When you are planning to leave a stable job for a new career as a creative freelancer, the most basic piece of advice could be summed up something like this:
- Save enough money to cover your expenses in the first few months – prepare for the chance that you might not earn much in the beginning.
- Start your business as a side hustle. This way you can test the waters: see if you would actually be able to make money from freelancing, while also building your portfolio and a possible client network.
Going from ’employed’ to ’self-employed’ could happen quickly or slowly, depending on many factors like your working conditions, your income or your risk tolerance. In my case, it has been a rather long transition. Now that I am leaving the automotive industry to make a living from my art, I want to recount my personal experience and the timeline of the whole progress.
Here are the five stages of my journey from working full time (and more) in a corporate office job to becoming a full-time artist.
Stage 1: Devoted Office Girl
I started working in a full-time office job immediately after graduating university at 24 (I was living alone, renting my own place in a new town). For the first 3 years of my employment, I was all in – enthusiastic, proactive, doing a lot of overtime. I liked the job and I liked my team, including the management. I started with a modest salary, but over time it increased to an amount that not only granted me an independent and convenient life, but also allowed me to start saving up. Meanwhile, making more art was constantly in the back of my mind, but I had much less time and energy for that than I needed. Nevertheless, I managed to finish a series of large-scale paintings, and I made my first big sale.
Stage 2: Reduced Working Hours
It was after 5 years that I told my boss that I could not stay in the job working full time (8 hours net per day) anymore. I had wanted to build a strong art portfolio before making the big leap, and although I had not managed to do so by this point, I could not bear to wait any longer. However, I was asked to stay at the company even just with a reduced working time. To be on the safe side financially, I agreed to stay, working 4 hours every weekday. It is true that I had bigger freedom, I felt much happier and more energized. And yet I was not able to focus on art as much as I wanted. I felt like I failed big time, being left with half of my monthly salary, and still not being that much more productive.
Stage 3: Saving Up For Real
Even though I had been planning to get rid of my job for a while, I was still too weak to say ’no’ to my boss whom I genuinely wanted to support. So when we hired two new assistants, and I was asked to take a temporary working schedule of 6 hours per day to train them, I agreed. This turned out to be a good solution for me, since I was not much worse off than with 4 hours in terms of productive free time, but it did make a positive difference in my salary. I was able to increase my savings again. In the meantime, I started taking art commissions. That said, I still was not able to put enough effort into growing my portfolio and getting my name out there. My clients were all people who know me in real life, directly or through mutual acquanitances.
Stage 4: The Homestretch
After 6 (almost 7) years at the company, I finally gathered my courage and informed my boss that I wanted to leave. They made it clear that they would still be happy to have me for as long as I wanted to stay, in as many or few hours as I wished. So here we are: for the period that I have left at the company, I am working there 2 days a week, 6 hours each day. The remaining 5 days are spent planning out the details of my future business and working on my portfolio and products.
Stage 5: Wild Path
Very soon, a completely new game starts for me. I am about to give up the safety of a regular salary, and to take on a challenging adventure to carve my own path (and chase the money on my own). It could be a success or it could be a failure, but to tell the truth – I am not scared, not one bit. I am just overwhelmingly excited for what is to come.
After keeping the Big Dream on the back burner for long years, I am finally ready to give it all I’ve got and live my life as an artist.
Thriving Artist 