I started freelancing on my own when I was 19. I'm now in my early 30's.
Working on my own started out as a total mess. Been broke, more than broke. Lost friends, relationships. Stuck with it because I too made some decisions that I couldn't back out of and it was my only way out, so I had to make it work.
My life is now not a mess. It gets better every day. Now, I have friends working for me. I have 15+ years of business experience before I'm 35. I worked my ass off in my 20's to get 20 years of experience in 10. You could say I had my quarter life crisis early.
I'm going to braindump mind can't easily convince you into thinking it's impossible, or worse, you think that there's some kind of short coming in you.
It's hard to find anyone to relate to when you're young and in business. It's a luxury to feel understood sometimes.
Things to consider:
0) UNTIL YOU ARE HARDER, LIFE CAN BE GENERALLY HARD. HARDEN YOURSELF LIKE CODE.
Whether you work a job and get stuck in the politics trying to move up, or business, it's hard. Sorry. If you accept it, it just becomes easier because you can get over it and get to it. No one's going to do your shit for you in a job, or your business. No one's going to be more motivated in your business than you. You are the lynchpin, so it's about developing yourself to be the best you can be, and improving/ getting people to help you with your weaknesses.
1) YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Your problems in business or freelancing aren't new, or special. Recognize that and accept it, it will make you so happy. You can learn your way out of them. Out read your problems.
They don't teach running a business in school. We're taught to work in other people's businesses, not have the careers or lives of our dreams often enough. My business self-education is from a lot of books and I've had to read more out of school than I did in school. So, if you don't know how to do it, go to a book store or library. I read 5 times as many books after school than when I was ever in it. I had tech talent, not business talent.
2) KNOW WHERE YOU'RE AT AND WHERE YOU'RE HEADED.
Looking back the most important thing that dragged out 2-3 years of learning into 10 was not knowing what stage I was in. There are different things that you need to learn and go through at each stage.
I started as a freelancer, then became a contractor (people tell me what they need), then became a consultant (I tell customers what they need and do it) and now finally into web based products, because it's what I tried to do 10 years ago (the first time the internet became cool) and it failed.
Each of those stages require different skills and you get business in different ways. Freelancing is a bitch. You constantly have to get new and more work. Contracting can be nicer because you get to sometimes work on ongoing projects, say, building software that runs a company. Consulting is even nicer because you can have a say in how to help build the software that builds a company. If you get into the business of helping businesses solve their problems, you get a ton of experience in a lot of different industries solving the same problems, guess what you end up with... PRODUCT IDEAS BUSINESSES WILL PAY FOR.
3) SEEK AND SECURE MORE STABLE SOURCES OF INCOME.
Get through freelancing as quickly as you can into contracting and consulting.
4) DISCIPLINE IS SUCCESS AND FREEDOM.
When you look at anyone who's successful, be it academic, professional, physically, financially, its because they've worked at becoming disciplined to always be improving and always learning to do the best things before they're needed.
Building discipline, commitment is the single most important thing we can learn and always work on. Being able to find what we need to do, learn how, then do it is what fixes our problems.
5) YOUR BELIEF IN YOURSELF HAS TO BE GREATER THAN OTHERS BELIEF IN YOU.
Like every day you shower so your body doesn't stink, brush your teeth so your breath doesn't stink, you have to wash any crap off your mind and feelings every day. Motivation isn't one time, for life to me. Motivation is like taking a bath every day. If I don't do it, My thoughts and feelings smell worse than my body does and I'm the only one who can smell them the most.
I don't care if you meditate, pray, yoga, breathe deeply, do tai chi, work out, but whatever clears your thoughts and feelings insides as well as your outside is something you need to remember who you are every day and why you're doing it.
6) THERES NO ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LEARNING BUT YOU.
You decide if you take the positive from everything, or the negative. It's hard to do when the bank balance is low, all the time. Been there, did it for several years. You learn to tune it out and get shit done anyways. That's what I learnt, no matter what situation I'm in, I have to do what's needed for it to be better in the next 30-60 days.
7) SELF DEVELOPMENT IS YOUR SALVATION.
Don't think for a second you're ever done learning. Whether you did or didn't go to school, with, or without a degree, if you as a person stop learning, you're dead and losing value every day. Too many people think their degree will make something of them, when in fact, it's more about what they make of their degree. When your education is self-directed you have to get better at finding the right things to learn and teaching yourself. There always has to be time in your life to learn.
In tech if you're not reasonably up to date with what's going on you're a dinosaur. Examine your self-development.
You have to find peace in knowing you won't ever know anything and believing in your ability to get to the bottom of things and do what's needed.
9) YOUR EXPERIENCE IS PROOF WHY VC'S DONT WORK WELL FOR YOUR FIRST GIG.
You need to learn how to make, keep money in a business. Next to your talent, there's no other more important skill. Knowing how to create value and having people pay you is something you learn one project, one customer at a time. It's doable. I live in a city of 1 million people.
10) LONG TERM CUSTOMERS ARE POSSIBLE FOR YOU.
I generally have had most of my customers now for 4 years. Some as high as 12.
Many of my clients are now online and I've never met them. But we talk on the phone and screen share has taught me how to get anything done, anytime, anywhere. Because I needed to learn how to make money when any opportunity came up until I could pick.
11) JOB SECURITY IS A JOKE.
There is less job security in jobs than freelancing imho. All freelancing does is expose how quickly any job could really end. Your job is to learn how to create security for yourself, the only real security there is.
People have their own insecurities and worries. As a parent, a big worry is seeing you become self-dependant so they can rest easy that their child is now an adult. Generationally each sees a different way to do it. Create that job security.
12) IGNORE THE ZEROES, FORGET THE NEGATIVES.
It's always good to know who your friends are. Some friends of mine in Uni didn't understand what I was doing and cut back dealing with me. They went out into the working world to learn what I already knew, that I'd hit this moment of "that's it?" in a unfulfilling job with poor prospect of moving into better work.
It took well into my late 20's before my friends started paying attention to me and saying hey, why's he been working (ha) on his own so long, maybe that's not bad after all. Now, I have friends working for me. I have 15+ years of business experience before I'm 35.
I hope at least this has given you some food for thought in actions you could take in addition to the support you've received here. Your heart is your compass, you have to learn to read and chase after it for your happiness using the skills of your mind. Always be learning, and stay hungry and foolish* enough to keep moving forward while you're at it.
Keep moving, create, create, create.