If you don’t like your 9-to-5 job and feel like making a big change in your career, you’ve come to the right blog. The freelance industry gives everyone more than enough opportunities to take a turn, work outdoors, and improve their quality of life.

According to Upwork, the largest freelancing platform in the world, 84% of full-time freelancers achieve the lifestyle they prefer. This is mostly why the number of freelance professionals keeps growing so steadily. Last year, over 56 million people were doing some sort of freelance work in the U.S. alone.

However, freelancing brings a few challenges of its own and some individuals still find it hard to give up traditional career development methods. If you are a member of this group, keep reading our post to learn about the benefits of freelancing and see five real-life success stories.

The Benefits of Being a Freelancer

Before we get you acquainted with our five freelance heroes, we want to discuss a highly practical side of this type of career building. According to content creators at Essay Shark, individuals who decide to switch from traditional to freelance work do it because of the following benefits:

• Flexible work hours: As a freelancer, you get to decide when to work. This doesn’t mean you can work less than before (on the contrary, most freelancers work even harder), but you definitely don’t have to wake up at dawn if you don’t want to.
• Flexible location: This benefit is our favourite. You are free to work from home but you can also find a cozy office that suits your requirements. However, you can decide that working from a local coffee bar is the perfect solution, while no one ever stops you from working while travelling.
• Choose clients and projects: Beginner-level freelancers tend to work with almost everyone, but you will soon start choosing clients and projects much more carefully. There is no need to work with people you believe to be rude or inappropriate in any way.
• You are your own boss: It is another benefit because you don’t have any superiors to tell you what and what not to do. While it does increase personal accountability, it makes you happier and more satisfied.
• A chance to earn more: As soon as you establish yourself as a successful freelancer, you can gradually start increasing revenue. Besides that, you get to keep all the money for yourself.

Real-Life Freelancing Success Stories

You have seen the pros of freelance working, but this section is where the real fun begins. It’s much easier to figure out the privileges and professional opportunities if you see examples of freelancers who already made a breakthrough. We present five such stories here:

1. 
   

   Nicolas Cole: Freelance writer

   
   

Nicolas Cole used to be a gaming fanatic and a copywriter at an advertising agency with a regular 9-to-5 job. Writing a book on gaming was his extracurricular activity for over four years, but he felt like it was time to change as soon as the book was released.

Nicolas decided to take a short break and visit a friend in Los Angeles. As he was running out of money, he started freelancing as a ghostwriter for all sorts of senior executives. Soon enough, it turned out to be an amazing business opportunity that allowed Nicolas to launch a company together with his friend Drew.

These two friends proved that assignment writing service plays a major role in modern business, particularly for CEOs and other senior managers who want but don’t have time to build their self-brands. The opportunity has been waiting for years, but it took Nicolas courage to leave his job and start doing what he does best.

2. 
   

   Paul Clarke: Freelance photographer

   
   

Here is another example of a person who uses his creativity to evolve and start doing something he really loves. Paul Clarke was an interim director working on government technology projects who turned into an event and portrait photographer.

The reasons for leaving his old position were standard: Paul wanted to get out of the rush and create a business he could really call his own. What we like about this story is that Paul admits there was not a single moment when he decided to become a full-time photographer. Instead, he calls it a long-term process that lasted for a few years.

Christopher Hudson, a content creator at “6dollaressay reviews†agency, says he has seen a lot of freelancers like Paul: “It takes a long time to make a decision and part ways with the old way of life. But the year is 2019 and I believe modern-day professionals should not be afraid of experimenting with freelancing anymore.â€

3. 
   

   Kelly Vaughn: Freelance web developer

   
   

Kelly Vaughn quit her government job to run her own digital freelance business in Atlanta. She is a professional web developer with dozens of successfully completed projects, but what makes her case so interesting? Well, it is Kelly’s determination to share her insights with other freelancers.

First of all, Kelly believes future full-time freelancers should spend some time working both jobs simultaneously. In her opinion, a freelancer might need up to a year to build a portfolio and grow a client base.

Secondly, Kelly recommends finding a convenient coworking space because new freelancers can hardly afford a solo office. It allows you to work in a relatively peaceful environment, but you can still meet new people and perhaps even grow your network of professional connections.

The third piece of advice is to scale your business cleverly. As time goes by, you will probably start working with many different clients, so don’t let it jeopardize the quality of work. Feel free to form your own team if necessary and hire one or two freelancers to help you.

4. 
   

   Brandon Cowan: Freelance mobile app developer

   
   

The story of Brandon Cowan is also very interesting. Back in 2010, Brandon was only a 19-year-old guy when the whole world started revolving around mobile apps.

Brandon always enjoyed playing with smartphones, while iOS coding has never been a stranger to him. This is why he decided to create the App Making Guide to help users learn how to develop their own iOS-based platforms. It turned out to be a huge success for a solo developer, so Brandon made a few more apps, including iParkedHere and PetRescue. His projects were getting better, so Brandon eventually decided to launch his own company called Crazy Dog Apps.

The thing we like about this story is that Brandon never even bothered with traditional employment. He started as a freelancer because he believed in his skills and ended up running his own company.

Our fellow colleagues claim that the ultimate point of the story is to focus on freelancing exclusively: “If you are a youngster with enough knowledge and potential, you might as well try your luck with freelancing straight away.â€

5. 
   

   Susanne Peng: Freelance designer

   
   

Susanne Peng is the last but certainly not the least interesting freelance success story on our list. Like many other freelancers, Susanne did not even consider making a career out of it. Instead, she engaged in a couple of extracurricular projects just to accumulate some money.

But the wheel kept turning faster and faster, so now Susanne is a super-successful freelance designer. One could say that it is the most common situation since most professionals don’t never plan to dedicate themselves 100% of the time.

Susanne’s message is clear – freelancing offers you tons of opportunities to make a career while choosing the lifestyle you want. The pressure grows, but so does the privilege of living the life you’ve dreamed of.

Conclusion

The freelance economy is far from perfect, but it creates a brand new world of career opportunities. It allows you to become your own boss, choose clients carefully, and work from wherever you want. On the other hand, it does force you to work twice as hard because you have to earn a decent living.

In this post, we showed you five stories of freelance success you should look at when deciding whether to make a career change or not. These are definitely not the only success stories out there, but it should be more than enough to give you that extra push and encourage you to try out new possibilities in your life. Good luck!