Hi and welcome!

A little about me…

Welcome to Intentional Freelancer! I’m so glad you’re here. My name is Darian and I am in the middle of my journey to becoming a successful freelancer. Yes, “success” is pretty subjective, and that will be the topic of lots of posts to come – stay tuned. I hope this blog can be a place where you see yourself somewhere in my attempts to become a freelancer. I also hope that I can encourage you to reach your goals without sacrificing yourself in the process.

So, a little about me… I am extremely introverted, I crave peace and wholeness in my life, and I still don’t know exactly what I want to spend my days doing. Freelancing is intriguing to me for lots of reasons, but they can be summed up in one word: freedom. The freedom to schedule my own time, to choose what most interests me at any given time, to go on an unplanned trip at the drop of a hat because I am not tied down by a cubicle in a downtown office building.

What makes freelancing difficult

However, there’s that whole “introvert” thing. That means that I am not a natural people person. I do not thrive in events and networking meet ups. I do not want to call random people, and I certainly don’t want to promote myself on my personal social media. That’s all WAY too public, and I prefer (strongly) to be quiet, intentional, private. So, that’s a bit of a dilemma because all the classic freelancing advice and methods to get clients do NOT align with my natural personality.

The tension between really wanting to be a freelancer/entrepreneur/my own boss and staying true to my quieter and more introspective personality has made the first few months of trying to build my business extremely challenging. It often feels like I am either going completely counter to my nature or like I am neglecting the thing I truly do want to build. With that, I decided to start this blog, because I know I’m not the only one living in that tug-of-war.

What’s next?

Moving forward, you can expect to see a weekly post outlining what I did that week, with a retrospective two months after the fact (so, I started writing posts in May, but I will finish and post them in July so that I can provide an accurate, helpful look back at the things I was doing at the time). Beyond the weekly journal posts, I’ll also write articles about important issues at each stage of the process. That’ll include things from building your website to honoring your introversion in client meetings.

I’m certainly no expert, but I would love to have you along for the journey as I learn more about what it means to be an introverted freelancer.