What Does Success Look Like For You? – WN 023

This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 23: What Does Success Look Like To You As A Writer?

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. And this week’s episode is brought to you by the Darken the Page podcast, hosted by my friend, Dave Booda. Darken the Page is a podcast that features interviews with various types of creative people about the creative process. Dave is a songwriter and really likes to get at what makes people tick creatively. The reason that he asked me to be a guest on his podcast was that he saw that in iTunes, we are often listed together. We’re each other’s related podcasts or other podcasts listeners subscribed to. So if you’re listening to the Write Now podcast, you also might already subscribe to the Darken the Page podcast. But if you don’t, I’d recommend checking out Dave’s podcast, he’s doing something really cool.

For today’s podcast episode, I would like to have a very frank and honest and open discussion about success. And the first thing that I want to say or posit, I guess, is that I think that no matter what, every writer at some point dreams about being successful. I think that even writers who espouse the ideals of art for art’s sake and truth and beauty and all of those other worthy things, I think that every writer has at least considered the what ifs. All right. So I’m writing for these very worthy reasons, I’m writing for art or to change the status quo or to help liberate people from a certain way of thinking, et cetera.

But I think that there’s something in us and maybe I’m just a naturally greedy person influenced by capitalism. But I think there’s something, a little shard of something within each of us that daydreams about making it big about being a successful writer. Sure, that stuff can come after we’ve accomplished our idealistic and worthy reasons for writing, but it’s hard not to think. Wouldn’t it be nice if in addition to all of that good stuff, telling the truth, creating art, if I also became a millionaire or hit the New York Times best seller list? I’ve thought that I’ve spent time that I probably could or should have been writing daydreaming about one day when I’m living in a mansion, surrounded by walls and walls full of books… I don’t know. There’s like a secret passage if you pull out a book and one of the shelves. I don’t know. I think that somewhere deep in my brain, I’m still 12 years old and wanting to live in an adventure novel of some kind. There’s another train.

I want to point out that I don’t think it’s wrong to dream or daydream about being successful. And I’m not just saying that because I’ve been known to indulge in it. I know that often writers are great dreamers, always looking ahead to the next wonderful thing. And I think sometimes that wonderful thing is success. It’s a mansion with secret passage ways and room after room full of books. It’s maybe having a room in your house that’s full of money from all of the book sales that you’ve accomplished. And maybe you have a diving board set up and you go swimming around in it like Scrooge McDuck.

What I’m interested in talking about today is twofold. First of all, what does success look like for you? And secondly, that vision of success that you have, is it actually possible to achieve? If it’s possible to achieve, I want to help you achieve it. And if it’s not possible, if it is actually to have a room full of money with a diving board so that you can go swimming around in your cash like Scrooge McDuck, I’d like to help you refine your idea or definition of success to something that you can actually accomplish. I would love to see that for you.

So the reason I’m thinking about success is because in my day job, I work for an online marketing firm that creates websites. I am a content strategist, which means that I create strategies that make content useful for companies and usable for users. So I do things like create site maps, I do branding documents, I help brands find their voice. I perform content audits. I put together content calendars. I give advice on a number of different things. I help people refine their messaging, just all sorts of stuff.

In order to do my job successfully, I need to understand the business that I’m working with. And in order to do my job well, and to be successful, I need my clients to be successful. And so in understanding my clients and understanding what makes them successful, I need to understand how they define success. What does success mean? If you’re a company that manufactures pencils, what does success look like to you and how can this website help you achieve success?

I think that if you ask pretty much anyone, I think that everybody really likes that Scrooge McDuck idea where you’re just diving into a room full of cash. And what’s really appealing, I think about that, is not all of the germs that you would be contracting by diving into money, which is filthy. You’re welcome for that image, but the comfort and security that that can provide. We’re talking about alleviating anxiety, alleviating fear, getting you to a place where you no longer have to worry about how you’re going to make your next mortgage payment or how you’re going to pay off those student loans.

