As much as I talk about turning off the TV and keeping the focus on the here and now, I’ve allowed myself to fall prey to the dismal news spewing from every newscaster on TV. Unfortunately, I left the TV on in the background, and was subconscious was absorbing the information about the layoffs, bankruptcies, bail outs, Main St vs. Wall St, and so on. Bad enough I watched the news in the evening, leaving it on all day was a huge mistake.

They Got to Me

In an attempt to combat the effects of a poor economy, I decided to go into overdrive with my freelance writing. Rather than approaching my freelance writing the way I always had in a diligent steady manner, I allowed fear to cause me to step up my writing to a feverish pitch that was unsustainable. As a result I crashed and burned.

No longer was my writing a creative release for which I got paid. It became a job and a source of frustration. Before I went to bed at night, I reviewed my chart of titles with carefully researched keywords to see which articles I had to write and which site to place them on.

I knew that each day I had to bang out a certain number of articles to help fight the war on the poor economy. I became a factory producing uninspired work at a pace that I could not continue. I began to dread what I used to love to do. I made myself believe this was the only way to survive in this economy. After all, tens of thousands of folks are being laid off, food prices are rising, etc., etc.

Taking Back My Power

I realize it was time to take back my power. I took a few days away from writing entirely (I also turned the TV off). I decided to do other things. My house is a little cleaner, my family is dining on more creatively prepared meals and I managed to reconnect with a few friends.

I’m back with a fresh way of looking at things. I realized that I had turned my writing into a job. A job is a sure fire way for me to loose all motivation and desire to work. Jobs are things you do because you have to pay the bills. A career is something you do because you love it. I temporarily turned my freelance writing career into a job.

My writing is back to the steady pace that I employed prior to listening to the sad state of the economy. The joy is back and so is the career. As a matter of fact, I’m more productive because I’m doing what comes naturally rather than forcing myself to spit out articles at an unreasonable pace. I don’t know about you but forced writing is a guaranteed way to develop a bad case of writers block.

Lesson Learned

Keep my eyes on the prize and turn off the TV.

If you enjoyed this post, why not subscibe to NJFM via RSS feed or by Email. Better yet, sign up for the NJFM Newsletter.