Get Who Moved My Cheese and Read it

You’ll have a better appreciation for this post if you’re familiar with the book Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, M.D. If you don’t have it, go out, get the book and read it. It’s an easy read and you can finish it in about an hour or so.

As a freelance writer, keep a copy near and read it every couple of months or so. It’s amazing the additional insight you’ll gain.

My Cheese and Demand Studios

The four main characters, Sniff and Scurry (two mice who react to situations as situations arise) and Hem and Haw (two ‘intelligent humans’ who analyze situations when situations arise) are placed in a maze with cheese stations from which they gain their purpose for life. The ‘Cheese’ in this book is a metaphor for money, wealth, health, status, whatever it is that makes people happy in life.

The book begins with all four characters enjoying an abundant amount of cheese at Cheese Station “C.” The insights begin to unfold when each character reacts to the dwindling and eventual total consumption of the cheese supply. When you read the book, you’ll see aspects of your own personality in each of the characters. Hopefully the more you read the book, the less you’ll relate to the undesirable character traits and see yourself in a more positive light.
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Demand Studio Cheese

When Demand Studios recently changed its editing criteria, I got pretty annoyed. I mean after all, “I’ve been writing this way for them for months.” For about a week, I sang the same annoying song to my friends and family about how I spent so much time writing articles as I’ve always written them only to suddenly have them returned to me for rewrites. “How dare they!” What a pompous fool I was.

I’ll Fix Them

So, in full Hem and Haw mode I analyzed the situation and I decided that I’d fix them. I just won’t write for them anymore (They moved my cheese from cell station C). I mean let’s face it, as a freelance writer, I’ve always done it this way and that’s just the way I’m used to doing it!

I resolved the problem by not doing anything. After all, what’s a hundred or two hundred dollars a week? Why should I have to change? So, like Hem and Haw, I sat at that cheese less Cheese Station C until…

In Comes the Cheese Book

I call it Divine intervention, but for some reason I was prompted to pull out my copy of “Who Moved My Cheese.” I haven’t read the book in quite some time so I sat down and started to read it again.

Like a lightening bolt, I saw Demand Studios as my cheese and my reaction as Hem and Haw, the two ‘intelligent’ humans who sat around complaining and not doing anything about the situation. Sniff and Scurry, on the other hand, noticed the dwindling cheese supply so they put on their sneakers and ran through the maze looking for new cheese.

The Lesson I Learned

While it’s a daily habit of mine to scour the Internet looking for new opportunities (cheese), my current dilemma with Demand Studios doesn’t have to be an ‘all or nothing’ situation. If I take a little time to get a better understanding of their new editorial guidelines and modify my writing accordingly (and stop being so Hem and Haw like about it), I could partake of the old cheese while Sniffing and Scurrying around looking for new cheese. A win-win situation.

You get a few rejections or you find that your writing portfolio is a bit sparse (or actually non existent). You become a little more dejected with every rejection. Here’s where your thoughts start to really get in your own way.

“I’m not good enough.”
“I’ll never get published.”
“It’s too hard.”
“I might as well give up.”

Sound familiar? Now I’ve got to ask you a few questions:

• How long did it take you to learn to walk? Did you hop out of the crib, and take off or did you stumble and fall a few times (if you don’t remember, ask your parents)?

• How long did it take you to learn to read?

See where I’m going with this? No? Okay, here are a few more questions since it seems that I haven’ clearly made my point:

• If you’re away at school did you learn the layout of the campus on the first day or were you late to a few classes because you got lost?

• If you currently hold a full-time job, did you understand the ropes on day one or did it take time to learn the computer system, the office policies and the job duties?

• How long did it take you to learn to drive, or ride a bike, or roller blade, swim, ski, play basketball?

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Do you get it now? Contrary to popular belief, freelance writing success doesn’t happen over night. When you get your first few rejections, always remember that the law of numbers is working for you. You’re getting closer and closer to your first acceptance. You just have to get by those initial rejections to get to it.

Can you imagine if you quit the first time you stumbled as a child and decided, “Forget it! This walking thing is just too hard. I’ll crawl for the rest of my life.”

You didn’t “think” your way into walking. You just did it. As we get older, we tend to over think things rather than just setting out to do it. It’s a good thing we were too young to “think” about walking when we were babies, or else there would be many adults still crawling around on all fours now.

When it comes to your freelance writing or blogging career, think like a baby learning to walk. Just do it!

Drawing a mental blank, I decided to write about 10 things I learned from my first 100 blog posts. Ready? Here they are:

1. You can never get rid of spammers. Even though the WordPress plugin Akismet is installed on this blog, I still get a few errant entries that must be deleted.
2. You won’t always agree with your readers comments, but approve them anyway. My initial reaction was to hit the ‘delete’ button to send them into the cyber trash can, but I thought better of it. Instead, I welcome varying opinions. I say that with the caveat that if the comments are rude, disrespectful, ranting and just plain mean, they get deleted.
3. Google AdSense doesn’t always work well for blogs. My regular readers might remember my post about converting No Job for Mom from a website to a blog. After I converted it I noticed my AdSense income from this blog all but stopped. Initially I was shocked, but I realize it’s all good. There’s a larger plan in the works.
4. Blogging is a commitment (no duh). I’ve committed to adding 6 posts a week. I take Sunday off to honor God, spend time with my family and replenish myself.
5. You meet nice people blogging. Although my blog is new, I’ve met quite a few nice people here. The relationships are still young (like the blog), but I fully expect them to grow.
6. My family doesn’t read my blog. They know I spend a lot of time on the computer writing, but they only read a small fraction of what I write. No hard feelings.
7. I’d be lost without my digital voice recorder. In my advancing years, my ideas play a game of hide and seek (they hide well and I’m always seeking to retrieve them). With my digital voice recorder, I can always find and capture them. I strongly recommend a digital voice recorder for anyone serious about writing.
8. Don’t get intimidated. When I first started this blog I was easily intimidated because of the tons of good blogs out there on similar topics. I became paralyzed by fear and feelings of inadequacy. Other blogs had a large readership, they had a better blog design, they were around longer, they had newsletters and were earning tons of money. I focused on their success to my detriment. Now I look at those blogs, appreciate them and learn from them. They are a resource and not a competitor. It’s all about how you look at it.
9. Build a Blog Bank. Because stuff happens, I found there were times when I couldn’t blog about the topic I intended to. Therefore, I would reach into my ‘blog bank’ and pull out one of my almost complete blog post, complete it and then post it. It saves time and allows for continuity. Setting up pre-written entries to be published at a scheduled time works even better. I haven’t evolved to that level quite yet.
10. Be myself. Although this is the last item, it is by no means the least important. I’ve found the one thing that follows me everywhere I go is me and my personality. So, who else can I be but myself, and my blog is a reflection of that.

Blogging Goals for the Next 100 Posts?

Get 5% better. Sounds like a rather tame goal, but if I can complete 100 posts in 95% of the time it took me to accomplish the first 100 posts. That’s an improvement. If each month I increase my readership and my income by 5%, I’m headed in the right direction. If I get 5% more backlinks each month, that’s a plus.

As with the game of basketball, a team wins the game 1, 2 and 3 points at a time. There’s no 20-point shot in basketball. I’m willing to plod along increasing my success 5% at a time. I’m a patient woman (most of the time).

There are a few more things I learned from my first 100 posts, but judging by the snoring emanating from my computer, I’ll stop here.

There are times when I wonder if I have what it takes to maintain a blog during the summer months. Between parties, vacation, chauffeuring the children to their activities, sleepovers, etc., it becomes a little more difficult to maintain and stick to a blogging schedule. I wonder if I have what it takes to press on through the rough times.

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Self Discipline

I do my best to blog six days a week and not miss a day because once I miss a day its easier for me to make an excuse to miss a second day, then a third. The trick is to press on. Anything worth having is worth working for. Being able to be around the children in the summertime is great. It beats completing a vacation requisition sheet and handing it to my boss hoping that my co-workers with more seniority don’t want to take the exact same days off.

Find Your Pick Me Up

When things really start to get to me and I feel overwhelmed and am about to make an excuse not to blog, I think of one of my favorite Bible verses Galatians 6:9 “And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:9 has given me the kick in the butt that I needed on several occasions . Whenever I think that the kids’ summer schedule and my blogging schedule is too much for me to handle, I think about “in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” The hard work I put in now, will reward my family and me in the future. Therefore, I press on.

Remember Your Vision

I say this only to encourage other blogger parents and folks with many obligations and responsibilities who want to earn money through blogging. Anything worth having is worth pressing on for. Sometimes I mentally fast forward a year or two from now when my Google AdSense account is growing by leaps and bounds, my affiliate programs are electronically depositing money into my PayPal account and my blog’s traffic has surpassed my greatest imagination. At that time, I’ll look back and be thankful that I pressed on.

Motivation

As a solo worker, you’ve got to motivate yourself. You don’t get to hold weekly meetings with your boss to prioritize your workweek, nor do you have customers calling you all day to remind you of what your most important priority on your desk should be. Instead, you have to set the priorities and carry them out. You’ve got to be self motivated.

If you feel particularly lazy on any given day, you’ve got to pick yourself up and get yourself going. That’s why it is important to fill your brain with the right stuff. To be successful, you should constantly nourish your brain with positive material. Make it a habit to read positive motivation books, listen to positive motivation tapes and watch encouraging, uplifting movies. Stay away from negative influences that don’t help you to reach your goal.

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When the obstacles seem overwhelming and a lesser person may give up, because you have prepared your mindset by constantly feeding your mind with positive and encouraging thoughts, you look at the obstacle as something to make you stronger, not as something that will defeat you. Take a few minutes each day in the morning and a few minutes at night before you go to bed. Start and end your day on a positive note.  You will find that over time, situations that would have stopped you in the past will become a stepping-stone to your future

Once you truly see the glass as half full rather than half empty, you know you’ve got the right attitude and you’re on your way.