I wish every freelancer read this...

It will make you think deeply on your perspective towards your career

Raw and Real Conversation

“I am a writer. I want to work with you for writing opportunities.”

Over the past few days, I have received requests from writers wanting to work with me.

Since I have been blessed with the career I love, i.e., writing, such requests from writers who are early on in their career are common.

I respect that. Even I was at that place in my career some years ago.

Which is why, if there is one piece of advice I would give to every writer or every artist or every freelancer is:

Stop looking for people ahead of you. Start looking for clients.

Here is why:

Art is an expression of yourself. And the only way you could fully express yourself is by being your own art teacher.

Translated: Start writing for yourself. Write for yourself every single day.

PS: We are on an 869-day streak on my daily blog (which is often less than 100 words) at nishtha dot blog. My way of practising for myself which ultimately helps the client work I pick.

In so doing, you will know what you want to do and what you don’t want to do.

To give you an insight:

1. I have written my own books.

2. Created my own Instagram content in the past.

3. Created YouTube videos in the past.

4. Been a Twitter threadboi too.

5. Been writing my blog.

6. Have started and closed 2 more newsletters before making this Raw and Real a reality.

7. Written LinkedIn content for myself as well as clients

Of these:

1 is my full-time profession.
2 and 3 is something that did not gather much interest of mine
4 was epic but then Elon era came on Twitter.
5 still goes on. My daily digitally visible victories and vices :)
6 is something you are reading right now
7 is LinkedIn, where I am still active

You see, when you start doing things for yourself, you figure what you want to do and what is something you don’t want to do, even if everyone else in the world is doing.

This is a life lesson that will come to you only when you work for yourself.

If you work for someone who is ahead of you, they will delegate you stuff they love for themselves and want to get done. Which is right on their part. But that won’t lead you to finding your path.

You might still get practice on your craft, but you might not yet go anywhere closer to your soul.

But what about the money, honey?

I get it, I get it. Money is important.

The way I did that was reach out to people who had problems I wanted to solve. In other words, I started reaching out to prospective clients. Of course this wisdom came after realising there was no joy working for another writer.

It will also open prospects such as:

• You will be forced to learn. Learn or lose clients. If not now, eventually.

• The best are always self-educated, even if they went to school. (Copied from the internet, and I agree.)

• You will eventually build a brand of yourself (an asset, a reputation: Big reputation, big reputation, sorry, Ed and Taylor started singing together in my head). It belongs to you, not to the senior writer under whom you apprenticed.

The one thing that will always be super helpful:

At the end of the day, the only thing that will help you going is going to be an incessant, insatiable craving for learning. Both on your skill as a professional as well as your inner self as an individual.

You won’t see how, but one day you will find yourself transformed from:

• an “I-don’t-care-human” to “let’s do this for them” person; and

• “I care too much” person to “I couldn’t care less” person

—all because of books you read and the journalling you do and the muscles you stretch and train.

Nothing is related. Yet everything is related.

To sum up, when you want to go to a place you have never been:

1. Go to the place you have never been instead of piggybacking/working for someone else.

2. Go find customers instead of colleagues.

3. Learn every day from your own practice.

4. Learn from every resource you can land your hand on.

5. Lastly, if you won’t believe in yourself, who else would?

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PS: I was about to skip this post and share something else, because hey, you can find so many exceptions to this rule too. But then I found this tweet, and I knew I had to share the above post with you.

Here’s the tweet:

Make what you can of this.

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2 Raw One Liners:

• A gentle reminder that charisma in conversations is not a sign of confidence or competence.

• How to save hundreds of $ this November: By deleting every Black Friday sale email as soon as you receive it. You’re welcome.

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3 (for) Real blogs that might take you away from scrolling:

1. A girl’s dreams

2. Adulthood is crazy

3. How to change your life?

That is it this week, friends.

Hope you all are working out. In summers, you should work out. In winters though, you have to work out because it keeps you productive and warm, both of which are something we need for winters. Plus, by the time summer comes back and you are back to wearing cotton clothes, you are jacked again :)

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

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Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer