The Key to Success: Setting Goals

In my experience, it can be incredibly difficult to stay motivated—whether that is motivation to do well on an assignment, find more work, or just get out of bed in the morning. There are different forms of motivation. When I was in basic training (as yes, I am a shining member of the Army National Guard) my motivation came in the form of screaming drill sergeants. I was forced to motivate myself to do a variety of things. There were two distinct patterns this motivation took at that time:

1. Saying to myself, “well, I don’t really have a choice in the matter. I have to do it right this time because there is no way I want to go through it again.

2. I would continue to run laps, thinking about how delicious those pancakes were going to be at breakfast (despite the fact I rarely got more than three minutes to enjoy them).

Though both seemed to be effective for that particular situation, when it comes to motivating myself in terms of my freelancing career, the latter most certainly wins out. I am what some people refer to as a workaholic. My poor boyfriend can attest that I spend way more time working than the average person. When he pleads with me to relax a little, however, I respond that I have goals that I’m working toward. I certainly don’t enjoy spending the better part of my free time typing away, but the fact of the matter is that I’m nowhere close to where I want to be in my career, and though money is certainly not everything, it sure means a lot when you’re a college student neck-deep in debt wanting to travel the world.

Goal-setting isn’t just about saying, “Oh, I want to do great things,” however. You have to be explicit, and you have to be reasonable. Because I am a neurotic list-maker, this comes rather natural to me. It is quite simple, though, to set simple goals for yourself—be them short-term, long-term, or both. I prefer both. My incredibly short-term goals stand in form as a To-Do list. It is more or less a list of assignments and errands needing run. The minute I finish this blog post, I will cross one more item off of the list. I don’t know about you, but when I am able to cross something off, I feel a great wave of accomplishment and empowerment take over and I tend to feel even more motivated to start on other tasks.

Making lists of goals is also a great way to stay focused and organized. It is easy to forget that you had to do something or the other. It is also easy to say, “I’m going to try and bolster my freelancing career” with no logical plan for how to accomplish this. My goals tend to be a bit more pointed. For instance, one of my goals for this year is to obtain a job or internship that is either socially meaningful or related to my academic area of study (namely, Sociology). My plan of action in this case is to search, search, search. It is also to write, write, write. As I use this website (and my freelancing career) as a platform for making change, finding more meaningful assignments is another step I take in this direction.

Goals can be used in every area of your life—be it in a professional sense, a financial sense, or even in terms of personal improvement. The one piece of advice that I give anyone I come across is to be introspective. Many of us are unsatisfied with our lives or ourselves in some capacity. I feel this is natural and favorable if understood the correct way. Visualize the kind of person you want to be and the life you want to live. Write it out. If you want to take this in terms of your business, do it that way as well. You may imagine yourself or your business to be more successful, more socially conscious, or less wasteful, etc. Whatever it is, put it down. When finished, note the discrepancies between who you are now and who you want to be. You now have goals and are ready to create an action plan.

I’m all about action. So I find that setting goals that are not actionable seems to be a bit asinine and unrealistic. Just saying, “I want to be a better person” or “I want to make more money” is great, but not actionable. Understand why you want to achieve these goals, and how you will do so. When it comes to motivation for freelance writing, my goals tend to fall into a few different categories:

1. Money. We all want to make more of it, but I remind myself that I need to make more money to achieve my goals, which this year are to pay of my credit card and take a vacation over Christmas.

2. Impact. I remind myself that in order to change the world, I need to act. I believe just as much as the next person that ideas and visions are beautiful things, but in order to really make a difference you need to do. So I write more.

3. Pride. When I say pride, I mean so in a healthy way. I’m a person attempting to work toward a greater level of independence, and in many ways my freelancing career is a direct show of what I have built for myself. Be proud of what you have accomplished. You worked for it and built it yourself.

I’m sure I could ramble on for longer about goals and how great they are (because they really are!) but I think you’ve got enough to start making your own goals. Just remember to keep them close by. I like to write mine down and keep them somewhere visible. These will help you stay focused and motivated. And remember than when it feels like you just cant do any more, there is always a drill sergeant out there that could make you do just a teensy bit more.