Often success is a very ambiguous thing. We see it as an end goal like, “Oh, once I’m successful, I don’t have to worry about anything else.” And that’s not necessarily true. Success and happiness or success and contentment or success and satisfaction are all very, very different things. So it’s great if to you success means being rich or being happy or being free of your day job, but those are such grand and lofty things. There is probably a lot of stuff between where I am now and freedom from having to have a day job. There’s a long distance between me writing and podcasting full time, and the me that has to pull in a weekly paycheck and to pay that mortgage and to pay those student loans. But still, think about what it is that you want most. When we think about success, we think about sort of the intangibles like being happy or being rich or being loved or being unafraid. What I’d like to do is make it measurable. What I’d like to do is encourage you to set a series of goals that will serve as metrics to define whether or not you are actually successful.

So when I think about success and when I think about creating goals that lead to that success, I think about creating a series of steps and working backwards. Goals are the concrete steps along the way to success. That sounds like a motivational poster. Doesn’t it? I should just make that and put a picture of a bear eating a salmon out of a stream triumphantly, or a picture of a guy standing on top of a mountain like, “Yes, I just climbed this mountain. I am the picture of success.” Anyway, let’s talk about these goals.

Say that my image of success is to be free, free to have all of the time that I want and need to write and to not have to worry about those financial obligations. It’s a lofty thought and maybe not entirely possible, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be successful if we refine it a little bit further. So what I want to do is chase success down to its root. So I want freedom. And I think I have somewhat of an idea of what that freedom looks like. That freedom is me sitting in a house full of books in quiet, fulfilling my lifelong dream to write for a living. That’s my idea of success. Yours might be different. Yours might be the same. I don’t know. I don’t want to suppose, but we’ll just use that as our example. So working backwards from that. What do I need to accomplish to find success? What goals do I need to establish and meet to get me onto that path?

Again, maybe your idea of success is to change a political system or overturn the status quo or make a ton of money or to sell a ton of books or to make it to the top of the Amazon bestseller list. I won’t do all of the math here on the air, but I have a rough idea of how much money it would take to pay off our mortgage and my student loans and all that good stuff. I also can think about how much I want to save for retirement, et cetera, et cetera, how much I’ll need to live on per year. You can get a rough idea of what that would take.

My first goal working backwards from my picture of success is to accumulate X amount of money. Okay. This X amount of money is essentially what I need to buy my own freedom from the capitalist system that we live in because to me, success is working on my own material. It’s writing for myself and for other people, it’s sharing that story without having to worry about balancing my eight-hour day job, along with everything else. All right. So working backward from success. Goal number one, accumulate X amount of money, liberate myself from needing to work for someone else to make an income.

Logically, the next step is asking the question, “How do I accomplish that goal?” And the both wonderful and terrifying thing about this system is that the possibilities are not incredibly limited. Like there’s a ton of things that I could potentially do that would get me X amount of money. I could rob a bank, I could set up a pyramid scheme type thing, I could beg on the streets, but what’s actually feasible for me? Maybe I could make some extra money doing some freelancing and build it up slowly from there. I could start working on writing a book, which I could plan on selling. I could live more frugally and just focus on building up my savings. I could try my hand at writing a romance novel, which is a very lucrative literary field.

Okay, let’s say that I decided that on the side, I want to start both freelancing. So maybe building websites or doing freelance content strategy or editing or some such. And I also want to work on writing a very lucrative romance novel. What do I need to accomplish those goals? What do I need to actually write a romance novel? Well, I needed a couple things. I probably need some kind of connection, whether that’s an agent or someone who works in the publishing industry. I need time to set aside to write this romance novel. I need time to do freelancing work. How do I get that time? We’re working backwards and setting goals that will set us up for success with every single other goal. We’re lining up the dominoes.

How do I get more time? Well, I belong to several organizations that I just kind of said yes to, because I felt obligated to, so I could graciously back out of those and say no to those commitments. I could become more self-disciplined and watch a little bit less Netflix. I could schedule in writing times and stick to them. And so maybe my first goal, going back all the way to the starting point, is to carve out two hours a day or three hours a week to work specifically on this romance novel and to devote one hour per week to establishing contacts that will allow me to publish this novel. This is all completely hypothetical. I don’t think I’m actually going to end up writing a romance novel. But I said all that to illustrate how you can work backwards from your idea of success to make it more and more concrete and more and more realistic.

