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The Secret To Freelance Success

What I’ve learned after three months as a full-time freelance writer

Justin Cox
2 min readMar 31, 2021
This is a photo of a dog raising a paw to ask a question.
Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

Today marks the end of Q1, my first quarter as a full-time freelance writer. Throughout the last three months, I’ve learned and grown a lot.

There is neverending advice to follow in Zuckerberg’s (or Musk’s or Jobs’ or insert_any_successfull_creator_here’s) footsteps. However, I’ve discovered that no person is successful solely due to their own ideas and work ethic. Every successful person is a mixture of their own background, environment, community, support structure, capital, and decisions.

With so many variables involved, it’s impossible to expect the same results as anyone else. We all move at our own pace and take on our own acceptable level of risk. In the end, success finds us all in different ways.

Instead of trying to be someone else, my best advice for new freelancers is to find their own path. If I had to distill it all down to a single catchphrase, it’d be this: Always ask.

The key to success is asking questions of your clients, audience, friends, and supporters.

How can I help?

What is your biggest need?

What’s holding you back?

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Justin Cox
Justin Cox

Written by Justin Cox

I help writers and nonprofits grow. Editor of The Writing Cooperative. Contact at JustinCox.com

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