The Most Common Error I See In Author Life Balance
I follow a lot of self-proclaimed author gurus and I'm noticing that a lot of them are pivoting away from faster writing and shorter times between releases and more toward trying to sell authors on creating a sustainable career and finding the elusive author life balance. After tell us to burn ourselves out in pursuit of the algorithm and in satisfying readers' demands to binge our books, they're now trying to tell us to go in the opposite direction. There's just one problem with what they are teaching us.
It's wrong in one single, fundamental way.
I'm not saying we shouldn't look for sustainability in our writing careers or in working with our brains. I'm all about that! But what I'm saying is that the way they're teaching it is wrong.
Because they're trying to teach you from the same tactics and the same methods that they used when they taught you to burn yourself out by churning out books.
What they're teaching is that there's one thing, one magic switch, one magic trick or system, that once you find it, all your answers will be clear forever and ever.
If we want to look at having a sustainable career and avoid burnout, that's not the right answer nor is it one that's going to lead us to the author nirvana that so many of us are seeking.
The most common error isn't the search for balance, not at all. The most common error is thinking that balance or a sustainable career is finding one single thing at one single point in time.
That if you do this thing once, then you'll have balance and sustainability and you'll be golden.
I'm afraid the path to avoiding burnout, the path to that sustainable author career isn't like that. Author life balance comes not from one decision, but from countless small decisions each and every day. It isn't a snapshot in time, but a tightrope walk that we take each and every day, back and forth across the wire. Something changes and the plates we're jugging shift, then we have to shift with it, otherwise we're just going to topple off the wire and pray there's a net below.
The trick, if you can even call it that, is being flexible enough that you can shift with the changes in this industry and in tune enough with your creative nervous system so you can manage the stress and difficulties those changes bring.
It's an ongoing process. It never ends, my friends. And yet, it's just as important a part of being an author as putting words down on a screen or piece of paper is. In fact, I'd argue, it's even more important because if you burn yourself out, it's going to make putting those words down a hundred times more difficult.
The one thing I'd love for you to do today is this: stop thinking of work-life balance as a single end point, but rather, the guardrails you keep on a winding path that is an adventure to explore. Trust me, the journey is worth it.