Trust me before reading on…
I was someone who barely managed to write 1000 words in a day when I was at my native place. I have had times where I have suffered from severe writer’s block and barely managed to complete 500 words.
I have never considered taking a long break, vacation or chosen a routine away from my work, for the past 4 years of my life. My life revolved around work, work and work.
Being an engineering graduate, shifting over to full-time content writing, which was once my hobby, was not an easy feat. Coming from a conservative family in India, I had to convince my parents that I am all set to follow my dream pathway. The dream of my father is to see me working as an engineer or a developer in any top IT companies.
Coming from a Tier 2 city, I barely had any opportunity to train myself or expose my skill set apart from the online virtual world. I had to put double the efforts to build my brand value amidst much other content writers. I worked day and night on freelance projects which helped me build my portfolio.
My initial job experiences
After a lot of shortcomings, efforts, and hard work, I got my first job as a content writer where I worked for a year. Over there, I learnt a lot about content writing over there and built a personal brand for myself on LinkedIn. I had to quit since I wanted to improve my learning curve.
I joined another company with a toxic environment. I quit after some time. I kept applying for jobs but due to the internal stress I faced, I suffered from writer’s block once again. My mind would just go blank when I had to write and submit the assignments for the interview. It was really, really hard.
But I chose never to give up. It’s my life. It’s my passion. I had to define it.
Life takes a U-Turn!
One day, I got an interview call from my current employer. Everything went on well. I managed to submit an article which they liked the most. I was offered a job immediately after an interview with the CEO. Everything happened all of a sudden! I had to shift to Bangalore within 3 days. No pre-planning. No time to say goodbye to my friends!
As a girl landing in Bangalore, away from my family for the first-ever time, it was a challenge. I faced and overcame it successfully, and now, Bangalore feels like a home away from my home. Learning the local language and being forever-curious to learn about the new place and culture helped me a lot!
In the past 6 months since my arrival in Bangalore, I have worked regularly for 12 hours a day. In spite of that, I wrote more than 150+ blogs for my company, Pattem Digital. It was hectic but I managed to do my Hubspot and SEMrush certification. I have started working on my podcast, hosting 2 episodes. I went on to publish 2 of my articles on Thrive Global. I started my own podcast recently.
Within this 1 month, I managed to get nearly 1M+ views for my posts on LinkedIn. One of them got 300,000+ views with 5300+ likes.
I believe that being busy and running out of time is a myth. No one is really busy. It is all about our priority.
Treat stress as a motivating force
How did I accomplish this much? It was through embracing stress rather than pondering over it. It is through accepting and facing the challenges life can throw upon you, rather than running away.
Yes, I have had extremely stressful days where I just wanted to wail and cry. But I chose never to give up. I chose to remain calm and appear boldly the next day. Now, everything seems worth it!
If you feel stressed, I would suggest you take a deep breath, and meditate for at least 15 minutes. Relax! Calm down your senses! Boost your mind positively.
I also learnt that whatever seems to be a major setback now would seem trivial in a few days, months or years. I have experienced it many times in my life. So, it is always good to never give in to the demands of stress or negative thoughts, and maintain a calm posture, with your inner Buddha smiling within your mind and heart. They are merely thoughts! Unless you offer them the ability to overtake you, they are powerless.
The other important lesson I learnt is, It is important to be courageous and to know when to say yes, and when to say no, to remain stressless! You should define what you need, and what you don’t, to preserve your happiness.