Petra Eriksson
What do you love most about your job?
I love the freedom I get over my own life as a freelancer. Sure, freelancing can definitely result in some stress as well but for me the flexibility is so much more worth it. I've also always been a very visual person so to be able to work within this field and see the possibility in branching into other related fields is amazing. I love to be able to work with a mix of clients and completely different kinds of topics. Who was your biggest female role model growing up?
As a kid I was super shy and pretty introverted (well, I'm still both of those things even though most of the shyness is gone by now) so I used to spend a lot of time in my own imaginary worlds or in the world of books so many of my role models were either fictional characters or writers at that point. I loved Pippi Longstocking (or Pippi Långstrump as her name is in Sweden) for her creativity, confidence, curiosity and free spirit. I've also always been a huge fan of the Moomin world created by Tove Jansson, both her story telling skills and her visual creativity blew me away.
What's your definition of success?
Right now success for me means being able to choose to work on interesting projects and feel that I have loads of freedom and flexibility in my life. I've realized that I don't deal well with feeling stuck, in those situations I just get panicky, stressed and uncreative. At the moment I get that kind of freedom without having to worry about money too much and being a freelancer who's able to work pretty much from wherever I want, at whatever time. Earning loads of money has never been a big goal of mine but it's important for me to earn enough to feel secure by having a buffert, being able to save for the unknown future and to have some extra money left over at the end of each month.