There’s always things that can go wrong. I could write a romance novel and just be really terrible at it. Or I could make the money that I need to be financially liberated and then lose it all in a stock market crash. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I could get torn to pieces in the woods by rabid dogs. And that’s really the thing, isn’t it? Understanding what success is for you, understanding what the steps and goals are to get to that success and to measure it and to actually taking those steps one at a time and following through and being disciplined. I’m not going to lie. It’s hard. And I think this is why so few people feel as though they are truly successful.

I think that even if you talk to a person who is generally concerned to be successful, so say a very wealthy person. If you asked them, “Do you have all of the money you could ever want or need?” I’ll bet you, they would say no. And that’s a little depressing, isn’t it? And that’s really what I want to get at today when we’re talking about success. I think that this is sort of the great caveat in working toward being successful. And that is, and I don’t know if it’s a human nature thing or what, but I think it’s hard for us to be really satisfied with what we have, even if we have a lot, whether that’s love, happiness, wealth, cars, cats whatever that is. There’s always this possibility that you could have more. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m just super greedy, but I’ve talked to people who have found success and it’s almost never enough. I’m not saying this to discourage you from trying to find success, but rather as a way to think about success differently so that when you do reach it, you can be happy with it and satisfied in it. This is why it’s important to define success because it’s so easy to look past it once we’re close. So think about it. What you really want from life, from your writing career, from your hobby writing.

And if no one’s ever told you before that, it’s okay to want things from life, let me tell you that right now. Let me tell you it’s okay to want things from life. It’s okay to want to work toward things and to find success. That’s good. It shows that you have drive and that you have hope and that you have dreams. Dreams are important.

So if you’re like me and you’re driven to write, think about why you’re driven to write. Is it to change the way that people live or the way that society works? Is it to entertain people with an awesome story? Is it to impart a lesson or a moral upon your readers? Is it to simply fulfill your own dream of writing? Is it to make a lot of money by selling a lot of books? Is it being nationally, acclaimed and loved by a huge readership? Is it appearing as a guest on a late night talk show? Whether it’s writing related or not, think about what you want out of life, think about why it is that you’re living the life you’re living. Work out how you can actually achieve that success by establishing goals and achieving them. It takes a lot of work. I don’t want to lie to you about that. It takes a lot of work, but on the other hand, it’s not impossible by which I mean, it is possible for you. You just have to be driven and dedicated enough to do it.

And when you reach what you’ve established as success, that you don’t look past it to more and more things that you can’t have, or haven’t planned for. It’s hard work to reach those goals, but it’s also hard work once you find success, or once you reach those goals to be satisfied with what you have.

If to you success is helping other people or making other people successful, then I want you to fully realize what that means. It means you may not end up living in a mansion on the coast of Maine. It means that you may not end up owning the horse farm, or… I have no idea what it is you want. So be very careful when defining what success truly means to you. Be honest.

So I’m curious to know, what does success look like for you as a writer or what does success look like to you outside of that? And I want realistic success, no Scrooge McDuck swimming in a room full of money, but what is that success for you and what are your goals that will get you there? I’d love to hear from you about this. You can let me know your thoughts in comments at the bottom of today’s show notes. You can also send an email to hello@sarahwerner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H W-E-R-N-E-R.com. Or you can go to my website and navigate to the contact page where you can fill out a very brief and easy to fill out form that will ask for your name, email address, and a message of unknown length.

I think that despite its prevalence in our culture, or at least in American culture, I really think that very few of us realize that it’s possible. What I mean by that is that day-to-day life has established that going forward from here on out, you will work a full-time or part-time job. You will work at home with the kids if you’re a stay-at-home dad or mom. You will adhere to this routine that has been established for you. Maybe you will even work two or three jobs. You will work. You will retire at the age of 70, 75. You will collect your Social Security checks if Social Security still exists at the time that you turn the appointed age. And then you will have one year, two years, 10 years, 20 years to enjoy in your retirement before you pass away.

