Why Freelancing Is Good for Your Mental Health

If you are mentally sick off the manual office job that bides you with limitations, discriminating conditions and paltry salary, it is time to switch to freelance. Either you are a newbie in the world of freelance or already swim in this pool, you probably understand that a range of positive effects is enormously wide. Nobody pays much attention to it in the first place, but work stress, toxic communication, and problem frequency people deal with when having an official work can bring you the traumatic experience that is a quick route to damaging your mental state.

Freelance flexibility, variety, and possibility enable you to be in charge of everything, including your working performance.

Once you dive into this sphere you can skillfully control your working hours and potential month pay – thus, it gives you more self-organization and confidence. But let’s not forget that it also allows you to track your health state in the same way, distract from mood triggers and isolate you from annoying colleagues. All in all, we derived 10 most popular facts telling you the answer to the question of mental well-being. If you are excited to hear them, go on with the reading.

Supportive freelance community

While an office staff is full of competitive-driven colleagues who are at each other’s throats, the freelance network is full of supportive like-minded people who are ready to help. Every modern freelancer knows exactly how difficult it is to come up with new ideas, seek reliable clients, organize plans and support mental health in this closed-off online environment. Thus, everyone in this field is there to assist you and contribute to workplace wellbeing, as well as productivity.

Having people around you to talk to and share some thoughts with is a vital part of any job. So, if you work as a freelancer, you will never feel isolated or lonely because there is a powerful network for those who do not have any team, while working by him/herself, but are willing to have one. Such a supportive spirit will create a sense of protection and integrity. You will be more encouraged to move towards your goals regarding mental state while efficiently focusing on relationships with others and striving to help your freelance friend on the other side of the computer screen.

Full freedom of what and who to work with

One of the coolest advantages of having remote work is to choose the projects yourself. In fact, many experienced freelancers would agree that it empowers them to deliver successfully done tasks with pleasure and reflect on it when they have the freedom of choice. While a staff job does not give you such a privilege, you always have the opportunity to take the freelance path. You are free to choose the clients too, making it easier for you to communicate and work only with those who will not push your buttons and shatter your nerve cells.

Moreover, if you see that, maybe, a certain project is out of your interest you can always refuse to work on it or set your focus on another one. And that is, undoubtedly, something that a routine office job will not provide you with – there you have no possibility to drop the slow-paying clients or switch between projects just because you feel like it. Such tense-free and flexible working conditions will make you get in love with what you are doing and experience no pressure or stress.

Volatile workplace

Usually, the office environment causes you a big deal with lost hours and decreasing productivity. According to the WHO report experiencing mental problems is very common in the workplace. But why are the location and atmosphere there so impactful? Due to the thing that a usual worker spends all day within the four walls and has no right to change this, his or her well-being gets shattered.

Most people think of it as a physical problem, that definitely has some grounds to believe in, however, the mental aspect is way more serious. When we are limited and chained to one place our mental health takes a turn to the worse. Knowing that you might assume how freelance is more beneficial than a routine office job. Your workplace may vary from home to library, cafe or park, no more dingy and dismal routine in the corporation. The only thing about the location – it must be quiet and distraction-free. Such freedom in a workspace will make you feel more energized and less stressed about your job.

No more strict deadlines

When you deal with the excessive amount of incoming and outgoing projects at the workplace and are bound to meet the specifications set deadlines, it is more likely that you will feel powerless, tired and desperate. You begin to speed your pace of performance while constantly rushing to finish everything in time not to let your boss down. These deadline barriers make you hit the panic button and cause you the troublesome breathing, excess sweating, and nerve-wracking tremoring. This diabolic set of mental and physical symptoms does not augur well. Whereas, with freelance, the ball is in your court.

You are the one who formulates priorities in time and manages a to-do list overflow with respect to your own targets and possibilities. When you properly assess the sequence of your orders and plan the accomplishing day yourself, you have a piece of mind, personal satisfaction and no one criticizes you for neglecting the work plan.

Work admiration

It is crystal clear that the more you work in a stressful environment, the higher chance you hate your occupation. In fact, many people just tolerate it, even though somewhere deep in heart they genuinely disregard the path they have chosen. The majority of this list is, of course, manual physical and office jobs.

