My Eleventh Thing - Free-lancing Pt. 1

Freelancing!!!

Free-whatting?!

To further legitimize my attempts to make my side-hustle an actual and realized business attempt and prove to myself that I am accomplishing real and amazing goals I decided to make a profile on an e-lancing site. Free-lancing is answering to posted jobs and getting signed to do singular tasks for a described amount of money. e-lancing is freelancing but done from one of the completely online platforms provided. 

Everything I have read about freelancing said it was worth a try. Supposedly it is possible to make so much pursuing this business model that you can quit your actual 9to5 and work remotely 100% of the time.

Not just that - 100% remote work doing something that burns inside me. Design. Could you even imagine?!

So I wandered out to a few sites and did a little homework on the best platform to work within. I chose UpWork. I created a profile. Attached my fancy new portfolio and read up on their terms and agreements. I did some homework on what makes freelancing different than regular, contracted design jobs.

And then I attempted to answer some of the job postings.

In a way I couldn't believe that I was doing this in such a short amount of time. Earlier in the morning this was barely an inkling of an idea and here I was submitting myself to the possibility of doing paid design work for complete strangers. Real companies even. Who am I even trying to be here?!

A designer. That's who.

In the first couple days I felt I had the hang of the posting submissions and a couple tricks of the trade, which jobs to answer and which ones to let go. Within a couple days I had gotten my first few responses. Job posters can reach out in the messages and ask for additional work links, ask questions to determine your ability to accomplish their work - or even to just make sure you understood the assignment.

It was exhilarating to think that I was now submitting myself on the same platform as some of my fellow designers. I didn't have the ratings or platform specific portfolio creds to be ranked with them - but it honestly feels like that is just a matter of time.

Of all of the things I know about myself - I *know* deep in my core that I am a good designer - I just need to put myself out there and start proving it to the rest of the world.