I don’t mean this podcast to be so dreary, but what I really want to talk about is that you don’t have to live that life. If you start planning for it now, if you identify what success means to you, if you identify what that is, what that freedom is, what that wonderful thing you want to work toward is, and if you set reasonable goals that will lead you there and if you adhere to those goals and to dedicate yourself to reaching them, it’s possible to find that success. That’s what I want to leave you with. Not a guarantee that you’ll reach that success. Just the idea that it’s possible and that you don’t have to live this life that has been prescribed for you. If you want to write for a living, then set up a strategy, set those goals that lead to you writing for a living. As long as every goal along the way is realistic and reachable, I think that you can do it and I want you to do it. I want you to say, “Yeah, I’m successful and I’m enjoying that I’m successful. And I’m doing what I set out to do, and I’ve accomplished what I set out to accomplish.”

The interesting thing about success is that once you reach it, the credits don’t begin to roll. If you hit your definition of success by the time you’re 45, things don’t just end, there’s more. Continue setting those goals, maybe redefine what success is to you now that you’ve reached it. Or realize that you’re in a really good place in life and allow yourself to enjoy it. Either way, keep me posted. I would absolutely love to hear from you.

This week’s book of the week is This is Water by David Foster Wallace. It’s a little 100-page book that my dad sent me. And it was originally given as a commencement speech to the students of Kenyon College. You can actually, I think, find videos of it online. You can read it online. Every page in this book is just broken down sentence by sentence. It’ll take you 20 minutes to read, but what it’s about is living a life of compassion. And I’m not saying this to be like, “Oh, you need to be more compassionate because that’s what the good thing to do is.” No. I’m one of those people who believes that if you are living a compassionate life, a life for others, that you will find fulfillment in what you’re doing and really that’s what today’s podcast is all about. So this is kind of fitting.

This is Water is set around this small story that goes, “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning boys, how’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?'”

David Foster Wallace calls out this little story is didactic and parable-ish. And he also calls out immediately that he is not the wise old fish. Rather, he uses the story to illustrate the fact that he’s going to talk about the way that we live and often we’re so mired in the way that we live, that we’re blind to it. And so with beautiful prose and painstaking detail, he calls out what exactly it means to live a good and compassionate life, a life of meaning and grace and fulfillment. This is one of those books that takes you 20 minutes to read. And then you spend the rest of the day thinking about. It’s one of those books where once or twice, you’ll say, “Wow, that’s me guilty as charged.” I think it’s really wonderful and eyeopening. And it’s David Foster Wallace, so it’s poignantly written and brilliant.

What he really gets at is answering the question, how do we keep from going through our adult lives, unconsciously and comfortably entrenched in habit? I think this intermeshes really well with the notion of defining success and daring yourself to live it out, challenging yourself to set those goals and to actually reach them.

I’ve had a lot going on in the past month. Two very good friends of mine who I’ve worked with for a couple years now, one of them took a new job opportunity and one took a sabbatical. I have another close friend who lost his father last week at the age of 56. I have another friend who lost her grandfather just this weekend. I’m not saying all of that to make you feel bad or make you consider your mortality or anything like that, but so much happens in life. And so much of it happens beyond our control, but so much of it happens also without our control. What I mean by that is you set the way that you live in your actions, in your decisions, in the goals you set, in the way that you act or don’t act, in the way that you respond to others or don’t respond to others. In the way that you make yourself aware of your surroundings or in the way that you continue coasting along on your habits.

My one friend who left her job to take a sabbatical, realized that she had been not necessarily coasting, but that she had not been fully making all of the choices in her own life. She realized that she had simply fallen into a career and sort of unconsciously been swept along by the current. She realized she had never set those goals or established what success meant to her and her life. And so she emptied out her retirement fund and decided that now is the time to do that. I’m not saying that that’s something that you need to do. It’s not something that I will be doing, but I think that she has had a realization that not a lot of people have had.

So I encourage you to take the time. And whether it’s a few minutes before work, whether it’s during your lunch break, whether it’s during a boring meeting in which your mind can wander, think about success and what success means for you. Whether it’s changing the world, sharing truth with others, hitting the New York Times best seller list, being happy, having a large family, whatever that is, figure it out and make it happen.

