How To Change Your Job Without Pain Even Without Experience And Education
Hi! My name is Milya Kotery, I am a freelance expert and content marketer. I talk about selling your digital products and increasing your freelance income. Follow if you want to know more about leveling up your freelance business!
I meet a lot of skeptical comments on the topic of going freelance or changing the field of activity, especially when it comes to the fact that after leaving an unloved job, you can start earning many times more. These comments look like this: "What do these copywriters understand? I haven't been able to find a job for five years, what thousand dollars are they talking about!".
I don't blame these people: I grew up in a family where my parents always told me, "If you want, you can achieve everything you want."
But I have friends who, on the contrary, regularly and consistently heard that they are not needed anywhere, and they will never achieve anything. It makes me sad, so this article is for those who think they will never be able to leave their hated job and do what they like.
Where to start
So, let's say you work somewhere in an office for 500 dollars, and you want to get 1000 and work from another office, where you get exciting tasks and can unlock your potential. Or, for example, you want to work from home and generally stop seeing your boss' dissatisfied face every day.
Usually, people who do not believe they deserve career growth and a bigger salary consider themselves incompetent. They think they can't do anything more and are not capable of anything. That's not true. Every person in the world has at least something they want to do. But many people have heard all their lives that "it's not serious," "you won't earn it," and "do something REAL already."
Although I have been fully self-supporting since I was 19 and now receive $2000–3000 a month, I still hear such phrases. I work remotely, sometimes from a chaise longue in the country, sometimes from a kitchen sofa or a balcony in Montenegro. It "does not count" for some people only because it's remote, despite my full 8-hour working day and monthly salary.
So, all your valiant impulses to become what you wanted as a child are no less valiantly clogged with the skepticism of caring relatives. Remember what you liked as a child and think about how you feel about it now? Even if it's something like, "This is nonsense, how can you make money on this!".
I'll tell you one thing you should remember: you can sell everything. Any talent, spectacle, creativity will find someone who wants to pay for it. I've seen a lot of strange things that people are willing to buy.
And yes, no one says that you will earn million dollars at once. Forget about it. When you start doing what you enjoy, you will stop thinking about these million, and you will have enough money that your favorite business will bring you. And when you become good, no, great at what you do — then there will be an order of magnitude more money.
So, let's get down to specifics. The first thing you do is stay at your current place of work and review your entire daily routine. Or, if you have savings or the opportunity not to earn for several months, you leave and still revise your daily routine.
You will have to learn your new profession at the beginner level in the next few months. In a year, you will be a junior. In another couple of years, you will start to become a professional.
But before that, you need to go through all these stages and be prepared for the fact that at first, you will constantly make mistakes, earn little and think nightly, "Is this mine? Or maybe I should quit everything and go back to being a lawyer?". Nightly. Get ready. It's worth it.
How to learn a new profession?
In your free time, go to courses–Fiverr Learn, for example (this is a partner link–it helps me write more career and freelance tips here for free). If you don't have money, watch free courses on Youtube and read books and articles on professional blogs. For example, read the HubSpot blog if you want to become a digital marketer. There is a lot of free content on the Internet. Find 2 hours every day for training, do not forget to take one day off so as not to burn out.
Unsubscribe from all motivational and meaningless public posts and join communities in a new field of activity. Most of the professional communities are on Facebook and LinkedIn. Choose the most interesting ones for you, and every day in the morning or at lunch, read posts and articles on the topic of your activity.
Communicate with the same newcomers and, of course, with established professionals. Ask them for advice, discuss what you are good at and not, and what you need to tighten up. Show your work, and ask for a review. By immersing yourself in the environment, you will learn a new profession faster.
Stop being shy. If you don't want to spend your whole life at an unloved and boring job, overdo yourself and learn to communicate.
Read and watch as much new stuff as possible–everything that can help you in your professional and personal life. High-quality literature on time management and motivation is also suitable.
