At this point, you should know what area you wish to pursue as a freelancer, and after reading the last chapter, you should also have a good idea as to how you plan to gain the skills which are necessary to compete in this field. In this chapter, it is time to take action based on everything you've learned so far. It is time to quit your day job. However, you don't want to just walk into your job and put in your two weeks notice, at least, not yet. To succeed as a freelancer, you must learn to do things in phases.
It is first important to understand that you must first gain the skills which are necessary to operate as a freelancer in your field of choice before you quit. What this means is that you will need to begin developing your skills while you're still working at your day job. If you're like many people, you probably work forty hours a week, and you may not have much time to learn these skills. My response is that you will need to make time. Studies show that the average person in the United States spends four hours per day watching TV; if you fall under this category, then you will need to take these four hours, two or three times per week, and instead of watching television, or doing other things of this nature, you will want to dedicate your time to developing your skills.
This will need to be done for about a year or so. It is important to be cautious as to how many hours you spend learning the skill, as spending too much time learning it can lead to mental burnout. Each person has a different tolerance level when it comes to how much studying they can do within a given time frame, but our advice is to not overdo it. Depending on the difficulty involved with the skills you are developing, you may want to spend more time than average becoming proficient.
Most important of all, you need balance. Spend too little time developing your skills and you will never succeed in the arena of self employment. Spend too much time developing your skills and you will burn yourself out before you even begin taking on clients, a disastrous scenario indeed. In any event, you will need to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly while your skills are being developed. Additionally, you can use the money that you're earning at your day job in order to finance the purchase of learning tools you'll need to become skilled in your area of choice.
Another smart strategy for those who are single or who don't have families is to cut down on the number of hours you work at your day job in order to pick up skills faster. If you could work 30 hours per week as opposed to forty hours, this would free up ten extra hours which could be used to develop your skills. This means that you would have an extra 40 hours per month, or 480 hours per year. Spending an extra 480 hours per year developing the necessary skills to become self employed will give you untold benefits over the long term. It is an investment that you should consider carefully.
Another point that I wanted to add is that you should keep your plans secret from your co-workers, and especially your boss. You don't want to let them know that you have the intention of quitting, since they could begin cutting your hours or doing other thing that will hurt you. Always keep your plans to yourself. The only time you will want to reveal your plans is when you put in your two weeks notice, but by then it will be too late.