Just getting started as a freelancer

Hey, I’m Darian. I’m a (proud!) introvert just getting started on a freelancing business in website creation and content writing. Through the lengthy process of getting my dream career off the ground, I found myself wishing I could see an honest account of someone else with my personality starting a business and getting clients written while they were going through the process.

There’s plenty of advice out there about getting clients, marketing and selling your services, and starting a business. But… I found that much of the advice I read REALLY didn’t resonate with me. I am not someone who thrives in a big networking event setting, so why would I try to force that? Instead, I am going about the process in a way that feels more true to me. A way that honors my personality while also pushing me out of my comfort zone when necessary. And, importantly, a way that allows me to be comfortable MOST of the time.

With that, I decided to begin documenting my process in a brutally honest way to hopefully reach other people like me. Introverts who crave the freedom, flexibility, and pride that comes with owning your own business and crafting your own career on YOUR terms. Perhaps I can add a different perspective to the overplayed conversation geared toward extroverts. Hopefully at least one person will feel less isolated, anyway.

A quick timeline

I’ll start with a brief timeline of my “working” life up until now.

May 2020, I graduated from grad school into a pandemic. This meant that there were not many jobs for me to apply to. And yet…

May 2020-September 2020, I scoured the internet for jobs and tried to apply to as many as I could. There were VERY few jobs that I felt qualified for, and I did not receive so much as an interview through those months. It was an incredibly frustrating time. My confidence definitely took a hit. Then, I took a step back to analyze my decisions and think about whether I was even pursuing something I wanted to do.

October 2020, I began to think about how I could build a career for myself. Freelancing and entrepreneurship had always been at the back of my mind, but my original plan was to get several years of corporate working experience before trying to branch off on my own. However, the more I thought about it and the more I pictured myself as a freelancer, the more excited I became. That’s when I decided to stop my job hunt and pivot to trying to build a business for myself. Thank you, pandemic job market.

The work begins, sort of

November-December 2020, I spent a lot of time learning and taking courses that I figured would help me out as I began trying to launch a freelancing career. The only action I took to move toward a real freelance job was a free website redesign for my stepfather in law’s dental practice. It was a very casual project with no real deadlines or urgency (in fact, it still needs a few final touches…). It was something to put in a portfolio, at the very least.

January-April 2021, brainstorming and thinking and talking and rethinking and rehashing the same conversations. Lots of frustration, lots of starts and stops. Every time I thought I was ready to start my career for real, I backtracked and rethought my direction and vision and never ended up doing anything tangible. This was an incredibly frustrating time. I thought about giving up the freelancing dream more than once (even though I hadn’t actually started anything at that point). No physical progress was made, and from the outside looking in I probably seemed to be more of a housewife than someone who wanted to start a business. It was… a tough time, to say the least. I felt scared and started to question my goals.

Getting started, finally

May 2021, I decided that I could make a freelancing career work. This meant I needed to stop comparing myself to the freelancers I saw online. Realizing that I could carve a different path was incredibly empowering. So, I officially started working, with May 17 as my first official day. I finally felt ready to move forward and get going on my plans and dreams. I had a plan in mind, and I felt ready to hold myself accountable to it.

In the next posts, I will share weekly progress, including which tasks helped and which things did NOT. If you made it to the end of this post – thanks for being here! I hope you follow along with my journey to being a business owner, freelancer, entrepreneur… while staying true to my personality and my values. I sincerely hope that by sharing my process in a completely honest way, I can help you to move forward in your path as a freelancer without making yourself completely uncomfortable in the journey. Introverts and highly sensitive people deserve space to create incredible careers, too.

Until next time,

Darian