It took a while for me to realize that all of this other work was originally just to support being able to write. I started making courses to support writing. I started the agency to be able to write. I went into crypto because I was scared of not making enough money writing.But at some point I forgot that. I went past the number I needed to justify putting money back on cruise control, and kept accumulating more and more. I got hooked on it.That’s what I’m scared of happening again. Of hitting some slump with writing, or hitting some brief financial stress, and chasing after the next shiny thing instead of sticking with this path until it works.
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When you’re afraid you can’t earn a sufficient living from the thing you want to do, you find something else to earn that money for you. But then it’s hard to balance the two, especially if the money is really good. Success can be its own failure. You start a lifestyle business to fund your passion, then the business takes off and now you’re stuck managing employees and a Shopify store.
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These detours are also a symptom of an underlying fear, a very primal form of procrastination. Steven Pressfield talks about it in Turning Pro: “Sometimes, when we're terrified of embracing our true calling, we'll pursue a shadow calling instead. That shadow career is a metaphor for our real career. Its shape is similar, its contours feel tantalizingly the same. But a shadow career entails no real risk. If we fail at a shadow career, the consequences are meaningless to us.”
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I’m not afraid of failing. But I am afraid of getting distracted by money, and telling myself “I can always come back to it later.”Be careful what you do to pay the bills. You might just succeed at it.
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