Ep 56 | Why Freelancing Loses Its Shine: Finding Financial Stability In The 9-5 | With Josh Jacobs
Sep 26, 2023
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In this episode, Josh Jacobs, Senior Designer at Jasper AI and die-hard Webflower fan boy, discusses his failures in freelancing and the importance of showcasing one's personality through their portfolio. They also touch on prioritizing personal needs, setting boundaries for mental health, pivoting away from product design, building a reputation, challenges of monetizing hobbies, and misconceptions of freelancing.
Prioritizing needs over desires is crucial for avoiding burnout and improving mental health in freelancing work.
Carefully considering the long-term impact of career changes and aligning them with goals is essential for success.
Deep dives
Failure to Prioritize Wants and Needs
Josh acknowledges that one of his persistent failures is not effectively prioritizing his wants and needs in his freelancing work. He tends to take on too many projects and often prioritizes work that he wants to do rather than what is necessary. This leads to burnout and affects his mental health. Josh recognizes the need to separate and prioritize his needs over his desires, being more intentional with the decisions he makes in his freelancing endeavors.
Pivoting Away from Webflow Design
Josh shares his experience of pivoting away from webflow design and trying his hand at product design. While he enjoyed the opportunity to learn and grow, he later realized that not focusing on webflow design set him back in his career. Despite the challenges faced in product design, Josh recognized how valuable and in-demand webflow skills are and shifted his focus back to webflow, where he began receiving job offers and interviews. He advises others to carefully consider the long-term impact of career changes and how it aligns with their goals and plans.
Failure to Learn from Past Mistakes
Josh admits his recurring failure of not learning from past mistakes in his freelancing work. He tends to be casual and less intentional with his decision-making, resulting in unfavorable outcomes. Josh realizes the need to be more conscious about decisions, establish better processes, and dedicate time to fixing and improving his approach to freelancing. He highlights the importance of acknowledging past mistakes to avoid repeating them in the future.
Conclusion and Next Failure
Reflecting on his failures, Josh anticipates that his next failure might involve continuing to struggle with prioritizing wants and needs in his freelancing work. However, he remains excited about personal growth, embracing change, and learning from mistakes, seeing them as opportunities for self-improvement. Although failure is inevitable, Josh's mindset and determination offer a valuable lesson in resilience and continuous development.
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Welcome to Episode 56 of Webflail with Josh Jacobs.
Currently, Josh is working as Senior Designer at Jasper AI but still moonlights as a Webflower on freelance projects. Josh has had over 6 years designing and building web stuff and he’s a die-hard Webflower fan boy - he’s even spoken at the 2021 and 2022 Webflow conferences. Josh’s career has not been linear though and for anyone that has done as much as Josh has, there have been ups and downs.
The failures we’ll talk about today are:
1. Not shifting my business alongside life changes