Handling client, meeting deadlines and filing for your taxes, all while sitting on your couch and wearing your comfortable pajamas; Freelancing surely has its own benefits. But the solo run can often times get the best of you, leaving you completely exhausted and make you miss the social experience.
Despite the heavy self-reliance, freelancing offers great privilege’s, the strongest of which is a freedom of time and place. Working from almost anywhere in the world, and at times where your productivity is at its highest is indeed a blessing that is difficult to let go.
If you are also a freelancer that has grown to dislike the freelance life, but are not able to shift towards a 9-5 job, then this is the guide that will surely help you transition.
Step 1: Understand and Accept the Privilege’s You are Leaving Behind
Before you act upon your decision of leaving freelancing behind, we want you to list down all the privilege’s that your current life offers you. Once you have made a mental note, go through each privilege and convince yourself to completely leave it behind.
Doing this is super important, because you don’t want to enter a new 9-5 job, while still desiring and missing the benefits you had with freelance work. This certainly isn’t an easy step, and you will often experience a loss of motivation and feel drained when doing things that will go against your freelancing habits.
Step 2: Fix Routine and Shift Productive Hours
Sleeping when the sun comes up and waking up when it goes down, is a routine for many freelancers. If you are also someone that follows a similar routine, then your productive hours are somewhere around 1am to 6am. While this routine and productive timings might suit your freelance work, it can be a disaster for your 9-5 job.
Before starting out a 9-5, we recommend you to reserve a few days in which you solely focus on fixing your sleep schedule, routine and shifting your productive hours into day time. Once fixed, your routine will become a great contributing factor towards your success in the corporate world.
Step 3: Embrace Teamwork
‘Team work makes dream work’, this statement is quite often the single most rejected statement amongst freelancers. This is because a freelancer is accustomed to handling all work alone, and with time becomes a perfectionist that likes things the ‘me way’.
While you may deny this, but freelancers face the most troubles when they are made to work with teams. Stepping into a 9-5 after a long time of freelancing, we are sure you’ll face similar issues. However, you can always be prepared and not allow them to affect performance at your new job.
Some great tips to help with this problem is to enjoy the social experience that your team has to offer, learn to accept opinions and always be ready to take advice from your team members. We are sure that you will eventually realize that it is a blessing to work alongside great people and actually start enjoying teamwork.
Step 4: Celebrate Job Benefits and Peace of Mind
Once you start settling in your job, it is important to keep reminding yourself about the benefits that your job brings with itself; this can be things like pensions, health insurances, paid vacations and not filing your own taxes. Doing this would help you appreciate your job thus boosting your motivation and energy.
This will also ensure that you do not start to miss freelancing and its benefits, thus helping you stay focused.
Step 5: Don’t Panic, you’re a Boss
If you ever find yourself in a position, where you think that you are not capable of performing well on your job interview, or that you will not be able to deliver the right quality of work to your employers, then you are probably overthinking. This is because you successfully managed freelancing, during which you had to play multiple roles at once, while also ensuring that everything is in place.
Freelancing is no ordinary work, it requires a certain level of discipline and courage; and being a successful freelancer you have all the skill sets you need to ace your 9-5 job. We are sure that your company will be lucky to have you on board.
