5 Hidden Advantages To Becoming a Freelancer

If you stop and think about it, freelance life can be pretty sweet.

When freelancers go on about all of the benefits of working for themselves, they usually cover the same points. They talk about flexibility, setting their own hours, choosing their own projects, maintaining work-life balance, and so on.

But the advantages to a freelance career don’t stop there.

Freelancing is a cheaper, more comfortable lifestyle

Many individuals talk about how great it is to work in your pajamas or wear the same shirt two days in a row. There is something to that, although I’ve always favored the approach that your dress should reflect your work’s mind space — but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.

Greater individual choice in wardrobe and footwear already means it’s a more comfortable lifestyle. You can also set up your workspace to suit you and not force yourself into some corporate-designed workspace that may be less healthy.

As for freelancing being cheaper, consider all the money you’d save not having to keep up on dress code requirements, upkeep, dry cleaning, and so forth. You’re saving a bit of money.

Sure, have a couple of outfits suitable for important meetings either in real-life or online, but otherwise, freelancers have the option to cut down on their clothing expenses.

Freelancers also like to mention how their commute is so much shorter. Instead of a fifteen or more mile commute, it’s now a fifteen-second walk from the kitchen to the home office.

Taken to the next step, this means freelancers also aren’t paying for using mass transit or paying for gas and car maintenance.

Responsible for your own job security

Wait, what?

Isn’t freelance life almost the definition of instability?

Let me ask you this.

Exactly how stable do you think any traditional job is right now?

At least you have more control over how well you’re employed. The only one who can fire you is you, and at least if that happens, you know there’d be a good reason.

Yes, regular work and long-term contracts can be tricky to nail down. It takes time, work, and… well, not so much luck as the ability to recognize an opportunity quickly when it appears.

Experienced freelancers learn to nurture multiple income streams and clients. If one is lost, survival can still happen while new clients are sought out.

By being in charge of your own job security, you become less vulnerable to others’ whims and financial fortunes.

No more workplace drama

Really. Who needs it?

Some people bring their drama to work and make you share the burden. While in an ideal world, it would be nice to help people solve their problems, often these people are just looking to gripe.

In any case, you’re trying to get work done.

And you don’t need the office politics, either.

In most cases, this is not an issue with freelancers. Sure, there may be the occasional difficult client who spends a lot of time complaining to you, but you’re also in a greater position to redirect them back to work-related topics.

For the most part, freelancers find work relationships are less stressful.

Freed from workplace obligations

No to be a party-pooper or anything, but when I was working a straight job, I much preferred to focus on getting through a busy workday than dealing with birthdays in the break room, the annual holiday party and Secret Santa, and the onslaught of other little social obligations one felt pressure to participate in.

This can be a bigger problem for people who work in larger companies, but somehow a reluctance to be involved in social obligations sometimes marks you as not being a team player.

That’s pretty unfair.

Freelancers get to pick and choose their social interactions and obligations. There is very little pressure to get involved outside your specific role as a freelancer.

Create and manage your own environment

I hate fluorescent lighting, but every place I’ve ever worked featured… fluorescent lighting. Some offices I’ve worked in had real problems with dust, bugs, and leaks.

Others were so clean and sterile that it was suffocating. Personal items were not allowed on desks. The music, if any, was awful. Then there was that one place that played right-wing talk radio all day because “it was funny.”

Yikes.

Freelancers can customize their own workspace. They can change and refine it as needed for maximum comfort, productivity, or both.

The rise of the freelancer

I know this seems like an all-rosy vision of freelance life that avoids serious discussion of the downsides.

There have been plenty of pieces written that include significant discussions about the downsides to freelancing. The world doesn’t need another.

The thing is, for many of us, the whole working world is changing. Freelancing has been growing steadily for years, and there is a reason why. Sure, they may be some added stressors to the lifestyle, but there are some genuine and very positive advantages as well.

Food for thought.

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