“Do More Than Your Best. Do What is Required.”

Paul Kix
3 min readJan 19, 2023

A project fell through that I needed financially, so I’m scrambling right now. Every freelance writer reading this knows the feeling: I’m not good enough. Is it always going to be this hard?

Hell, many staff writers have similar feelings when a big story collapses. Will I find another one? Will I have the career success I ache for?

If that’s you, let me tell you something: Quit trying to turn those negative thoughts into positive ones.

Instead, acknowledge that it sucks and use your dark thoughts to your advantage, as fuel. It’s a peer-reviewed scientific fact. If we approach a shitty situation by channeling happy thoughts, in the hope that those thoughts will alter the situation, we’ll alter nothing. We’ll still be in a shitty spot. Only now it’ll be worse because we’ll blame ourselves for why our happy thoughts didn’t change anything when so many manifestation gurus or positivity psychologists say the opposite: That if you just think it, you become it.

Tough times are tough.

And here I need to acknowledge that I don’t always take my own advice because in the last couple weeks I went black, got way down on myself when my happy thoughts didn’t alter my circumstance.

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Paul Kix

Best-selling author of The Saboteur. Learn the 7 rules six-figure writers follow to make more money: https://paulkixnewsletter.lpages.co/seven-tips-pdf/