This is a blog post I’ve toyed with doing for sometime now, its risky to come out with it and admit it -not to my peers – they don’t pay my rent – but to my employers.

I’m struggling.

Us as an industry are struggling, so many of us are painting over the cracks with “It’ll get better, there are always moments like this where I there isn’t work”.

Strangely, I wrote this as a start of a blog post early on in 2015 but never posted:

Let’s start with the beginning, its been a good year so far – busy as the first year, but something is different.

Different – the understatement of 2015.

2015, was the year MC Design Ltd was going to really do well, it started out on fire – I had more work than I could handle and even was turning work down, really good work as well, then IT happened, the drop. Around July/August I noticed my usual contacts were saying “sorry Mike we don’t have anything in at the moment, or the budget just happening”, and my freelance friends were making their own coffee – which we all know is a seriously matter.

I felt the panic of everyone, friends had mortgages, kids, cars, bills to pay and where was the work?

Is there anything worse than a jobless freelancer?

When I’m not working, I’m a monster – I loose confidence and am forever hunting online for the next thing to do.

I swear, if I read about something “Hustling” again, the only thing hustling is good for is loosing your family and friends.

It’s easy to fake confidence to a client, really easy, we all do it, but can you fake not being desperate?

Having a kid totally changes your outlook on it all, I had to earn and work, maybe in that order – and freelance only works when you are in demand.

This blog post is different to most – I don’t have an answer, an ending..or work*.

The freelance struggle is real.

*As you may of read – I am now currently employed by HMRC/DWP on a contract basis, so it did happen, but I had to work hard and do a lot of digging.

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