Career Makeover Wednesdays: Daycare Duty to Writer Extraordinaire

After a 2 week hiatus, Gina and I are back on track and tackling Gina's goals as she takes each step toward establishing herself as a professional writer and enjoying a fulfilling new career!

One of the first things that struck me about Gina's last post was how she described this time in her life as "the most creative and productive." She mentions that "the freedom has a lot to do with it." While Gina is most certainly referring to how she spends and schedules her new work hours, I thought of a different reference for the word "freedom".

Gina certainly has the ultimate freedom to name her own hours, control her own schedule, and work from Bermuda if she wants to! However, what struck me was not the definition of the word freedom, but rather the feeling it elicits. It’s that sensation of being able to pursue what it is you want to do for a living, because it is what you were meant to do. It’s realizing that there is no longer resistance when you find and follow your path and do what feels most natural, knowing with certainty and without restraints that this is the right direction to take. Freedom is exactly what happens when you discover what you were meant to do. Gina’s got freedom, but she’s got so much more. She’s got the glow. In fact, she's on fire.

Gina had a huge revelation when she discovered the ease of putting her pitch together that came in a self-described "ah-ha" moment when making an appointment with a new eye doctor. As Gina puts it "Now I get it - my pitch is simply the words I will use to tell people what I do - not sell them on my services!".

What I love about this breakthrough moment is that Gina was able to release herself from her writer's block (so to speak) and put her pitch together with simplicity, and without pressure. She felt able to naturally and confidently tell her new doctor: "I create written content for the web"and then expand it to include "I've discovered that even those people who are fantastic at what they do often have difficulty putting it into words. That's where I come in - to put words to your passion and express it on your website, newsletter and in social media."

Voila! Gina's pitch has the 3 key ingredients I talked about:

1. She made it memorable
2. She feels really good about it
3. She is practicing!!

Great job, Gina!

As for her continued efforts in filling her pipeline with projects, Gina and I are continuing to concentrate on identifying her biggest sources of revenue thus far, assessing the types of projects she most enjoys working on, leveraging the Internet and its resources even further, and getting more involved with local networking groups so that she has a stronger presence in her community.

Check back next week as Gina updates us on her successes and learning experiences, as well as her networking action items!