The 1 Thing Holding You Back From Being a Paid Writer
The SOS mind-state is where writing dreams fly away from you faster than Elon’s rockets head to Mars
You’re not a 6-figure online writer because you’re making one mistake.
It’s the type of mistake that makes your path to success look like the horizontal line on the bottom that leads to nothing, versus the diagonal line that leads to success.
With 5 years of online writing on my resume and after coaching freelance writers to get $98,000+ in client work—I’ve come to stare this mistake straight in the face. I’m either making sure that I avoid it, or guiding the writers I coach to avoid it all costs.
It’s the sweet, eye-catching Shiny Object Syndrome.
And it’s taking you further from your writing goals as you read this.
Shiny Object Syndrome vs. Online Writers
As an online writer, you get paid to create content. You’re part of the content marketing scene, which is hilariously hypocritical.
The reason you have Shiny Object Syndrome is because of content marketing…yet you get paid to create content. You’re getting paid to create the very thing that creates Shiny Object Syndrome in the first place—knowledge.
How many articles, tweet threads, YouTube videos, podcasts, and Clubhouse rooms have you consumed in the past 2 months that told you:
- How to get clients as a writer
- The secret to making more money on Medium
- Easy strategies for getting more views on your articles
A content creator (and mostly writers) created all of those. Yet, they’re the very trap keeping you from reaching your writing goals.
A six-figure year isn’t going to happen as long as you stay best friends with Shiny Object Syndrome. The more articles you read, the more tweet threads you favorite, the more YouTube videos that log in your history, and the more Clubhouse rooms you play as ambient sound in the background…
The further you get from your writing goals.
Shiny Object Syndrome Makes You Feel Bad For Not Doing More
How many times have you thought to yourself,
- “Crap, that writer has a newsletter?! I need a newsletter…”
- “I need to publish way more articles on Medium.”
- “My goal is to get 10,000 Instagram followers in the next 6-months.”
That’s not the logical, level-headed you talking. That’s Shiny Object Syndrome. It’s the part of you that feels like, “They’re doing it, so I should do it too,” and it’s where your writing dreams go to lay complacent for weeks, months, and years.
It’s where zero progress is made because instead of focusing on what matters most, you focus on everything else. You listen to a bunch of writers telling you varying pieces of advice. You piece their advice together like a puzzle, yet somehow there’s always a piece missing. So you keep listening, you keep taking action.
- You create a Substack account
- You find more Medium publications to submit your articles to
- You start to share your articles as Instagram stories
Yet, nothing happens. Your email list barely grows, your Medium Partner Program earnings don’t go over $100, and you lose more followers on Instagram the more often you post.
What gives?
Shiny Object Syndrome Wants You To Focus On Anything But THIS
I love that Shiny Object Syndrome as an acronym is SOS, because that’s the exact mind-state it creates. SOS is the moment you realize that your writing dreams are flying away from you faster than one of Elon’s rockets and you don’t know how to make it stop.
I’m going to give you the same advice I give writers inside the Client Acquisition System—you have one focus, and one focus ONLY when you first start out as an online writer.
Get clients.
That’s it. Your focus is not to grow your newsletter audience, your Twitter following, or build out a pretty website.
First, get clients. Create a steady and predictable income for yourself by hiring a coach like me (humble brag) who will show you how to build a proper writing business.
Once you’re making $5,000+ per month (or whatever your goal is) from writing, THEN you can:
- Start your newsletter
- Post to Medium regularly
- Get more Instagram followers
- Make your website *perfect*
BUT, all of that has to come after you have income from writing.
Stop putting yourself into an SOS mind-state, and create a lifestyle where you get to spend your time writing, making your own schedule, and working from wherever you want.
Bonus points if you get to hit the coveted 6-figure mark.
Falling into Shiny Object Syndrome is the number one mistake writers make when they try to make a living writing online.
In my coaching program, I help writers get out of Shiny Object Syndrome, teach them how to get clients, and show them how to turn that work in recurring projects that give them steady income for 3+ months.
