What?
It’s important to capture some of the motivations and goals behind freelancing, so as you progress, you can reflect to see if your business is making progress in the way that you want.
Why?
When you’re busy or when things aren’t going well, having an internal reminder of why you chose to go freelance, and the ambitions you’ve set for yourself can be helpful. Without a sense of direction, it’s hard to measure whether you’re making progress to your goals.
Whilst your goals might change and develop over time as you learn more about what is right for you, having a ‘north star’ helps you to understand your progress, and also to decide on what work is right for you (or not).
How?
Grab a piece of paper or open a digital document, and aim to answer the following questions:
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Why did I choose to go freelancing? Capture the motivations or reasons behind your decision to go freelance. These can act as a guide to how you work or a reminder of what you’ve moved on from.
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What are my long term ambitions? What are the things you’re hoping to achieve as a freelancer in the long term - these act as your north star of things to work towards. They can be broad or specific, but try and and capture a few.
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What are some goals I’m setting for myself for the first year? Start to get specific. If you want, you can even establish some SMART goals (i.e. specific, measurable, acheivable, realistic, time-bound), or at this stage, you can just start with some headlines which you can develop later in the process. Try for a range of goals, across themes like financial/income, client relationships, ways of working, work/life balance, professional development, etc.
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How will I know if I’m doing well? Now what are some markers of success in your first year that you’re going to be looking for to show yourself that you’re making progress, i.e. do you need to hit three clients in the first three months? What are some of these markers for 3, 6, and 12 months? Bear in mind, if you don’t hit these markers, you’ve not failed - in the first year, you’re just working things out!
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How will I know if things are not working out for me? Are there some limits and reflection points you want to put in place, to understand if things are working for you? i.e. if you’ve had to dip into your emergency savings, if you’ve not had any new business for a period of time. Again, these aren’t hard/fast rules, but having a few personal warning signals is important.
Capture the answers in a document, and keep it somewhere safe. Share your answers with the cohort if you feel comfortable sharing some elements of it.