My last point? Don’t forget to take a breather! Hard work is great, but you have to take time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Cheers, everyone!

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Tara, May 27th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Freelance Writing

Personality vs. Professionalism: A Fine Line

I wanted to write a post about the fine line drawn between personality and professionalism for a couple of different reasons:

1. To explain to those casting a critical eye why “Internet Ninja” is listed as one of my potential job titles, and

2. To express the importance of humanity in business practice.

I have, as many, engaged in the business world for the majority of my working years. It may not have been in a corporate setting, but every establishment, every restaurant, every job comes down to selling something—be it vacuum cleaners or a marketing campaign. That being said, face to face transaction is becoming more and more scarce within the global internet community, and technology has allowed us the convenience of ignoring and overlooking personality. Many of us just strive to look good on paper—with a list of qualifications, certificates, degrees, and numbers of years spent at such-and-such a company.

Whereas I am no different in this—I too hope to have a resume that looks good and drives my professional movement toward where I want to be in life—I feel it is important, if not wholly necessary to retain some amount of my humanity in all of this. I have a certain style about me, that can be entirely academic and professional in nature, but it will always be me, and that is something I refuse to give up. The fact of the matter is that work takes up the majority of our time.

Think about it. Of the assumed 24 hours in a given day, approximately eight of them will be spent at work. Three of those hours will likely be spent worrying about what will happen or what did happen at some point in your work day, or how much better you wish that time spent was. I have worked many different kinds of jobs, some in which allowed me to sit back in my pajamas, behind the scenes from home, others that required me to put on a certain façade, assume the appearance of always being chipper, cheery, and quite frankly, I was miserable.

Not to say I’m not cheery or chipper. I like to think I’m an incredibly upbeat individual. But I’m also sarcastic, goofy, and sometimes downright strange. I’m certainly not your average bear. I can’t stand the thought of losing my personality in my work, therefore I don’t. The great thing about freelance writing is that although your work must reflect a variety of topics, industries, and tones of voice, you get to pick what work you take on. I have certainly written with great variety, and still manage to maintain my personality—and within it, my humanity.

Our personalities and differences are what make us human; distinguish us from the robots that will soon take over (if any of these crazy movies are ever to come true). Technology becomes increasingly more unbelievable each and ever day, but it will never measure up to the innovative and powerful nature of human creativity. There are certainly those out there that are looking for writers that can just pump out content like a machine (they’re usually the ones hiring from third-world countries, offering $0.05 per 300 words or something obscene like that). But I personally don’t want to work with clients like that.

I believe it is important to work with those that will suit your personality type—your working relationship will be stronger for it, and you will have the confidence to write on just about anything within reason, and still not get burnt out. You have to be yourself in this business, or you just won’t cut it. Selling yourself as a machine will only make you feel like one, and none of us are cut out for that.

Understand that you have a choice in this. Sure, you should always strive to improve your writing, marketing, or whatever other skills you have. But be sure to make sure that you are always a part of it. I may be an Internet Ninja. I personally love it. It means I have the freedom of approaching the social and professional world as Tara, the crazy college girl that loves to play with words. As a result, I attract open-minded and creative people.

As I always preach, words do matter, and every one you type says something about you. Do you want your resume to say, “I sucked in a bunch of catchy sounding words and spit them up so I look impressive?” or do you want to be reflective of who you really are? Be proud of who you are, and don’t let it get lost in professionalism. It’s a thin line, sure, but your humanity is a huge sacrifice to make.

Keep up the good work, kids. Til next time,

Your friendly neighborhood Internet Ninja

(P.S. Yes, that is me in the photo, and you can check out other wonderful photography from this artist at NoelSmart.com)

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Tara, May 12th 2010 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Freelance Writing

Meaningful Words: Incorporating Consciousness into Your Writing

When we make the decision to be freelance writers, we often dream of being able to write about bigger and greater things—the things we truly love and care about. It sounds all too glamorous: press passes, interviews with experts who can give us insight into the world of our passion, and the glory of seeing our names on a byline wrought with fame and fortune. The reality of the situation, however, is that as freelance writers we don’t always have the freedom to write about our passions.