I received an excellent question from podcast listener, Peter, that I’d like to answer that this week. Peter says “Awesome podcast. Well done. My question is every writer needs readers. And from what I’ve seen, there are more romance readers than sci-fi readers. I hate romance, but I love sci-fi, but I could write both equally well. The issue is I know more people will read romance and this will add more money in the pocket, but I would love to write sci-fi. Do you write for the market or for what you enjoy, even if the market is small?”

Peter, that’s a great question. Honestly, it’s something that I’ve thought of myself and I think a lot of writers have considered. I think I even used it as an illustration a couple minutes ago when I was talking about how to accomplish goals and really that’s how I’d like to answer your question.

What does success look like to you? Is success writing a sci-fi novel that you truly love and are proud of, or is success getting a larger readership and making more money potentially with a romance novel? It sounds like you’re capable of writing either. So the one that you choose to write should be determined by what you really want out of the process. What is success for you?

I’m not sure if it’s quite as cut and dried, as it may seem to be. You might find great success as a sci-fi writer, if that’s truly where your heart is, if that’s truly what you love to write. I think a lot of the times that does come through your writing. And I think that if you’re bored and uninterested writing romance, I think that that can sometimes come through. So your interest might affect the quality of your work if you’re looking to be more than just capable. But think about what you want out of it, think about how you want to spend your time, and to think about what you ultimately want out of the experience of writing a book. And I think that will help you choose which genre to write in. I hope that helps. Peter, thank you so much for your question.

Couple more things before I wrap up. First of all, you may have seen some teasers for it on any of my social media channels, but I would officially like to kick off… I don’t know that’s the right word. But I’d like to officially introduce you to the Coffee Break podcast. The Write Now podcast comes out on Mondays or at least it’s supposed to, and Coffee Break will be coming out on Thursdays. And it’s going to be a series of fun, casual, intimate interviews with creatives writers and just overall interesting people who I think have a lot to say about the creative process and about publishing all that good stuff. And so, look for the first episode to air Thursday, September 17th, I believe.

The first episode is a conversation with Barbara Kyle, who is the author of I think seven books and counting. A historical thriller series that is set in Tudor, England, as well as a few contemporary thrillers. And she was just such a pleasure to talk to. I really hope that you tune in and listen to our conversation. She was just delightful. If you’re interested in being a guest on the Coffee Break podcast, send me an email at hello@sarahwerner.com or send me a request through the contact page on my website. I filled up my schedule for, I think, the next several months, but I’d definitely like to consider you if you’re interested.

Also, I’d like to invite you to sign up for my email mailing list if you are not a member already. I will be sending out… Starting at the same time that I launched the Coffee Break podcast, I’m sending out a series of emails. So one email a week dedicated to inspiring you on hump days. So every Wednesday you can look for an email from me that will inspire you to write and to just get through your week and hopefully find some inspiration and meaning there. So sign up for my email mailing list. You can do that on sarahwerner.com at the top of the page, at the bottom of the page, and also on my contact page. So look for the little bar where you can type in your email address and I’ll make sure to add you to the list.

As usual, many, many thank you’s are an order. So many of you have contributed to making this podcast possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank my Patreon supporters who help cover hosting costs and just everything else that is associated with hosting, writing, producing, et cetera, my own podcast. Special thanks go to official cool cat Sean Locke, official rad dude, Andrew Coons, official podcast caffeinator Rebecca Werner, and to all of my other lovely, wonderful Patreon supporters. I would not be able to do this without your help. So thank you so much.

I would also like to thank my friends, Peder Aadahl, who runs the 168 Opportunities podcast, and Rohn Gibson, who is just an entrepreneur, an inspirer, and encourager at heart. Thank you to both of you for your guidance and your inspiration. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Peder is actually the person who first inspired me to do a podcast. So thank you, Peder. I would also love to thank the crew at Click Rain, who keeps me focused and excited about life. You guys are just amazing people. Finally, I’d to thank my husband, Tim, who in addition to inspiring me also helps keep me grounded. Thank you, Tim.

And with that, this has been episode 23 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m Sarah Werner, and I really believe that you can do this.