This one really made me think, because I used to do 1 & 2, still learning 3, in the midst of 4 (but, after reading this article, have a different viewpoint), number 5 still has me in its clutches (I am afraid of failing), learning 6 and fluctuate back and forth on 7.
Check it out.
For most of my twenties, I jumped from one dream to the next. But through it all, I secretly wanted to be a writer. I watched friends bridge the gap between amateur and professional, and I wished I could be them.
Because I was envious of my friends’ writing success, I would try whatever it was they were doing that I thought made them successful. But the problem was I didn’t know what I was doing.
One writer I knew had a satire blog, so I tried writing satire. It didn’t work out; I just came off sounding mean. Another wrote about popular events from a faith-based perspective, so I tried that. That also failed. In fact, I made just about every possible rookie mistake.
What was I missing?
Turns out, I was still acting the amateur, thinking success as a writer was about finding the right idea or a big break. But the truth is that success in any field is more about commitment to a process than it is about finding one magic trick that will make it all come together.
Sure, there are ways to expedite the process, but it is still a process. And for me, I didn’t start to succeed as a writer until I began shifting my attention away from the results. When I began to mimic the process of professionals instead of just chasing their success, that’s when I started to see real results.
If you want to be a pro, you’re going to have to break this terrible amateur habit of looking at what people have without paying attention to what they did to get it. Chasing the results without understanding the process will lead to short-lived success, if not outright failure.
A friend of mine, a hugely successful musician on his own terms, advises anyone who aspires to his success, “Don’t do what I do. Think like I think.”
How do you do this, exactly? Well, there are seven things I’ve discovered that professional writers do that amateurs don’t.
Read the full article here. Good stuff.