Embracing Uncertainty

I was fortunate last year. I was able to quit my high-paying, stable job and take a real shot at writing for a living. The downside is that I have a pathetically thin portfolio. One novella published, an unrelated novel drafted and collecting dust, along with the first half of a coauthored project I haven’t been able to move forward with. Probably not the smartest idea during a global pandemic, yet here I am.

I couldn’t be happier with my choice. Now that is.

I was highly unproductive in the last months of 2020 after I left my corporate job. There were a ton of stressors and things that took me away from my writing time – the only way I was going to earn money now. I knew then that I needed the time to focus on my immediate problems and tasks, even if it took me away from writing. Still, it was hard in the moment to accept. Looking back, I’m grateful that I forced myself to take three months to unwind. I learned a lot about myself.

I was in a freefall, having gone from a highly structured environment to being the only one responsible for everything. It was harder than I expected. It added to the pandemic’s everyday stresses like an anvil on my shoulders. I nearly broke, but after more than a little soul searching, I found these seven things provided me with the path forward I have always been dreaming of. These are my focus for the year, and I’m excited to see how much things change over 2021.

WRITING EVERYDAY

“Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

- Confucius

About six years ago, I opened up my own kung fu school with my partner at the time, and I learned that Confucius was mostly right. Maybe this is just an inadequate translation, but doing what you love is still certainly work. We loved what we did, but it was hard work. In fact, it was the work we loved. That made it that much easier to get home three times a week from the day job and head out almost immediately to teach kids and adults kung fu.

Several of my author friends from outside the U.S. encouraged (nay demanded in some instances) that I take six weeks of vacation time this coming year. Now that I’m my own boss, there’s no reason to kill myself on the corporate grindstone. While I agree that we definitely need more than two or three weeks off a year for those of us lucky to have vacation as a benefit, I found myself rebelling against this idea. At first, I thought it was just odd that I previously had about four and half weeks of vacation, and six isn’t that much more when you look at it. Then, I thought it was a bit more on the entitled side.

What finally stood out to me is that I enjoy the work of writing. The actual process. Even if it’s excruciating, and I spent hours to get five hundred words of pure garbage. I still love it. Just like my kung fu school, where I repeated basics ad nauseam night after night, I love the work.

INVESTING IN LOSS

“Why do we fall, sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

- Alfred

One of my favorite lines from Batman Begins. Everyone invests in loss, whether they realize it or mean to. It’s how we learn. People tend to learn more from their failures than their successes, even though society cherishes being correct over learning from our failures.

It’s doing the thing and not being afraid of failing. Taking the time to understand why we failed and what went wrong. This is how we improve and succeed the next time or when it really matters and is at the heart of everything we do. If we want to do it well.

I’ve spent the last year terrified that I wasn’t a good enough writer or that my ideas were garbage. That I needed a bit more time to figure out the perfect strategy for plotting, pricing, releasing content, and so on. For someone that has spent countless hours being thrown to the ground, choked, joint-locked, punched, and kicked while I trained in kung fu – I spent a lot of time in fear of pressing a button and releasing my writing into the wild.

This is the year of action when it comes to writing. This is the year I start making mistakes and learning from them. It’s the only way I can continue to grow as a writer. I trained between seven to ten times a week when I was working towards my black sash. I probably didn’t need to, but excellence takes perseverance.

Writing deserves no less of a commitment.

PHYSICAL WELLBEING

I’m not sure why but working out is essential to managing my anxiety. Just knowing that I’ll get a good workout later in the day is enough to help stave away my worries until I get to the gym or the practice floor. After I get that workout in, I’m recharged and ready to get back to work or face whatever else it is that life has thrown my way.

I’ve set several goals for myself that will require making better and healthier choices. That after-work beer is going to have to wait till the weekend. I really should have that salad or wrap instead of pizza. I don’t want to sabotage my workouts by eating like garbage when they are essential. I want to make sure I’m in the correct headspace to write, be present with friends, and be a good partner.

Having milestones helps me feel the progress as well. It’s not some vanity goal to lose thirty pounds (even though I want to), but I know that I’ll be able to run a 5k easier if I shed some of this COVID-19 weight. My knees will hurt less, and so on. They also give me benchmarks that I will be able to continually work on for the rest of my life. I’ve let life knock me around and break good habits in the past. Now, it’s time to stop doing that.

VALUING TIME

“Who’s got two thumbs and hates free time? This guy.”

- Me.

I had a problem. I might still have it, but I’m working on it. It’s hard to say ‘No’ to a project or to someone’s request for my time to do something. So I end up agreeing to help out with all sorts of things. This leads to me either not being able to hold up my side of the commitment, having to bail on someone else entirely, or just doing all the things poorly.

Over the past two years, I started to say ‘no.’ I slowly distanced myself from projects that drained my time and will. Learning how to decline requests was one of the best decisions of my life. Saying ‘no’ also kept me from continuing romantic and non-romantic relationships alike that weren’t good for me, them, or the both of us. That’s freed up my time to do the things I love, including writing, which is my sole source of income.

I think the majority of us devalue our time. We agree to another shift at a job that we hate, that writes us up for being late due to a snowstorm instead of spending time with family. We take on extra tasks because it’s easier than having that hard conversation with our partner about what we need – or what they need. We shy away from learning opportunities because “we’ll never be good enough.” Even when making a sloppy painting or bad poem would bring us far more joy than another episode of anything.

