Becoming a contractor was a sudden transition for me but it ended up becoming the right move. I have been working for myself now since 2018 and it's going very well.
I started with a friend who needed to abandon his contract and hand it over to me. That ended up working out really well.
Then I branched off into https://www.moonlightwork.com which also worked quite well until I found a contract there that essentially became a full time position.
I am still contracting but serve now as CTO for this company.