What success habits should you adopt to level up your freelance writing game in 2019?
If you’re thinking about that, you’re already on your way.
But if you’re not sure where to focus your efforts, it’s easy to get distracted by Shiny Object Syndrome.
You second-guess yourself about targeting a new niche. You avoid going after bigger clients. You keep getting sucked into searching job boards hoping to find a dream client. Or maybe you’re paralyzed with fear, feel stuck, and don’t know what to do to make this year better than last.
Sound familiar? It happens. Almost every freelance writer knows what it’s like to flounder at some point in time.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. One freelance writer went from a literal unknown to a New York Times best-selling author by adopting a specific set of habits to move up and earn more. A little bit of moxie, old-fashioned hard work and the right success habits can go a long ways.
Ready to crush your freelance writing goals in 2019?
Meet James Clear
James Clear
Jump in the wayback machine to 2012. That’s when James Clear launched his blog to write about habits and human potential. And it was the start of something amazing.
He committed to publishing twice a week, adopted a series of success habits to improve, and stayed the course.
In just a few short years, he garnered a massive following of readers and earned a spot on the New York Times best-seller list for his book Atomic Habits.
We talked with James on a recent podcast for the Freelance Writers Den.
Q: What did your process look like when you got started?
A: Each part of the process I tried to do the best I could with that chunk of work. Then leverage that chunk into the next step. You can’t just jump from your first couple blog posts to a book deal.
Instead, I had to do a couple good blog posts, try to get one of those featured on Lifehacker, or Business Insider, or something. I knew that would be a good strategy to get subscribers and build up an email list.
Q: How do you know if you’re making progress?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell from day to day. But if you’re consistently showing up, you’ll turn around one day and be kind of surprised by how much progress you’ve made.
If you just sit there and think about where you want to be and how far that is away, then it can feel overwhelming and intimidating.
So, it’s really that commitment to continuous improvement that allows you to go from one to the other.
Q: What’s the 1% approach to success?
A: It’s this idea that self-improvement habits have compound interest in self-improvement. If you can just manage to get 1% better each day, you end up in a pretty remarkable place in a year or two.
The challenge is remembering that on any given day a choice that’s 1% better or 1% worse is fairly easy to dismiss. It doesn’t really feel like a whole lot.
It’s the difference between eating a burger and fries for lunch today or eating a salad. Not a whole lot on any given day. Your body looks the same in the mirror at the end of the night. The scale doesn’t really change that much.
It’s easy to feel like, “Oh, just this time. It’s not that big of a deal.” But it’s only when you turn around two, or five, or ten years later, that you realize your daily choices really do add up.
Q: What’s the two-minute rule you follow for writing?
Q: Why do people overlook baby steps like the two-minute rule?
Q: What’s your morning routine look like?
A: It’s not perfect. Every morning around 9 a.m., I sit down and either I open up Evernote and start working on the next article, or I go to ESPN and I check the latest sports news. Really what happens in the next 45 minutes is heavily determined by what happens in the first 45 seconds.
So, if you can master those little, decisive moments, those points of leverage, (Evernote or ESPN) then you often find that that’s the key area to focus on. It’s kind of like a form of personal Judo. You know? You apply the pressure at just the right point, and the rest of the dominoes kind of fall in order for you
Q: What’s one productivity habit you’ve developed to be a better writer?
A: Here’s one example. I refined my Twitter following so it’s this curated source of information. I’ve turned it into a place where I can come across ideas and find people who are sharing interesting things that can spark a thought for something I could write about.
Q: What habits would you recommend to learn how to write effective headlines?
A: Want to write better headlines? That’s a huge, huge piece of any article, or book, or chapter title. Try this. Spend an afternoon trying to get 1% better at it.
This could be looking at the top headlines in the New York Times, or on Forbes, or so on. It could be looking at famous sales headlines, or the 100 best copywriting headlines of all time. Then ask yourself questions like:
- What templates and formats do they use?
- Can I adapt that a little bit to whatever piece that I’m working on?
You could do the same kind of thing to learn how to write better opening lines or better transitions from one idea to the next.
Q: How do you overcome perfectionism and procrastination?
Q: What’s the one success habit that’s helped you the most?
A: I just keep asking: What is the next step? What is just one little level above? Can I reach up to that this time?
It’s like climbing a ladder. It’s very methodical and slow, and there are some times you go down a rung, and sometimes you go up two, but you need to stay committed to the idea: How can I just move the needle a little bit today?
Success habits for freelance writers
How do you go from just getting by as a freelance writer to making a great living? Consistent marketing. Looking for ways to improve by just 1% at a time. Taking action. And creating habits, no matter how small, to help you move up and earn more.
What habits do you recommend for freelance success? Lets discuss in the comments below.
Evan Jensen is the blog editor for Make a Living Writing. When he’s not on a writing deadline, or catching up on emails, he’s training to run another 100-mile ultramarathon.
