Today is my one year anniversary of quitting my 9 – 5 life and striking out on my own. Oddly, it has been a relatively quiet day work-wise, which is just as well as I’ve been feeling a might distracted. What it has allowed me to do is sit back and take stock – to consider where I was a year ago, where I am right now and where I want to be a year from now.

While not a roaring success, I am feeling relatively pleased with what I have accomplished. At the same time, living month to month is starting to take it’s toll on me. A part of me feels that I haven’t done what I set out to do and that I need more time. Another part thinks that it may be time to look at getting a “real” job and going back to doing my writing on the side. Sadly, I think it will come down to dollars and cents, which will finally make that choice for me, but I’ve got a bit of time yet.

After reflecting on this past year, here’s what I’ve come up with. I’ve realized that I have learned a great deal about myself and business in general. I knew I could edit and proofread with the best of them and had been told my writing was good, but was never sure of myself. It was a bit frightening to put my writing out there, but now, after some really great feedback, I do more writing than anything else. I mean, when friends and family tell you your writing is good, you kind of believe them, but when someone pays you for it and asks for more, there’s no better feeling!

Probably, my biggest mistake was deciding to do this by myself. Brave, stupid, whatever you want to call me, I quit my well-paying corporate job for no salary or clients. I have to admit, that was probably one of the most exciting and scary days of my life, but I didn’t look back (and I still don’t regret it, everyday, I am thankful to not be going into that soul destroying office). I had my savings and thought that I could make that last. What I didn’t have is someone else with a second income to help me with the day-to-day expenses. I didn’t really have a choice in that matter as I was single, but I do suggest that if you are going to go freelance, you have some kind of second income, whether from another person or another job. I didn’t have either, and it has definitely made my life “interesting” at times.

When it comes to work, sometimes you have to say no, especially to a low paying job. For awhile, I was taking anything and everything, because it actually got me money. After a few months, I began to realize that I was actually hurting myself. By taking low paying jobs that took a lot of time, I didn’t have the time to find other jobs. I’ve become a lot more picky now (well within reason), but I have raised my standards. I have some long-term clients who pay me not bad to quite well at time. All it took was winning a few of these bids and building these relationships and I realized that that was the best way to go.

Finally, use all the tools and people out there. Until Christmas, I was pretty much doing this on my own, but one of my resolutions was to take some time each day to develop myself (yes, even freelancers need development). I started using the social media tools a lot more and finally joined Twitter (my new addiction). I had been resisting it as I thought it was just like Facebook, but I have soon realized that there is a wealth of information out there and a lot of people doing or who have done the same thing. My problem now is that there is almost too much to keep up with! I am constantly learning of new blogs and sites with information and tools that I can use. Now I just need to find the golden egg so I can take a bit more time in the day to read all this great stuff.

So, a year from now, will I still be freelancing? I hope so, but who knows where this crazy life of mine will take me …