Quitting your day job to become a full-time freelancer is rarely a smooth transition.
A lot of brand new freelancers get trapped in something called the Day Job / Freelancer Endless Loop, which typically starts when you have a decent (yet uninspiring) day job but also have a side-skill you’ve always been good at, been passionate about and have had fun doing in your spare time.
Regardless of your side-skill – copywriting, music, graphic arts, computer coding, or whatever thrills you – the Day Job / Freelancer Endless Loop is always the same.
The loop begins as you…
…start to spend all of your free time on your side-skill and get even better at it…
…meanwhile the day job starts to feel even more boring as you begin to look for other places where you can do your side-skill…
…and you start to spend most of your extra day job money getting side-skill equipment…
…and then you do your first side-skill gig (for free, of course) and love it, so you begin to question your day job even more…
…and so you establish a side-skill home office and a gig calendar and you begin to spend all your free time hooking up more free gigs…
…and do lots of free gigs, and you start to resent your day job even more, especially when your boss scolds you more often for being tired/late…
…but then a family member / friend says, “You’re great at that side skill. Ever think of doing it for a living?”…
…then someone else says the same thing and you think, they must be right because ‘everyone’ is saying it…
…and then you book your first paid gig (glory be!) so you start blowing off your day job even more until even your co-workers are starting to notice (“Uh, is everything all right?”)…
…so you use vacation time to book more gigs but you call in sick a lot, and finally you get a last warning from your boss…
…but still you book more paid gigs and then you realize it’s time to make a decision…
…so you quit (or get fired from?) your day job and begin to freelance full time as you rejoice (hallelujah!) at your bravery and freedom…
…and then oddly after a few days/weeks you suddenly have lots of ‘free’ time despite doing your best to book gigs…
…and you realize there aren’t as many paid gigs as you thought there were…
…and that there’s way more competition than you thought there was…
…and that you can’t make a living if your only clients are family and friends…
…and then you miss a rent payment, then your electricity and water get shut off and you still can’t find clients (return my calls, dang it!) until panic sets in…
…so you get drunk with the last of your pathetic savings because why not, you suck, no one will book you…
…and the next morning, hung over, you call your old day job boss and apologize, and then (lord forgive me) beg to get your crummy old job back, and maybe you do…
…so you sadly pack away your side-skill equipment and go back to ‘work’…
…but after a few months, you get bored at your day job (of course!) and start to fantasize about your side-skill and those gigs you used to do…
…and you repeat the cycle yet again…
Here’s why it’s extremely difficult for new freelancers to break free of this endless loop:
In order to succeed, a freelancer has to attract their ideal clients, but that’s difficult without understanding what makes you different from all the rest.
Picture a giant brick wall and every brick is a different freelancer that also does your side-gig – now why would a potential client select your brick out of all the others, and how would they even notice it?
The answer is something the Real Free Life (RFL) program teaches.
RFL students learn how to discover their high-value specialty, what’s called a Bat Signal, and how to build up authority around it.
And when a freelancer’s Bat Signal is clear and their authority around it is unquestionable, it shines brightly on the endless brick wall of freelancers…
…so brightly that ideal clients see it first and hunt them down because they’ve made it abundantly clear which specific problems they excel at solving.
And that’s a great way to get paid exactly what you’re worth instead of only what they offer.
And it’s the best way to escape the Day Job / Freelancer Endless Loop.
Otherwise prepare to be just another brick in the freelancer wall.
