I was criticized, bashed and told, you are good for nothing

My name is Kashif Fareed, I am a digital marketer providing services on a freelancing site (Upwork). I got into this field after listening to Sir Hisham Sarwar’s radio interview about freelancing *not sure about the exact year*. His interview really inspired me, I decided to work as a freelancer and make money.

My father had a huge loss in business. I was very young at that time. I had to quit my O-Level school education because of the financial crisis as I could not afford to pay tuition fees.

As a young kid, people often criticized me simply because I was not good at my studies. They used to say nasty things good enough to put anybody down such as “he can not do anything or achieve something substantial in his life. His Father was a successful person but he is a failure“. Some even said, don’t come to our house, you will become driver, etc”. These sentences were heartbreaking and I often used to get exasperated by these comments but such was the life, irony of being pushed against the wall and finding it hard to get back on my feet.

I was very disappointed and started to believe that I am useless and I will never become a successful person in my life. But after hearing some success stories offline and on the internet, I start believing that if others can do so I can also. I made a promise to myself, a word that I will never get disappointed, never give up on myself, learn and work hard and leave my fate to almighty.

I wanted to learn but I did not have enough money to buy a decent computer. I humbly requested my beloved Khala (my mom’s sister) to give me some money to buy a computer. She believed in me, advice me to work hard, and prove everyone wrong by becoming successful in life.

The importance of Goal setting in life:

I set a goal, dedicated myself to learn skills. I choose digital marketing as my main field and started learning it from Sir Hisham Sarwar’s YouTube Channel. A few months later, after successfully learning Digital marketing. practicing hard, I decided to offer my services but there was a huge problem. I did not know how to speak English. The challenge was to learn English, after all, English is an international business language. If I were to succeed online, I’ve got to learn English.

At the beginning of the year 2021, I approach my school friend and told her that I am about to offer my services on freelancing sites. What you like to join me, I requested?

My Upwork Journey:

To my good luck, she agreed. We started working, created our profiles on different freelance marketplaces. In the beginning, we are unable to win any project, though we would often get disappointed, we never gave up. We started to work even harder and after some time we landed our 1st project. This was one of the happiest moments of my life. Surely, Allah Pak has a better plan for you.

From there onwards, things just picked up for me. Everything began to move in the right direction. Today, our hard work has paid off. Not only do we get orders from freelance websites, but we also have local clients.

Nature has strange ways of testing you and your patience. Sadly, our top-rated Upwork profile got suspended due to a client’s mistake. Our earning also get stuck and Upwork blocked our transaction because of suspension. I spoke to support about my matter. After reviewing my request. they told me that “we are unable to lift the suspension on your account“.

This was really heartbreaking. We worked really hard in order to build our profile and ended up losing 1,000 USD, courtesy of an unfair suspension.

We were left with two choices. To give up or keep moving forward. Luckily, we chose later. We did not give up. Started working hard again and created a new Upwork profile. The slogan was

If you can do it once and ace at it, you can do it twice. Just do not give up!

Our new profile has received a “Rising Talent” badge. Alhamdulillah. The sports are high and so is hope, hope of deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us.

Fast forward, all those who used to criticize me, now give me respect, I am invited to their gatherings, with honor.

Conclusion:

I have successfully earned more than 5,000 USD so far from the freelancing marketplace and also from local clients. I have learned so far from my experience is that “If you want to achieve anything in life don’t get afraid of failure and most importantly criticism”.

If you desire, work hard, you become successful. Always believe that you can achieve anything, keep working hard and stay positive.

I’ve also learned that criticism helps us to work even harder. With hard work, selfless dedication, and prayers we can achieve anything in life. Assess your failures as failures also play a vital role in our success.

Never give up on yourself!