January is History, I Missed All My Goals, and I am Happy AF

The lessons I learned from failing to reach my goals

Nothing is as it ever seems.

In early January, I wrote a story about my Top 3 stories from December, followed by an analysis of my first 60 days on Medium. That report brought my fear of success to the forefront.

The next thing I knew, I was paralyzed by my fear of success.

Initially, I thought the fear of success meant that I was afraid of making money, but that wasn’t true. $4,000 per month is only about 50K per year, and that is not a lot of money. That is barely enough money to make a comfortable living.

As I went deeper down the rabbit hole of my fear, I realized that the real horror was in the knowing that I could make money doing “nothing.” If I can earn money writing — aka doing nothing — then I will have no excuse not to live my life any way I please.

What’s the problem with that?

The problem is dealing with people I genuinely care about who do not want me to live a Freedom Lifestyle. I have, in the past, succumbed to their manipulations, though their intent may not have been with malice, their arguments were not baseless.

So living a Freedom Lifestyle has its challenges. The fear was that I would not be able to overcome the problem, and the ability to make money “doing nothing” will create demands of making more money, a path on which I certainly don’t want to be trapped.

I know it’s all in my head, but aren’t all fears?

Oh, about making money doing nothing, well, doing nothing required doing a lot of things I don’t necessarily enjoy. Like being disciplined, or doing research, or working on SEO, ugh! I was ready to pull my hair out. Until I realized that I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. Isn’t that the whole idea behind Freedom Lifestyle?

Mind you, I am still down the rabbit hole, and I am not doing the “nothing,” which is a requirement for making money. My stats are telling me that I am not going to make the projected increase for the month.

I stick my head out to do something, er, nothing, before deep diving again. It went on till I realized that January has ended, and I have published only 11 articles, less than one-third of my December output. I made less in January than I did in December.

Had I equaled my output for December, I would’ve not only made more than December, but I would’ve also most likely made my projected increase of 1.57x that of December. All this is assuming a linear path of growth, which life never is.

What I Learned From All of This

“Success is the progressive realization of a personal and meaningful goal.” ~ Paul J Meyer

I am a work in progress

Change is the only constant in the Universe, so they say. We are either growing or decaying. I am a work in progress. So long as I am willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and apply the lessons learned, I am successful in life. Success is a journey, not a destination.

Medium is a legit business model for writers

I have made money on Medium from day one with my first story. That is more than I can say about my other blogging experiences over the past decade.

Am I making the kind of money I want? No.

Is it possible for me to make the kind of money I want to make? Absolutely! I have no doubt whatsoever about it.

The secret to success on Medium

I haven’t been on Medium long enough to achieve any measure of success, so to speak, to dole out secrets. However, I have learned enough from those who have been successful in finding out what it takes.

Success on Medium requires three things.

First, write and publish consistently. Whether you post two to three times a week or five to ten times, be consistent. Three to five times a week is what’s needed to gain any traction on the platform.

Second, upgrade your skillset. Practice makes you perfect is a wore out cliche. But there is some truth to it. When you practice intentionally, with a desire to get better at it, you will make progress and benefit from it.

In addition to writing consistently, you need to read regularly. Reading is a part of the learning process of writing. Read with a critical eye, to see how the ones who are doing what you want to do it. Don’t copy it, but know how you can use it, and make it your own.

Approach it with the correct mindset. Adopt an entrepreneurial mindset as opposed to an employee mindset. An employee trades time and effort for money once. An entrepreneur invests time to earn profits over and over for the same project.

There is money beyond Medium.

Medium is a platform where you get paid for publishing high-quality content. You get paid when people read your stories. If they are not consistently high-quality, you’ll lose readers, which will translate into lost income in the long-run.

You retain full rights to the content you publish on Medium, which means you can shop it elsewhere as well. If you write outstanding stories that are unique and packed with value in terms of knowledge and entertainment, others will seek you out to write for them. My friend Srinivas Rao got a book deal from a story on Medium. I believe the same is true for Anthony Moore.

To sum it up.

My friend and speaking mentor, Toastmaster Darren Lacroix, World Champion of Public Speaking, 2001, says, “It’s not the speech you give; it’s the life you live.” The same thing applies to your writing. If your work is not helping you grow personally, chances are it is not benefiting others either.

When you live a personally meaningful life, and you share it with others through your writing, it will enhance their lives as well. When that happens, the Universe will see to it that you benefit from your generosity.

Thank you for reading.

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I am a self-proclaimed weirdo, Jack of Many Trades and Master of Some. I live the Freedom Lifestyle — life on my terms, and help those who are interested in doing the same. (Join the Tribe)

“You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”