How to Be a Successful Writer When You’re Not Motivated By Money
You have to train yourself to think like an Entrepreneur
For the past several years, I’ve toyed with the idea of being a full-time Writer where my primary source of income was strictly through writing gigs. I envisioned myself seamlessly transitioning towards that career path. Then, when I thought about it more seriously, it honestly seemed like more of a delusion than a legitimate, tangible goal. After all, what real writing experience do I actually have? I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise Science and now I work in digital advertising. How could this have possibly been a seamless transition?
But, the idea of truly making it as an independent Writer and getting to be my own boss, make my own hours, and support myself through something that I really love to do just sounded like such a dream come true. I’m sure that’s the case for many of us. However, as we know, the harsh reality of the matter is that a large majority of us don’t ever make it to that point.
We all see those enticing articles pop up on Medium that are alleged success stories of how our fellow independent Writers made $10,000 in a single month and have some catchy headline along the lines of, “How I earned so much money on Medium and you can too!”
These are of course very intriguing and luring headlines that would capture anyone’s attention. After all, we all want to know what the secret sauce is when it comes to being successful and making tons of money whether it’s through writing or making music or trading stocks or whatever it is that you do. We all have bills to pay, right? (Most of us do, at least). But, my question is this — What if you’re just not motivated by money? What if, at the end of the day, getting rich just isn’t your goal?
Well, that’s exactly my problem.
Many of the articles that want to “help” you become a successful Writer say a lot about what you should or shouldn’t do with your writing. They tell you tips and tricks for gaining readers’ attention, writing catchy headlines, and gaining a following— I myself am guilty of writing similar articles. But, what many of these articles don’t tell you is how to make yourself become motivated by something that you just aren’t motivated by. That’s because you can’t always just force yourself to do something that you don’t want to do.
And that’s exactly it.
If you’re like me and you’re not motivated by money, then yes, it will be pretty difficult to actually make large sums of money on Medium or as an independent Writer in general. If you’re not thinking about making money, then it will be difficult to brainstorm what you need to do in order to actually make that money. So, like me, you just write. But, the truth is, in order to be a successful Writer, some part of you does need to be motivated by money. The way to do that is —
You have to train yourself to think like an Entrepreneur.
So, instead of reading articles about how some random person made a huge amount of money on Medium through writing, read more articles about how to think like an Entrepreneur and how to essentially become an Entrepreneur. Because if you want to be in that small percentage of Writers who can fully support yourself through writing, then you have to hustle. And that’s what Entrepreneurs do.
