be vigilant.
Would I do it for very little money?
Before I even ask them what their budget for the project is, I first ask myself
If they have an extremely low budget for this, would I still do it?
It’s not that I’m trying to make less money but I know that ‘how much you’re making on a project’ doesn’t get you through the times when you’re not enjoying the work.
I need to be able to evaluate things without the $$$ influencing me.
The time it would take
I really don’t enjoy working every day.
I just can’t do it.
And there are tasks that take less time & there are tasks that take a lot of time.
If something by its very nature would require a lot of my time, I doubt I can get past that.
For eg, I had 2 offers to write newsletters for 2 different businesses. One was a 10-12 minute read & the other was a 3-minute read.
Even getting paid much higher for the 12-minute read does not make it desirable in my mind.
Is there more to it than the work?
Work is everywhere.
There are many businesses & many people with a reasonable budget that require competent individuals to do quality work for them.
So, can someone offer more?
Being self-employed, perks don’t look like free food & massage chairs.
I look for perks like
If the company is doing work I really believe in
If the founder is someone I’ve been following for a long time
Do they have a cool team I can work with
Do I get access to courses I can’t afford
or are there revenue-based incentives.
There is quite a bit you can look for when taking on clients. So much more than who’s paying the most.
Lastly, Money
Of course the money matters. I’m not a saint.
And how I evaluate the amount I’m getting paid for a certain type of work if it passes all the above conditions is,
If I didn’t have that extra money, would my life look different?
Because if it’s not an amount that would make my life look even slightly different, then it’s not worth it.
If it’s not making me feel like I’m contributing more to our investments,
if it doesn’t make me feel like I can buy something I’ve been really wanting to
or get me closer to being even more picky with some other clients I’ve been working with,
then I can’t consider it.
Because if my life is not going to look different because of the money, then it’s not worth letting my life look different with the added work.
More work impacts your life. That’s a fact.
There are fewer social invites I can say yes to,
Lesser time doing nothing,
Less time with my cats,
Less time cleaning my house,
Less time to spend with my partner
& less time writing.
I'm selective about the work I choose because I recognize how profoundly it can affect our lives.
The work we do & the people we do it with have the ability to take your time & the ability to dictate what that time looks like.
So, is every $100 more still fun to have? Yes
but according to me, the cost is huge. And I am so grateful that I see it as such.
Not all work is bad.
Getting to do more work over the past few weeks has been such a joy in my life. But if I want to work, there’s a lot I can do. So, I always have to ask myself,
Is this particular one really worth it?
VERY well thought out and articulated 💯 I love your clarity!