Once upon a time not long ago, I was a business writer for PayScale.com. I covered all things careers and employment in my first full-time, work-from-home gig. After several years as an editor in D.C., covering Congressional policy on energy and the environment, I relished the more-relaxed life of a freelance writer.
Among the perks of my PayScale job were review copies of books from sources. I recently took one from shelf—The Girls’ Guide to Building a Million-Dollar Business—and landed on an inspiring quote from Lesley Stahl:
What’s fun in life is knowing that you’re not good at something and then making yourself good at it.
This hit home, as I wade into the foreign territory of fiction writing. I’ve been a journalist for more than twenty years. Writing news and features is second-nature. Much as I love it, there are limits to creativity on the Fourth Estate.
No such bounds exist with fiction. Rules are more like suggestions. That’s freeing, and daunting.
They say you can’t become who you’re meant to be by staying inside your comfort zone. While many of us are staying inside physically during this pandemic season, may we find time to push beyond our comfort zones, and make ourselves good at something new; something hard. We have boundless potential to do far more than we think we’re able to do.
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