That was a lot of information to digest all at once, so

let's talk about what the key takeaways are from everything we've discussed.

Freelancing and being your own boss requires knowledge and

a set of skills that are quite different from being a great employee.

To understand if you would be good at freelancing,

you need to understand your capabilities and your limits.

In other words, you need to complete a simple self-assessment.

Ask these questions of yourself, and evaluate your answers.

If you answered a resounding yes,

then freelancing is absolutely a career path for you.

If you answered no to all, or

are unsure, then you might have to rethink what you want to do.

No's don't mean that you can't freelance, it just means that you might be lacking in

certain areas, and need to work on them if you want to have a successful career.

First up, are you self motivated?

No one is going to tell you what to do, so

you need to be able to get up on time, get yourself to work, and get things done.

The self motivation should manifest itself in different areas of your life.

You should be motivated to teach yourself new things, so

you stay on top of the industry, and always be in demand.

You will need to break out of your comfort zone, and

tackle hard things like business development.

And, you will have to seek out events to attend, so you can grow your network.

All these things will be hard if your strengths are solely technical.

Bu, if you're motivated to learn, you shouldn't have any problems.

Do you have good time management skills?

One of the advantages of freelancing is being able to work whenever and

wherever you want.

But, the downside of that is it's easy to get distracted.

Can you set a strict schedule for yourself to get things done?

Can you dedicate time towards things which are necessary for your career as

a freelancer, but seem like they're getting in the way of making money?

Things like conferences, networking events, and

side projects, and even more important, administrative work.

All this can take up significant time out of your week that you could spend working.

Are you good at project management?

If you don't get a handle on managing projects,

you won't last that long as a freelancer.

Finding and securing work is one thing, but

keeping the client happy throughout the entire process is quite another.

Hitting your milestones and delivering work on time is very important.

Are you a good communicator?

You will be the point of communication for everything in your one-person business.

You will need to be good at talking to new clients,

good at pitching to these clients, good at keeping them updated, and

great at appeasing them if they get annoyed or angry.

You have to be amazing at keeping your cool with difficult clients, and

getting them to work with you, and pay you.

Being a good communicator is essential to succeeding as a freelancer.

Do you embrace change?

Nothing is steady about freelancing.

Clients come and go, and your paycheck fluctuates often.

You have to be okay with that.

You have to be able to adapt to the situation, and

work as hard as you can, and as smart as you can, to overcome the obstacles.

As daunting as it sounds, it can be fun.

You can branch out and try different kinds of projects, be an author,

write a book, get paid to teach other people.

There's many things you can do, but at the core of it, you have to be okay with

trying all these different things, and being prepared for the unknown.

Like I said earlier, answering no to any of these questions doesn't make

freelancing a bad career choice for you.

If I had to pick a few characteristics that are really important,

it's that you are a self-motivated individual, and that you embrace change.

There are lots of people who start out freelancing being bad at

most things required.

But, that didn't stop them.

They were motivated enough to overcome all of their shortcomings,

learn what they needed to, and succeed.

Spend some time answering these questions for yourself.

Again, it's not about having all these skills right at the outset, but

determining whether you're the type of person that can learn these

things as you go.