“Never Give Up: You May Be Closer to Success Than You Think.”
By: Danika Bloom
Tags: Advice, Life Lessons, This Happened To Me, Entrepreneurship, Writing

Looking at my last MPP payout data, I tried to conjure the good feels and confidence of the comic that’s kept me moving ever-forward all these years, but I know too much now because I’m a member of two Facebook groups that support and encourage Medium writers.

What I’ve learned from this generous community is that several writers who have a similar number of followers to me (800) and post a similar number of stories each week (5–8), are earning 5 to 12 times more than I am from their effort. Where my MPP payout for April was $85, other comparable contributors posted earnings of up to $1,000 for the 5-week period.

Now, not only was I questioning the wisdom of diverting so much of my potential income-earning hours to the pursuit of making money writing about topics that interest me on Medium, I became concerned that I’d been faking it as a technical ghost-writer for the last 20 years.

I even drafted an email to let my core clients know theyd been duped. But I didn’t send it since I worried it wasn’t well-enough written.

I can’t stop imagining my confidence-building comic, now a little bit altered. The man in the top frame is still enthusiastically pickaxing his way to success, but it’s a woman in the lower frame—one who bears an uncanny resemblance to me. She is joyfully hacking away on the wrong wall.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

This doesn’t surprise me since I am 90% consistent in turning left when right is called for.

Write what you know? But, what if what you know is, you know, wrong?

There is actual neuroscience that proves there are people (like my husband) who have an intuitive sense of direction and people (like myself) who feel like the operating system that governs navigation was never uploaded to their brain.

What if that broken navigational O/S is at play with my Medium efforts?

That is the question that was plaguing my sleep.

What if I was taking a left turn with my stories when I should have stayed the course or veered slightly right?

What if my story pick-axe was smashing away at the wrong wall?

What if, instead of chipping away at the Wall that Pays, my stories have been working toward busting a hole in the Pay Wall? I don’t even know what that means but I know that a) just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s not true and b) that would be just like me to hear “Wall that Pays” and set my GPS for “Pay Wall.”

After dropping my axe and hitting the wall with my skull to hit the wall for three weeks, I did something unthinkable: I popped my head of out my cave and asked for help from the wonderfully supportive and successful writers here on Medium.

They were specific—brutal and loving all wrapped up in honest feedback. They spun me around, handed me a clear map, and said, “Good luck!”

Three days later, I was curated. Twice. And then a third time. That was nine uncurated stories ago. I haven’t lost the map but I have put it down to write some things that feel right for right now.

I’m no longer feeling the desperate need for validation from the anonymous, faceless elevators. I have been seen now. Perhaps like a shooting star, now gone from their view. But seen once means I can find my direction again—to crack more holes in that wall—maybe even enough to reach the diamonds that are waiting on the other side.

And, if I don’t, these hours and months sharing on Medium will become part of my future success story with Enterprise Idea number 9 or 14 or even 26.