I’m not trying to attack anything, or anyone, or say that my time is the most valuable thing in the world. It is to me, however. I know your time and that of those around us is valuable as well. So, I want to be choosey about which non-profit I volunteer for and which people I spend time with.

DREAM BIG

“Under promise and overdeliver.”

- A manager forgotten to the past.

I really wish I could remember which job I was at when my manager told me this. I would love to give them credit because it stuck with me for most of my working years. For as long as I can remember, I’ve used this as a guidepost in my professional life. It’s a great way to prove your value to customers and your team. It’s also the opposite of dreaming big.

It’s still good advice, but now that I’m working for myself, I found myself making unreasonably small goals. Goals that have no hope of achieving any sort of measurable success in the year to come. Finally, it’s time to let that invaluable piece of advice fall away. Everything can be useful until it’s not.

When I was planning out my production schedule for the year, I created a massive spreadsheet to track my word counts and project statuses, all at an ‘achievable’ pace. I wasn’t satisfied with the way it looked. It wasn’t because of limiting my income but because it didn’t feel like I would even scratch the surface when it comes to creating and releasing the stories I have locked away inside my head.

I know I can do more. I wasn’t challenging myself enough. This ties into valuing my time. I should be working on the stuff that makes me happy instead of doing the safe thing in the corner.

CONTINUING TO SAY ‘NO’

Last year my previous employer offered a buyout offer throughout the company. My boss was surprised when he found out I took the buyout offer and tried several times to convince me to stay. The issue wasn’t that he was a lousy boss or that the work was terrible. Certain aspects were awful, but I’ve known for a long time that I simply wasn’t happy with the work. I used to love I.T., and that passion has faded over time. I still enjoy it, but the work I was doing didn’t feel worth it.

I stuck to my conviction and continued to say no each and every time. There was a ton of fear around that decision each time it came up. A stable company, a consistent paycheck, and of course, benefits. How many people would leave their jobs right now if they could get affordable healthcare outside of their employer? I know it kept me in the corporate workforce far longer than I wanted to.

I mentioned it before but saying ‘no’ has always been an issue for me. After using it to create some boundaries in my life, it’s getting gradually easier to say and to accept from others. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to pursue my dream of writing full-time. Very few people feel like they possess this option, and most don’t, at least in their near future. This is the culmination of a purposeful plan I set into motion several years ago. Due to some dumb luck, I was in a position to tell my job, “No. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Often we hear that opportunity starts with a ‘yes,’ and it’s up to us to seize the moment or not. Sometimes the opportunity is when we refuse and forge a new path. It took creating other boundaries in my life to finally get the courage to take some significant life-altering risks.

BET ON MYSELF

“Indeed, RISC architecture is gonna change everything.”

- Kate

For those who are too young to recognize this quote, Hackers is a classic movie that doesn’t hold up under the test of time. I love this play on words in Kate’s line here, however as risk architecture does indeed change everything. Last year I bet on myself that I could make a career and a living off of writing. This year I have to avoid getting cold feet and turning back.

This is hard. Then again, everything is hard. We get to choose our hard, and instead of settling for the most comfortable options, I’m choosing the ones that make sense to me. The choices that will make me happy, even if they seem impossible to attain.

TL;DR

Parting thought.

Do you love what you do? Then why aren’t you doing what you love? Every day you can? Now, I turned my love of writing and storytelling into a career, but here’s a secret.

Nothing is saying you have to make money doing what you love.

There doesn’t have to be a market for you to spend time doing your favorite activity. It’s perfectly valid to do something without trying to make money doing it. Maybe someone out there will watch your underwater basket weaving on some streaming channel. Who knows? If someone had told me when I was a kid that I could have played StarCraft for money and that people would pay to watch me play video games, guess what my day job would be?

I would still be writing on the side.

2020 taught me that a happy life involves rolling with the punches that life gives us and still find a way to do the things we love. Fall in love with the process of learning how to sing, paint, dance, or whatever it is you’re into.

Simply put, there are seven things I’m committed to doing this year:

1) Do what I love every opportunity I can. Which, for me, is writing.

2) Investing in loss. Having no fear of failure while I work on improving my writing.

3) Working out. It may sound silly, but we can’t be mentally healthy if we refuse to take care of our physical bodies. Being healthy involves both.

4) Time is valuable. Mine, yours, theirs. Let’s be mindful of that fact and do the most we can for each other.

5) Dream Big and challenge myself. We stop growing when we stop challenging ourselves.

6) Boundaries are important. Saying ‘No’ can open doors too. Not all of them are bad or the end of the world.

7) Trust myself. We are all excellent in our own ways, and only you know your true potential. It a lot easier for me to tell you that than it is to say it to myself.

This year is gearing up to be a ‘hold my beer’ event, yet I think there will be a lot of good to come out of it. I know I got used to the doom cycle in the media, politics, and everything else. Despite the struggles, I am striving to be happier and more resilient this year. I won’t hesitate to hit that publish button (after an editor and some advance copy readers) whenever I get the chance.

It feels within reach. I hope it is for you as well.