For millions of people out there, freedom, liberty and independence are more than just words. They’re values that they love to live by, and that sense of freedom that they look to capture in their daily lives informs everything from the relationships that they form to the career paths they choose to follow. If this sounds familiar, the following article might be for you.
Below, we’ll look at some of the jobs that you can quickly move into, which offer a high level of independence for those who currently work in them.
Trucking
There’s no doubt that hitting the open road in your very own truck, delivering items from place to place and on your own terms, is a fantastic way to develop an independent career. Of course, you’ll spend some long days in the driver’s seat, and some of those drives will take multiple days to complete, but you’ll be able to organize your own work once you’ve got the hang of how to run a truck owner-operator business as a self-employer individual.
Becoming a truck owner operator is simple. If you’re yet to get your trucking license, that’s something you should focus on right away. If you don’t own a truck that can transport heavy goods, you should consider purchasing one or leasing one.
Other than that, you’ll just need to find ways to locate loads that you can transport. There are dozens of platforms online that help you do this – or you can work freelance for one of the many trucking firms that operate in your area.
Taxi Driving
There’s never been an easier time to move into the cab-driving game. You’ll be fully aware of how this works in the modern day, with any family vehicle technically able to convert itself into a cab at any time thanks to a number of impressive ride-hailing apps. You’ll be looking to the likes of Lyft and Uber to get signed up, and this process can be a matter of hours rather than days. Then it’s all about learning the ropes and getting your first fares.
Driving a cab is a fairly simple job, in that you’ll find it’s not difficult to learn how to operate this job as efficiently and effectively as possible. What you will learn is that there are certain times of the day when it’s most profitable to be out there collecting fares, and those are at night and whenever it’s raining. So be sure to maximize your income when you can – but do it always on your own terms.
Food Delivery
You’ll know full well how many food delivery operatives are at work at any given time. There are hundreds on your local city’s streets, patiently waiting for their smartphone apps to ping with a new order, which they then dutifully carry from restaurants to their delivery places. This is a job, like a taxi driving, which you can move into in a matter of days, working at your own pace and using the vehicle of your choice.
It’s cheaper to use a bicycle, as this requires no fuel and might actually be quicker than other modes of transportation in busy city centers. You can decide for yourself which mode of transport suits you. Just sign up to the app that you feel suits your needs best, get your first orders delivered, and watch the money flowing in. You can pick up shifts when you want – and stay in bed when you want, too.
Freelancing
Freelancers enjoy the best of both worlds: they work in their area of expertise, but they work for nobody. They pick up work when it suits them and turn down projects when they don’t quite meet their expectations on pay or quality of work.
When you’re starting out as a freelancer, it’s often a little more difficult to find work. You’ve not yet built up a contact book that’ll regularly come to you with jobs. That’s why it’s recommended that you search through freelance gig websites for your first projects.
There are several of these spread across the internet, and they’re all regularly updated with hundreds of jobs per day. You’ll just need to set up profiles and job alerts for the projects that suit your skillset and wait for emails to land in your inbox. As your freelance career develops, you’ll be able to charge more for your work, slowly gaining more and more freedom to pick when you work and when you concentrate on other things entirely.
Agency Work
If you’re at the start of your career and you don’t have a huge amount of capital in the bank, agency work is often a brilliant way of working on your own terms. You’ll not earn a high amount for each shift that you decide to accept, but what you will gain is the experience in a wide variety of roles, and this experience might help you one day go it alone as a freelancer or join a team or an industry that you know you love.
Agencies are typically looking for younger individuals who are flexible and who are not necessarily looking for a 9-5 lifestyle of work. If that sounds like you, this might be an excellent place to start your journey in a truly independent career.
Entrepreneurialism
Finally, let’s not forget that everyone can take a risk and start a venture of their own. While this might take a lump sum of cash upfront – either in the form of a loan, or in the form of your savings – it can lead you to an exciting career in which you are your own boss, and your ambitions set your workload and your work schedule.
Remember that being a business leader takes time and that you’ll make mistakes. That’s why seasoned entrepreneurs will always tell you that it’s best to start out on a small venture before you go steaming in with bigger and more ambitious ideas down the line.
If maintaining an independent lifestyle is something that you hold dear, these tips will help you choose a career path that’ll guarantee you as much freedom as possible, while still supplementing your bank account every month.