People take it just like bread and butter and, instead, forget about taking pleasure of what they are carrying out. Which is already a root of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Just imagine how it might negatively impact your lifestyle in the long run – you simply begin to live in frustration, desperately seeking a source of enjoyment. But it can’t be achieved unless you try to freelance. That’s a type of work that will make you admire what you are doing, appreciate every working day of yours and find even more interest, values, and options.

Moreover, the freelance sphere never stays at the same place and always develops different ways to make the time you spend on work feel like the time you spend on leisure. It is an amazing opportunity for you to explore the range of your needs and wants and turn them into reality.

Leadership skills development

Many of us are misguided by the idea that leadership is something that is an innate characteristic given to a small portion of people. However, it might be learned and nurtured in the freelance environment. Achieving accomplishments, being engaged, facilitating personal growth are the things many of us have only dreamed of honing, and that is quite understandable. When we work on some official job, there is a fairly low chance to think of getting a promotion or accelerating career development, as it simply limits your horizons.

The supervisors usually try to delegate tasks to their employees in which the first ones will be proven to have a champion status. But what about an employee? You are fine with what you are currently having and feel reluctant to expand your frames. With freelance, though, leadership skill becomes one of your top priorities to possess. The prime factor granted to you with it is being able to take up the role of a leader who can easily implement, monitor and improve. This amazing ability to take the duties yourself, adopt more responsibilities and concentrate on results will make you feel much more valuable and happy.

More vacation days

Since freelance gives you the freedom of choice, you are the one to manage your breaks and weekends off. Think of the time when you need to postpone your plans because of your office hours or, worse, agree with your moderator or boss on a free day to your own detriment. The consideration of being tied up with the obligatory schedule always makes people stressed and dependent, and respectively affects their state of mind and health. That is why switching to freelance is the right way to go. You can work whenever you want and pull the plug on projects whenever you feel like so.

You get to choose your own hours of the working period, as well as hours of the vacation period. Certainly, a little temptation to give yourself more rest might appear but this is what you deserve. Whether you want to sleep earlier today, visit your parents out of the hometown or hang out with your besties, you can do that. As a freelancer, you can determine your efficiency hours and moderate them whenever your preferences change.

Potentially higher income

In the pursuit of higher income, you will learn how to perform better and faster. Think about it in such a way, you finally begin to fight for your own salary depending on the hours and effort spent. As an ordinary employee, you do not even imagine getting paid more because you carry everything out more ambitiously, unless you are on commission, of course. Most of the time, as an employee, you are just paid a regular paycheck no matter how you try to exceed your director’s expectations.

Generally, your routine official work is just a great source for making stable money, and you can never get to grips with what a higher income is when you do some white-collar job. However, freelance shows you how capable you might be to generate more money by increasing your productivity and commitment to projects. As a freelancer, you can know what your work is worth and what you can do else to increase this worth.

More adopted to problems

You might think why is adopting to problems better for your mental health? Well, stress is a vital part of our life and avoiding it would be impossible. With freelance you are more experienced to deal with misfortune or fails and, at the same time, you become more used to inconsistent rotational working and life conditions. As a freelancer, you accumulate a bunch of experience from working with a variety of different clients or companies.

Each client or job adds more and more assertiveness to your craft, bringing a set of skills to your growing arsenal. You start to listen, observe, assess different things without getting any relevant points or messages across. In addition, working in this particular field will let you recognize the challenges and come up with the solution in no time because you are just the one on the boat right? Such a solo work will let you analyze difficulties and take advantage of it and, thus, become very flexible in relationships with others and respecting everyone’s comfort zone.

Meditation practice

Last but not least is a meditation program that might be applied in the freelance atmosphere. Unlike in an official job you can really meditate or get relaxed during the working hours. As a result, you get extremely worn out that after coming home from work you can’t see anyone and anything. As a freelancer, your possibility to release from depression or stress is way less complicated. If you feel like you have a lot of things on your plate that you are unable to finish, you can give yourself a break.

The good part is that you are not limited to any specific time frame for this “meditation break”. Generally, 25 – 30 min a day would be enough. No doubts if you ever decided to meditate among your colleagues at work for this amount of time, you would be either easily distracted or teased. Not the best outcome, right? This may significantly impact your mental health and even self-esteem. So, if you really understand that meditation is an integral part of your health practice, freelance is the greatest thing for this. You will get more focus on yourself and reduce your stress and anxiety.

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