Stop and Think: What are you succeeding in?

"Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." – Francis Chan

How true! For the greater part of my writing career, I have been succeeding in things that don’t really matter.

When I set out towards becoming a professional writer, I started with churning out stories and poetry and they were being published too. Slowly, the focus shifted to making money and I did any writing that got payment. Fiction and poetry got backstage and I was writing copy, SOP, College essays, articles, web content, ghost-written books, etc. All this was easier to sell and I was coolly making around 50000 bucks a month from home, along with caring for my baby.

Then, I got pregnant again and wanted to take a sabbatical. The peace and quiet that filled me had got me thinking. ‘I had succeeded but this was not what I wanted to succeed in!’

Thankfully, I had woken up. The money box no longer had coins clanking into it. Not because fiction writers are not paid or because poets are set for financial failure but because,

1) I had no one to report to.
2) I had no deadlines
3) I had no word count to complete in a day
4) I was damn lazy

If I had churned out fiction at the same speed rate and submitted them around, I am sure I would have earned as much money. So the fault lies with me. I need to buckle up and start working!