Photo by Tania Sapateiro.

This is the final part of a three part series. If you’re learning to earn six figures, start here, then move on to here.

Many people struggle with the duality of enjoying their current work while yearning for an increased income. Our Freelance Switch survey showed that many freelancers are working part-time to supplement their core source of income (salaried work). What do you do if you love being in your profession but know it’s unlikely to ever allow you to earn six figures a year? What should you do if you know freelancing is not the right choice for you?

You’ll need to supplement (or eventually replace) your income through strategies that are high-yield, low time, and enjoyable in their own right. If you’re already working 40 hours a week, the time you spend trying to set up supplemental income streams should not feel like work. Ultimately, I would suggest taking up an income-producing hobby.

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Photo by ^riva^.

This post is part two in a series. If you’re learning how to earn six figures, start here.

If you’re not overly attached to your current job and would be willing to switch it for something better, this route is for you. Some of the things that prevent us from pursuing new and better jobs really don’t matter as much as you think.

1. I don’t have the skills to do anything else. That’s kind of irrelevant. You can learn anything with enough time. You might not be naturally gifted, but a gift simply doesn’t compare to dedication. Just because you don’t have the skills now doesn’t mean you won’t have them in six months or a year. You don’t have them because you’re not trying to have them yet.

2. I’m not qualified. You could pick what you want to do, and then get qualified, but that can be expensive. Going back to school may not fit with your schedule or your lifestyle, either. Instead, I’d suggest you focus on entering a field where you are often judged on your skills rather than your qualifications. Many types of freelancing fit this bill, while also commanding high hourly rates. I’ll explore this point further in point #3.

From here on, this article will mainly outline the possibility of becoming a six figure freelancer. If this idea doesn’t appeal to you (please read the article first, maybe I can change your mind) I’ll present another route to earning six figures in my third and final post in the series.

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Photo by helmet13.

How to have the freedom and flexibility to live the life you want.

Hello push-back, hello skepticism. You don’t want to read this post. You don’t want to like it. You don’t want to have your aspirations tugged at with promises the author can’t keep. And that’s fair, because too often, that’s the story of the web. Big promises, big disappointments, and a whole-lot of self-interested voices.

You’re ready for me to tell you about my six figure income; how I got there, and how you can too. Hey — I might even offer you a discount on my $99 eBook.

Unfortunately, I’m not earning six figures, and I don’t have an eBook. I don’t have any landing pages replete with bright-red lettering and enthusiastic testimonials from people who may or may not exist. I don’t have a product, or an agenda, aside from describing the journey I’m on to transform my life.

Like many of us, I hope to do that by transforming my income. Best of all, I think I’ve got it figured out — and I’d like to share what I’ve learned with you.

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Photo by soldiersmediacenter

This is a guest-post by Hunter Nuttall.

Anyone who attempts to free themselves from the shackles of corporate slavery will undoubtedly meet with resistance from unlikely adversaries: friends and family.

As much as you know in your heart that you were born to be an entrepreneur, freelancer, or web worker, very often the people closest to you will be unsupportive.

It’s not that they don’t care about you, they just come from a different world. Employees are from Mars, entrepreneurs are from Venus. Because our friends and family often have a completely different perspective from us, sooner or later they’re bound to ask that question we all love to hear: “Why don’t you just get a job like a normal person?”

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Photo by Rashuli.

The entrepreneurial promise of the web rarely lies in one big, undiscovered secret, which, when discovered, will re-invent your income and set you up for life. Instead, it’s located in the plethora of modest opportunities available — and your ability to combine them into a larger whole.

If I tried to make a living with the revenue generated by Anywired alone, I’d be eeking out an existence on around $125 a week. It’s only because I’ve tapped into four addition sources of income (editing Freelance Switch, freelancing, blog consulting and selling on eBay) that I’m able to earn a modest full-time income online while working significantly less than full-time hours.

One of the primary mistakes I see made by those hoping to earn a living online is that they focus all their efforts into one source of income, only to find that it yields modest results — results that are certainly not enough to live on. They assume this is because they’re doing something wrong, when in fact, most online income generation methods are very deliberately designed to yield modest results. The companies behind them want to get a lot of value for little pay-out. In other cases, results are suppressed because they have to be shared between a thousand other entrepreneurs trying to make money in the same way.

I’d suggest you reconsider pouring hours of work into making a single income stream perform better. Instead, think about how you could diversify and combine multiple income streams into an income river.

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Photo by Thiru Murugan

If you are — or would like to be — an entrepreneur, yet you’d be happy to earn enough to live the life you want rather than becoming filthy rich, lifestyle entrepreneurship might be a good fit for you.

Lifestyle entrepreneurs will generally base their ventures around time minimalism, or something they love, even if there are more profitable (but more time-consuming, or less interesting) options available.

The goal of a lifestyle entrepreneur is not to amass a huge fortune, but instead, to achieve certain definable goals and, beyond that point, to ensure business does not interfere too much with the enjoyment of those goals.

In this article, I’ll be outlining the primary steps to becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur, followed by 40+ educational and practical resources you can use to get started.

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