Don't forget to rest. You don't need information overload. Over time, you will learn to filter out useless information and perceive only the right one.
How to combine learning a new profession with your current work?
There are several options.
If you are a lark, get up earlier (it depends on how early you get up now). If you are an owl — allocate time after work. This time is for direct training: courses, viewing tutorials, practice.
You can read articles and books on the way to and from work. If you are driving — listen to audiobooks and podcasts.
Next, review your working day. According to research, an office employee is productive only for the first 3–4 hours. He procrastinates and performs work in a quarter of his strength the rest of the time. If the management is not too strict, scroll through specialized literature and professional publics instead of memes. If strict, allocate half an hour at lunch.
Take a vacation for two weeks and devote it entirely to learning a new profession and skills. You will rest when you quit and look for a job in a new field.
I have changed my field several times. Every time I immersed myself in the topic, read interesting and necessary information at night, attended courses, and my social media feed consists of 60% professional communities. Previously, it was everything related to videography, editing, color correction, and production. Now — marketing, content, SMM, sales.
How to find a job in a new field?
This question distresses the doubters the most. "Who needs me? The world is full of specialists with good education and huge experience, and I have an accountant's diploma from ten years ago! Yes, no one will take me, and I will die of hunger!".
First of all, it's not true. You CAN find a job. Secondly, moderate your ambitions. In any new field, be it a creative or technical specialty, you need to start from the bottom. Maybe you will earn less than now–but soon it will change if you work hard.
My first orders did not bring me a penny, but I developed a portfolio and found the first paid orders thanks to them.
Tim, a good friend of mine, owned an IT business for several years with a salary of 10 000 dollars a month. And then, at one moment, he gave up everything and went into videography. I remember Tim paying me 50 dollars for editing and saying that this money was his last left. But he did not quit his new job; on the contrary, he was in a rush. He was looking for projects, learning new things, and enjoying the process itself. He also took courses and studied a lot before reaching the professional level and continues to learn and improve his skills.
Tim shoots for large corporate clients six years later and has several awards for screenplays and directing now.
Get a job as an intern if you don't know how to do almost anything yet — free labor is accepted everywhere with joy. Of course, ideally, you can find an internship with a minimum wage, but you can also take free ones if you trust the company or have wanted to work in it for a long time.
Get a job as an assistant if you already have minimal knowledge. Again, you will start with simple and low-paid employment, but you will gain the necessary practical experience.
In the end, start working for yourself if you are not taken anywhere. Go to freelance marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr, to communities with jobs on Facebook, and develop your social networks — make your way as you can. It will take time and a lot of effort to advance, but no one will notice you without this.
Yes, no one needs us on our own. No one will look for us just like that. That is why we need to declare ourselves to find those who need our skills and talents.
For example, I recently filled out my LinkedIn profile during my free time. I've never used it before, and I rarely go in even now–I use Facebook instead. A couple of weeks later, I received a message inviting me to work from a person who liked what I was doing in a project I was working on then.
How to stop being afraid that all efforts will be in vain?
No way.
If they have accompanied you before, fear and doubt will accompany you all your life.
At the end of his life, one famous composer with a worldwide reputation was mired in severe depression because he considered himself a deceiver ("impostor syndrome"). He said that all his achievements were just luck and did not consider any of his works outstanding.
You can earn millions of dollars and have as many fans of your creativity, but if you don't learn to respect yourself and your work, appreciate every little thing, every tiny step you have taken on your life and professional path, you will never feel your success.
Therefore, what is really important is to learn to praise yourself. Give yourself the right to make mistakes and time to learn. Realize that the path to yourself is thorny and complicated but beautiful. Roll mountains for yourself and love yourself in a way that no one will love.
Only by learning to listen to yourself and appreciate yourself will you one day be able to say: "It was worth it."
Get my free guide on 7 ways to monetize your expertise and earn more if you are an expert or creator here. In this guide, I talk about what methods you can apply today and what to do to promote your products even without a budget.
