Are you part of an entrepreneurial group? Do you feel like part of a professional team? You may work on a team project and take a percentage of money earned by a project. More people work in teams or office projects than alone. As time passes, your income will continue to depend on how much clients will be willing to pay for your services. What do you wish to offer?
How you make a living can be linked to how you percieve your talents. What do you think you can do? Are you doing what you would really like to do? You may determine what you like to do but be unaware how you can make money from that. Some people work one job while they reflect on how they can make enough money to survive and prosper from what they really like doing. Dreams are those things you work toward and they nurture hope and motivation.
Steady work with predictable rises in pay of the past is rarely the norm today. Experience and maturity had nothing to do with job classifications. Everyone was paid in exchange for time. Yet, tacit rules of employment have essentially disappeared. Most people still rely on wages or salaries, yet consistent streams of income are less predictable, except for a handful of professionals. They rise and fall based on the rise and fall buyers make. A job that is permanent may still have tidal salaries, based on things like billable hours, stock options, and sales statistics. Impermanence is the standard. Uncertainty requires people redefine security.