5 Unique Ways to Reclaim Your Innate Power
#4: Know the difference between the source and the channels.
I just saw my February income numbers. It’s lower than in January. A shorter month? Maybe, maybe not. They are both lower than December’s figures even though I was expecting a slight steady improvement. So what went wrong?
I knew the obvious answer. I published much less in the last two months. My Jan/Feb combined output was lower than either of my November or December output alone, so that was to be expected. The chances are high that had I kept up the production of Nov/Dec in Jan/Feb, my income would have grown as expected.
“Write more” is the mantra of Medium gurus, and I can see their logic, but there is more to writing more than meets the eye. Why don’t we do the things we know we should be doing, like eating healthy or exercising more? There are subconscious reasons why we self-sabotage our success.
I took time out for some self-reflection. What I learned not only applies to my writing here but life in general as well.
How To Reclaim Our Power
Whenever we don’t see the results we want or expect, it is because we are focused on things that are not in our power. We focus on things we can’t control and then blame outside forces for our woes. By doing so, we are relegating our power. The solution is to reclaim it. Here’s how:
1. Stay out of the teacher’s lounge.
I read an excellent article a while back, and for the life of me, I can’t recall the title or the author. It was written by a young lady who shared some wisdom from her mentor when she first became a teacher.
“Stay out of the teacher’s lounge,” her mentor admonished. “It’s a cesspool of negativity.”
I had started spending too much time in the teacher’s lounge, aka writer’s groups on Facebook, after having a dose of my own self-doubt.
It took me almost two months to get back to normal and start writing regularly again.
2. Kick the imposter syndrome in the butt.
We all have moments of self-doubt. It’s part of being a human being. Our doubts give us a moment of reflection to keep us humble, but when we turn humility into self-humiliation, we get sucked into a downward spiral.
The sooner we recognize it for what it is, the sooner we can kick the imposter to the curb. The fact that you have decided to write is in itself a validation of your desire, love, and ability to do so. Love will always conquer fear.
“The desire to do it is proof that you have within you the power which can do it.” — Wallace D Wattles
If you surrender to your passions, you will find success in the long run, regardless of what Mark Cuban and the regurgitators say.
3. Create magic by keeping commitments.
While I didn’t write much in January and February, I continuously read. After all, I had become a member to read. It was my love of reading that had brought me to Medium and inspired me to become a paying member.
Unfortunately, I read too much about writing on Medium, which fed me more stories of the same, resulting in my getting stuck in the teacher’s lounge even more.
It was my love of reading that kept me searching for the writers whose work I enjoyed, although the algorithm was feeding me stories about writing. One such writer is Helen Cassidy Page. She wrote about how the one story she didn’t think much of went viral.
It reminded me of a quote by William H. Murray on Commitment:
“When one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance that no man could have dreamed would come his way.”
Helen kept the commitment to her decision to write and publish daily; I didn’t.
4. Know the difference between the source and the channels.
You will often see me quote Wallace D Wattles from his classic book Science of Getting Rich.
I was introduced to the classic more than 15 years ago by Rebecca Fine. She operated a website called Science of Getting Rich NETwork. She gave away her annotated and edited version of the public domain book. She created content based on the teachings of the book and published them on her website.
She taught the notion that there is only one source of all your income. Call it God, the universe, or the force — it’s one and the same. This one source, which is within you, uses many channels to deliver your good to you.
When we start confusing the channels to be the source of our income, we give away our power. If you are a writer in the Partner Program, it is easy to consider Medium as a source of your income. It is not. You are the source of your income, and Medium is the channel through which you draw your payments.
5. Focus on what is 100% in your control.
The only things that are in your control are your thoughts and your production. If you want to reclaim your power over your income, focus on these two things only.
Get out of the cesspool of negativity and start believing in your craft again. I have been reading a lot and here are some of the gems I’ve found.
“The moment we place our magic in someone else’s hands, we lose our power.” — Carol Dao
“So what I want you to know is that writing on Medium is not the end-all and be all. It’s the beginning of a journey if you allow it to be.” — Jun Wu
“People underestimate how deep their love (and dare I say, passion) runs. They underestimate the power that love has to propel us forward.” — Itxy Lopez
“Focus only on what you can control: making the next piece as good as you possibly can. And let the rest take care of itself.” — Sergey Faldin
“But we sit back down and write because we know the world needs our stories. Because they’re a part of us. Because we can’t not write.” — Rebecca E. Neely
“You could never make a dollar on Medium, have zero views, and if you write for five years straight, the rest would take care of itself. The opportunities to make money present themselves when you’ve written for long enough.” — Tim Denning
Do what you can, with what you have, from where you are, and you’ll find yourself moving in the direction of your dreams.
Closing Remarks
We — you, I, and everyone else — are here on this planet for a limited amount of time. Our presence here is not an accident or happenstance. We are here for a purpose, and if you write, for whatever reason, know that writing is a big part of the reason you are here on planet Earth.
“Doing what you want to do is life, and there is no real satisfaction in living if we are compelled to be forever doing something which we do not like to do and can never do what we want to do. And it is certain that you can do what you want to do. The desire to do it is proof that you have within you the power which can do it. Desire is a manifestation of power.” ~ Wallace D Wattles
If you want to write, and know that you can’t not write, then know also that you have within you the power to make it possible to have a life doing what you want to do.
Reclaim your power!
As always, thank you for reading and responding.
More about me and my work:
Rasheed Hooda is a published author and a regular contributor to ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium where writers support each other.
He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Get the Newsletter)
“You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”
