Becoming A Full Time Freelancer-One Year On

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.

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!

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?