Many writers still have this tired washed-up romantic notion of the starving artist. And yes, it is difficult to sustain one’s self as an artist in our culture, but not impossible and there are infinite ways to help people, make a good living, and devote your life to writing and creativity.
So banish that starving artist notion from your head. Nothing could be less romantic than having no money. In order to nourish your creativity and your life in general it’s nice to have some abundance to help you along. This takes a major mind shift for many of us toward a mindset of prosperity.
Please know that even if you have a more creative mind, your mind is malleable and can change. Also know that when I use the word “prosperity”, I’m not talking just about money, but abundance in relationships, work, community, spirituality, and creativity.
How do we cultivate prosperity as writers? Let’s take a look…
Practice Gratitude
Prosperity is all around us, we just have to look for it. And then we have to be grateful for it. Practicing gratitude can be as simple as enjoying the sound of fresh rain or the feeling of warm sun on your skin. Or practicing gratitude can go a step further by helping others. For when we have abundance in our lives, we can share it to help others become prosperous, too.
A wise man once said, “I’m drinking from a saucer because my cup has overflowed. In this life I have reaped more than I have sowed.”
This may sound like the words of a wealthy man, but in fact this man had been blind for 40 years, had leprosy for 60 years, and was on his death bed. He was poor and had no family, and yet he felt like his life was overflowing with abundance. I think it’s no coincidence that he was also a poet; his gratitude showed up so prominently in his poetry that he received one of the highest poetry awards in his country.
This is just one example of the effects gratitude can have in creating abundance in your life.
Surround Yourself with Prosperous Writers
People who have achieved prosperity are often excellent motivators. I’ve learned this firsthand from teaching alongside and hosting writing workshops with best selling authors like Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert. At the Elizabeth Gilbert writing workshop in California last year, you could feel the whole room “waking up” as Liz shared her writing wisdom. Everyone felt like their cups were overflowing that day; at one point there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
Prosperity is contagious if you surround yourself with the right people. This goes back to practicing gratitude. Oftentimes, people want to share their prosperity with others. So, get out there, network, make friends, and leverage one another so that we’re all living lives full of abundance.
Get to Work
Becoming a prosperous writer is not without putting in some time and effort. No one is going to do the work for you. If you have a story to tell, you need to get it out onto the page and into the world. This requires dedicating yourself to your writing practice and a commitment to improve your writing skills.
Attending writing workshops, writing retreats, learning how to write a novel or how to write a memoir, and taking writing courses (either with an in-person instructor or an online writing course) are all ways you can dedicate yourself to your writing practice while improving your writing skills at the same time.
So, cultivate gratitude to create a feeling of prosperity, surround yourself with successful writers to get motivated to create prosperity, and get to work so that you can truly be a prosperous writer. Now is your time to shine!
If you’d like to learn more, join me this September 2016 for Writing as a Path to Awakening, which is a daylong writing workshop and writing retreat in San Rafael, California. Click here for more details.
