This Perspective Shift is The Only Way to Really be a Successful Writer
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Work, Productivity, Self, Creativity, Writing

Five years ago, I had a shift in perspective that finally let me do the one thing I’ve wanted to do all my life: be a full-time working writer. I quit my day job a few months later, in the summer of 2015, and I haven’t had to work for someone else since.

In the winter of 2015 I had a terrible job and I needed a way out. I didn’t have the bandwidth to worry about anything other than what I could control. So I just started writing.

Shifting from the nearly constant effort to get someone else to make me successful and just putting everything I had into doing the best work I could and letting everything I couldn’t control take care of itself was a game changer.

I’ve had this on my mind a lot this week.

This idea that when it comes to creating something, there are things we can control and things we can’t. Let’s start here: Entrepreneurism is a weird mix of things that come very, very easy to me and things that feel like a constant, existential crisis.

I was not built to work for someone else. I’ve never enjoyed it. I have a high tolerance for the unpredictable nature of finances when it comes to owning your own business.

But I’m a borderline introvert and the constant need to put myself out in front of people freaks me out a little. Not the teaching part. I love that. The selling part.

And I’m a pretty classic enneagram 4, which means that I spend my life constantly feeling like there’s something that everyone else has that I’m missing and that comes out in great big billowing spades in this whole entrepreneurial thing.

Why, why, why is this so much easier for that person over there and so hard for me? What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I figure this out?

That’s a constant little soundtrack running in the background of my brain all the time. It’s not jealousy — I don’t want anyone else to have less. I don’t want to take from anyone. No. An enneagram 4’s deadly sin is envy. I can’t stop myself from envying what seems to come easier to someone else.

I am not in charge of the things I can’t control.

That little sentence changed my life, once it finally chiseled its way into my head a little bit. And I am not in control of a whole host of things that, trust me, I wish I was.

I’m not in control of whether or not what I write is ever published, unless I self-publish it. And if it is published, especially if I self-publish it (including blogging), I’m definitely not in charge of how well it is received.

I cannot control how many people read my words and I cannot control how the people who do read them react to them.

Will they share them with their friends? Will they be moved by them? Will they understand them the way I intended them to? Will they use them the way I wanted them to?

Not only do I have no idea about the answers to any of those questions — I’ve finally realized that it’s none of my business.

In case you’re curious, that’s not easy. Because my writing sure as hell feels like my business. And I would definitely like to exert some control over what happens to it after I write it and put it out in to the world.

I especially would like to be able to control how much money it earns me.

But — deep breath here — I can’t do that, either. Not really.

I can set goals for myself. And I can do the things I do have control over with as much diligence and perseverance as I can muster up. And in that way, I can feel pretty confident of my ability to earn a living.

But some parts of this whole ‘working writer’ thing are just not under my control. Like how much a publisher will get behind my work and push it out with their arms that are so much longer than mine. Or whether my work will catch fire with readers and go viral.

If I could predict viral-ness — hell, if anyone could — then I would make it happen regularly. That’s not a thing, no matter what promises some of the gurus might try to tempt you with.

But the good news is that there is plenty that I do control.

I am in control of my work ethic. In fact, I am the only one who is. Just me.

I’m in control of the quality of the work I put out into the world.

I’m in control of whether or not I stagnate or continue to learn.

I’m in control of my attitude. This is a huge one, even if it sounds kind of out there. Attitude becomes . . . everything else.

I’m in control of the risks I choose to take.

I’m in control of my own persistence.

I’m in control of my own definition of success.

I’m in control of finding my own people, in my own niche.

I’m in control of being honest with myself about where I can improve and then doing the work to make that improvement.

I’m in control of whether or not I show up for this thing. No one else. Just me. That means if I’m not showing up, I’m in control of figuring out why and fixing the problem.

I’ve been doing this a long time and what I’ve learned is that these things that I can control — they add up to something substantial.

In fact, they add up to something so substantial that even if you have a bunch of crap that you can’t control stacked against you, these controllable things are the backbone of your business if you let them be.

But, because you control them, you have to actually let them be. You have to do them. Imagine success like a vampire — you have to invite it in. And you invite it in by showing up, doing the work, insisting on quality from yourself, taking risks, continuing to learn, persisting, and keeping your attitude in check.

Do those things and the things you can’t control lose some of their power.

Those things you can’t control are awesome. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that they didn’t matter. Who doesn’t want a publisher who splashes their work all over creation or to write something that readers fall so deeply in love with that publishers don’t even matter?

But they aren’t everything unless you let them be.