Why DId You Start Freelancing?

[Valeria K]

Hi Jahanzaib,

Rising Talent program has been temporarily paused and you can find more information about it here. You aren't required to verify your account at the moment, but the team will notify you if it's needed in the future.

Finally, when you go to your Find Work page and hover your mouse over the profile visibility settings, you should be able to see a pop-up with options you can use to set your profile back to public.

[Jahanzaib S]

Dear Valeria, 

I really appreciate your quick response  Valeria. But it locked privately from upwork . I am unable to change the Visibility. Please change my visibility to public as I am already striving to get jobs here.

Regars, 

Jahanzaib.

[Vladimir G]

Hi Jahanzaib,

I checked and can confirm you do have the option to contact Customer Support and request your profile be set back to public after hovering with your mouse over the visibility tag on the right side of your Home page.

[Syed A]

Hi upwork, 

Thanks alot for updating my profile back to Rising Talent. I really appreciate it.

Regards,

Moaeed.

[Lia B]

I was a full-time single parent of three with a job I enjoyed; it was at a nonprofit, so the pay wasn't great, but the benefits were. Yet... it seemed like I was gone all the time, and I was missing out on my boys' lives.

I was constantly being asked to do side projects AND I wanted to go to graduate school, so something had to give. I took the plunge and quit the steady, secure job (much against the advice of many people) to start my own business.

That was 5.5 years ago, and I now have my M.A. and, instead of rejoining the workforce, I am still freelancing. I earn more than I would in a corporate setting, and I am available to chaperone field trips, attend school board meetings, and other things that I would otherwise have to take time off to do. I was also able to dial down my business last fall when both of my parents were diagnosed as terminally ill. One lived in Seattle and one in Honolulu, so I cared for both by flying back and forth -- there is no way I could have done that if my job weren't portable.

When my boys have all flown the coop, I will take my job on the road and travel freely, as I have always wanted.

Yeah, I'll never go back to working for someone else.  

[Trevor R]

Hey,

I started freelancing late last year for three reasons:

1)  To challenge myself, stay sharp and work on interesting projects.  In my full-time job as a consultant I work on very 'vanilla' projects where I am only required to leverage, say, 50% of my skills.  I needed to branch out.

2)  To be more productive during my spare time.  There is only so much sports and Netflix that one can watch.

3)  To supplement my income in the wake of having children.

Although it's only been eight months I've loved every minute of it!


-Trevor

[Lena E]

Trevor,

Welcome! Eight months in and you're doing awesome! As a "newbie" you can offer a different perspective on freelancing. Was/is it what you expected? Do you eventually see yourself freelancing full-time? 

[Trevor R]

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Trevor,

Welcome! Eight months in and you're doing awesome! As a "newbie" you can offer a different perspective on freelancing. Was/is it what you expected? Do you eventually see yourself freelancing full-time? 

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Hi Lena,

I hardly feel like a newbie but in comparison to some of the other seasoned freelancers on Upwork that is definitely the case!

I guess that I didn't really have any expectations or preconceived notions about freelancing before joining, I just kind of came in blindly.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn how user friendly and resource-heavy the platform was though...it definitely made it easier to get started.

In terms of freelancing full-time I could never see that happening.  My full-time job offers a great salary, benefits, pension, perks and most importantly stability; all things that are important to me as a family man.  I am perfectly content doing it as a side gig for supplementary income.  If I choose to take a three month hiatus from freelancing to focus on other things I can do that, and not have to worry about where my next paycheque will come from. 

It's clear to me that there are lots of people out there who earn a great living through Upwork and have the flexibility to do all kinds of cool things.  As they say, different strokes for different folks.  Some days when I wake up at 5:00am and take the one hour train ride into the city for work I question my life choices, lol.

-Trevor R.

[Lena E]

Lia, 

You have an impressive story. I liked your comment here: " I earn more than I would in a corporate setting, and I am available to chaperone field trips, attend school board meetings, and other things that I would otherwise have to take time off to do."

But more than the monetary value, you're given that priceless gift of time! Time to watch you kids grow up and time to spend with your aging parents. You can't put a price or salary on that. 

Now when your kids leave home, will you return to the corporate world or do you plan to continue freelancing much like a digital nomad and travelling that way?

[Amanda F]

I started freelancing right away after I got out of college for graphic design, which was 2004. I worked with various companies while freelancing for many years so I could get experience, and also freelanced with various companies online.

The area that I live in is a smaller place, so there isn't much in terms of work for design, and much of the agency work is taken. Futhermore, they don't pay enough for my experience and quality of work, and I just wanted to be my own boss. So I began working with clients everywhere more and more, and a few years back I started to go full time freelancer and I could not be happier! I am doing what I love, being paid well and what I want for my work, and helping many different companies big and small with developing their image.

I have a huge passion for the work I do and for the art world in general. I am also constantly learning new things to keep up with the ever-changing world of design and the web. 

Upworks has been a huge help with allowing me to go full time as well as my various work I've found elsewhere and through repeat business and referrals.