I have written about everything from concrete polishing to designer handbags to motorcycle parts auctions. When it comes to SEO, we can get incredibly limited by the assignments we take on to pay the bills. Even if you’re writing for a site such as Associated Content ,where your options are opened a bit, to make any money you need to follow the assignments they offer or rely on SEO practices to get page views. I want to say, however, that you are not entirely limited, and the writing you do can make a difference.

As previously stated, not everything I write about is particularly riveting, or even interesting to me. I have, however, sought out assignments and projects that do make a difference. They didn’t just fall into my lap, however. In some cases I had to look for a while. Still in others I had to be creative. Regardless of the means, I still made it a point to do some writing that was beneficial on a community level—even if it means not making quite as much money for that time I used to write it.

Here are some tips for incorporating more meaningful writing into your career, based on my personal experiences:

Put in the time. We all want work that comes to us easily, sure. But to find that gold nugget, we have to keep looking. I managed to find an incredibly rewarding job through oDesk.com, ultimately working for a wonderful organization by the name of Sustainability Guild International. Whereas some of the writing I’m currently doing for them is more marketing-related than research related, supporting the organization is still a great way to give back and get the message out. If you’re looking to seek more meaningful work, one way to do this is by offering your services to nonprofits or similar advocacy groups. Every cause needs exposure, and even if you’re not interviewing starving children in the midst of civil war in Africa, you can be doing your community a great service by helping these organizations get out necessary information.

Be creative. Even when the jobs for social activists groups do not walk through your door, there are ways you can practice writing and online marketing in ways that are meaningful if you approach them the right way. In my freelance writing career, I’ve decided to make my work meaningful by promoting the support of local business. So even if I’m just writing about certain products or services for a particular company, or if I’m just doing restaurant reviews for local blogs and marketing companies, the push to stimulate local economy and support the little guy gives me drive and a purpose in my writing. Understanding business in a creative way is an excellent way to practice community conscious writing without having to sell all your belongings to keep up with the cause.

Be conscious. If you do happen to earn your keep through SEO article writing or something similar, sometimes it’s just important to understand the implications of your writing. Writing such as this is used to sell a product or service. It is obviously to some extent manipulative in nature, as it is intended to be persuasive. I’m not going to turn my nose up and tell you that this is wrong (aside from it being hypocritical, it’s the way business works, and business is what drives the world forward). However, think about what you’re trying to sell. I can’t say I felt I was doing the world a disservice when writing about designer handbags—to be honest, I felt many of them were ugly, and entirely overpriced. So rather than writing about how wonderful these handbags were, I decided to write about how to find the right handbag that would get the most use in a person’s wardrobe. Though perhaps this is still a bit superficial in nature, those people who are interested in articles about handbags obviously already purchase them. Helping them to make an informed purchase that will hopefully save them money in the future certainly helps me sleep at night—and still allows me to make money using effective (and creative) SEO practices.

So don’t beat yourself up if your writing is all business. We’ve all got to make a living. But remember that words are not just words, and there are ways to make a meaningful career for yourself even in the face of a competitive market riddled with demand for high-impact marketing. It can be done! You just have to set your mind to it.

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Tara, May 6th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Freelance Writing

Conscious Living Series #2: Volunteering and Community

Here’s a nifty article I wrote about Volunteering and Community Involvement, the second on my series about Conscious Living.

Do you volunteer? What do you do to give back to your community (especially you Akronites)? If you’d like to get involved, check out some of these great causes in our area:

United Way of Summit County

Goodwill Industries of Akron

First Grace United

Battered Women’s Shelter of Summit and Medina Counties

Humane Society of Greater Akron

AseraCare Hospice

Keep Akron Beautiful

There is bound to be something you would enjoy getting involved in, great people of Akron! If you’d like to find more great opportunities, check out Volunteer Match Akron.

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Tara, May 1st 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Activism