I read a post online recently (link escapes me) from a freelance web designer living in the UK. In it, he mentioned that one of his aims over the next 5 years was to build his business and expand off the back of his freelancing work. He’s already been accepting freelance work for the past five years.

He’s got ambition, drive, enthusiasm by the bucketload - all things you should have before looking to start a business but also all vital ingredients when you’re entering the world of freelancing. By business he means he wants to pitch the bigger contracts, build his brand, get more people involved, establish a company presence.

Then again, there’s people who go the other way. They spend a lot of their life in the corporate environment yet gradually realise they want to break out on their own and take some freelance work.

But can you freelance forever? If the drive resides in you to turn freelance and pick up odd contracts here and there; the thirst is in you to keep this up and seek out more and more work; will the energy and enthusiasm overtake you and you find you’re back building a business all over again, taking on partners and entering the corporate world again?

If you’re good at what you do, there should be no reason why you couldn’t freelance forever. You could plan it that way. Pitch for enough work to sustain yourself comfortably year-in-year-out as a full-time freelancer. But when does freelancing become more than freelancing? Is it a bad thing that it does?

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