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Inside Laura's Head

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Becoming A Full Time Freelancer-One Year On

July 4, 2018 Comments : 2

Last July I made the biggest decision of my life, after my job ended. I spent a weekend brainstorming what I wanted to do, realised just how much I loved blogging and that I wanted to push my photography forward, and settled on becoming a full time freelancer. The plan was to give it a go until Christmas, see how I was doing and decide whether it was feasible to carry on, given that I was about to buy a house when my job ended. I actually freelanced until the end of March, when I started a telesales job, and if I’m brutally honest since then this blog has really suffered, and my photography more so. I’m still learning the ropes at my day job and so coming home and trying to be creative has been difficult, meaning I’ve just not done much. I regret dropping the ball on both this blog and Laura Haley Photography massively, so I’m taking stock, a year on from becoming a full time freelancer, and making some plans on how I can continue to push both things forward alongside the 9-5.

Laura stood in a doorway of a room filled with graffiti

At the end of August, Inside Laura’s Head will be four. This is in itself a massive achievement, and I’m spending the time between now and then planning how I want my fifth year of blogging to go, as well as doing backend stuff like tweaking the template I’m using, sorting out all the SEO on my very old posts and rewriting content that can still be relevant, but is currently terrible. Clearly, four years ago, as a brand new blogger, I knew nothing-now I do, so I may as well put that knowledge to good use.

Planning for the future is still ongoing, and I’m not entirely sure how I’ll be shaking things up from September onwards. What I do know is that there’ll still be plenty of food and travel, and now I have a camera that lets me take photos of myself there’ll be more fashion too. That’s a scary one for me, but as someone who is slap bang in the middle between standard and plus sized, I feel I can really bring something a bit different as I experiment with my wardrobe. I’ll be writing a post to celebrate my fourth birthday and I’ll share my full plans going forward then, assuming I’ve decided where I’m going myself, that is!

Laura sat on steps of a building covered in graffiti

In terms of Laura Haley Photography, I very much need to get back out there with the camera. Bookings have been coming in whilst I’ve not been promoting myself or my services so that’s good, but I can do much more if I properly promote. I have a few different things planned-like shooting my first wedding soon, and some work with a local dance studio-and I’ve written a list of themed shoots I want to do. My plan now is to spend the next year really boosting my profile and building my portfolio, trying to work with more bloggers on their fashion content and also learning how to improve my own. I want to do more couples shoots too, and pick up the family shoots I was doing so many of last summer. Becoming a full time freelancer was the scariest thing I ever did but choosing to stop doing this full time was the hardest decision. It was the right one-as a freelancer I would’ve needed to wait at least three years before I could get my mortgage and at 31 that’s just not an option-but I do miss being my own boss. I can’t honestly say that if I already had a house sorted, and somehow was given enough money to know my bills were paid for a couple of years, that I would keep my day job-but that’s a pipe dream, so I’ll carry on working hard on both jobs for now.

Have you ever freelanced? Or have you wished you could?

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Comments

  1. Growing clan says

    July 15, 2018 at 5:41 pm

    Well done – glad it’s all working out for you your photos are amazing xx

    Reply
  2. Samantha Donnelly says

    July 19, 2018 at 11:49 am

    I recently wrote a 3rd anniversary of my blog, and love reading milestones of other bloggers too, it is always interesting to step back from where you started to where you are now, and look forward to reading yours.
    It sounds like you have a lot going on from September x

    Reply

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About Me

Welcome to my little corner of the Internet! I'm Laura, a 33 year old Yorkshire girl aiming to see as much of the world as I can, usually by myself. I'm a big fan of animal print, bright lipstick, gin liqueurs, cocktails, photography, writing and booking flights. I'm in love with a Lhasapoo called Buster and if I don't have my phone, laptop or a camera in my hand, you probably need to ask if I'm feeling okay. I blog about short city breaks, usually solo, on a budget without a hostel in sight. I also cover food reviews, life with Fibromyalgia, and there's a bit of lifestyle content thrown in when the mood takes me. I'm aiming to have visited 40 different countries before I turn 40, so I have 7 years left. Coronavirus has slightly changed my plans for 2020 but so far I'm 17 countries into the challenge and as long as September and October remain safe to travel I'm adding Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Romania, Serbia and a couple of others to the list before this year ends. I love working with brands on sponsored/collaborative content and if you're a travel or food related company, or just someone you think I'll love, please do get in touch.

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I absolutely haven't taken Instagram or the blog a I absolutely haven't taken Instagram or the blog all that seriously in 2020 and barely posted on either. That's fine, obviously, but I miss both, so for 2021 I want to be back to daily Instagram posts, finding people to follow that bring me joy, learning the best hashtags to use and trying to make a bit of progress on here. Hoping I'll get a fair bit of travel in in the second half of the year to help with this too. Happy New Year, Instagram!
Walking quickly out of 2020... This year has been Walking quickly out of 2020...

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