Given the success of dynamic career working life of the day, career workers have to take an important move in career planning: freelancing and full-time working. These two professional working lives are disparate from each other in experience, intensity, and issues. For making a good-educated decision, both the advantages and disadvantages of both alternatives need to be seen in terms of your personalistic goals, habits, work goals.

Freelancing has gained a lot of traction in the last decade, thanks to the growth of the digital economy. Freelancing is marked by independence of work that an individual does not receive in an ordinary job. Freelancers are at liberty to work whenever and wherever they feel like, decide on their own projects and customers, and even work from the other side of the globe. That freedom can translate to a better work-life experience and freedom to do other things or tour the world. And, very skilled freelancers can earn top dollar, so money-making opportunities are good.

But, freelance has its downside. Worst of them is unpredictable pay. While the unionized workers don’t have to scramble to find new customers and adapt to changing workloads, freelancers are always in the process of finding new customers and adapting to changing workloads. No fringe benefits such as health care, vacations, or pensions are provided by employers. Freelancers must also be extremely self-motivated, well-organized time managers, and aggressive promoters of the business. The business aspect of freelancing—contracting, taxation, and invoicing—is tiresome and complex as well.

Conversely, the regular work offers a stable and organized working environment. A regular paycheck, employee benefits, and clear boundaries at the workplace bring one security, especially to employees with family or other responsibilities. Professional skill enhancement and courses, counseling and formal professional enhancement are often made available by the majority of the companies. Employees mostly benefit through working as a team, which makes collaboration, concern, and belongingness possible.

Regular work, however, is a barrier to others to innovate or project themselves, or work independently. A barrier due to office politics, planning after work hours, and limited autonomy could lead to stultification for others who enjoy working independently or exploring with alternative interests. Some of the conditions of part-time work can even lead to burnout or stagnation among the workers.

A decision between working full-time or freelancing is not a result of self-awareness and realistic perception of what matters most in your work and professional life. If stability, systematic advancement, and teamwork matter most to you, then working full-time would be the most suitable for you. But if freedom, variety, and can work with uncertainty matter most to you, freelancing might be more fulfilling.

Other people do both simultaneously—part-time freelancing and full-time, or vice versa at different stages of life, as and when their need and priority require, as they choose. It provides them with the freedom of changing as and when their need and priority require.

Finally, no one “right” thing. Whatever you freelance, get full-time, or do a combination of them, truly is to establish a career path that you can hire for your own purposes and what you are enthusiastic about. That way, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you can build a work life that can fund your monetary requirements, but also health and future development.