If I Don’t Write, I’ll Lose My Car…and I Really Like My Car

How to use economic pressure to help you overcome writing anxiety.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Last year, I quit my career in corporate finance to pursue my dream of writing full-time. I’d had a few articles published and was starting to get some traction so with a nice little nest-egg behind me, I decided to make the leap. You can already see how this story’s going to go, right?

You guessed it. Everything went wrong. And I didn’t write.

This year, my son was born and along with his birth came a whole new level of economic pressure I’d never before experienced. If I didn’t make at least $2000 a month, we would lose our car, my baby would be going to daycare and I’d have to get a job.

I have never hustled so hard in my life…and it’s working.

This coming month, I’ll have two articles published in a national parenting magazine, file a story for the Saturday papers and two more for an emerging family-orientated website. It’s the kind of success that would have brought me to tears last year. As a working writer, I aspire to make the minimum wage.

So what changed for me?

I had the perfect ingredients for success or a complete breakdown — high stakes and a purpose greater than myself. There was a part of me that recognised that I couldn’t keep failing. My family deserved more. I resolved to make it work…or get back to working for someone else.

Find a purpose greater than yourself.

Photo by The Honest Company on Unsplash

If you’re already trying to live off your writing…

Ask yourself who will suffer if you fail. It may be your child, partner, friends or fur baby but somebody’s life will be worse by you working 60 hours out of the home again. Count the cost of the unmeasurable…the smiles, hugs and kisses that will be given to someone else if you’re not there.

If you’re still working and wanting to make a living off your writing…