Career Makeover Wednesdays: Daycare Duty to Writer Extraordinaire

By Guest Blogger Gina Blitstein

There have been changes happening within my “professional self” lately. I see it as a metamorphosis - a coming into my self as a professional freelance writer. These changes are happening almost imperceptibly as I follow the steps Ellen and I have laid out for me as I reinvent my career. Each assignment, whether it was to network in person, create my pitch, call fellow freelance writers or make post-it reminders of important elements about myself, has taught me something important. At the time I was completing each assignment I might not have seen its value, or it may have been scary or frustrating, but it always opened a door for me to walk through to get to the next level of my career development.

When I’ve been on the journey, I have been focused on the steps and how they make me feel, but I didn't always see the progress. When I look at the bigger picture, however, I see it very clearly. Now I am beginning to see how far I have come in my career reinvention. It no longer feels like I’m telling people, “I want to be a ballerina when I grow up!” when I tell them what I do. I now own what I do and I say it with conviction, not as an aspiration, but as a fact.

I recently had the opportunity to network with some folks at a professional dinner. I was invited as a guest so I was not necessarily expected to “pitch” my own business. The subject inevitably came up, of course, and when it did I felt I had valuable and interesting things to say to people about it. In fact, I found it particularly easy to talk about my profession with poise and confidence.

Those two words would never have been used to describe me a few years ago. I was as introverted and socially awkward as they come. How did I grow past that? It took a lot of diligent work on my part to focus on my strengths and remove myself from situations that made me feel inferior. Once I did that, it became clearer every day that I was intelligent, clever, interesting and enjoyable to be around. And once that seed of self-confidence was planted, it thrived in my new supportive environment of loving, caring people. I was comfortable being fully myself and when that was favorably received, well, my self-worth grew by leaps and bounds. The moral of the story is that no one - and no career - can thrive in an environment of negativity and self-doubt.

That’s what Ellen has helped me overcome - that initial stage of self-doubt that is part and parcel of any major life change. Those questions of, “Am I good enough?” “Can I do this?” are completely natural. Natural or not, however, I am glad to be moving past them. The great news is that I have succeeded at my first three goals for my career reinvention. To review, they were to:

1. Make a living at writing

2. Become comfortable marketing myself & my business

3. Realize my career makeover as a personal reinvention, complete with new skills and goals

AND I have accomplished those things. Here’s how:

1. I am actually earning as much at this point as I was as a daycare provider. That was an initial goal but as a next step I plan to establish some earning goals for myself.

2. As mentioned above, I am gaining confidence with marketing myself and my business. It came down to the same elements as in my personal metamorphosis - gaining confidence and experience in a supportive environment.

3. As a writer, there’s a lot of me in my work. I knew my career reinvention was going to take a lot of personal growth to get to where I wanted to be. How have I grown? I have developed confidence in myself and my abilities. Once those were in place, it was surprisingly easy to demonstrate that to others.

So from here it’s onward and upward! I have made two new goals for my business and they are:

1. To gain more control over the work I take on and the clients for whom I work. I feel that now that I know I can get clients - and keep them by providing quality work - I can take the opportunity to be a bit more selective as to the what and who. This is not to say that I’m inundated with work, but I do have choices and it is empowering to be able to say, “No, this is not right for me.”

2. To create my ideal writing gig for myself. This is based on the “If you build it they will come” theory. I have topics about which I am passionate and I am not going to let the fact that I haven’t been hired to write about them yet keep me from writing about them. I intend to write about that which I am passionate, in the belief that when I do, it will be appreciated and respected for what it is. It will provide the ultimate portfolio of the work that is nearest to my heart. While it won’t provide immediate income, it will be an investment in my future and provide satisfaction to me today.

I’m proud of my new goals. They show me that I need never be “done” with my career reinvention - that it is a continuous process of growth. It is an amazingly satisfying feeling to look back and see the progress I’ve made, and to look ahead knowing that there are more goals waiting for me to achieve.