How to create a medical writing business that feels fulfilling and exciting every day.
There’s no point in becoming self-employed if, when all is said and done, you’re left wondering if entrepreneurship is ‘worth it.’ To help prevent this, I’m going to break down the exact formula for creating a freelance medical writing business that feels fulfilling and exciting to operate every day. If you like this edition, subscribe and share it with a friend!
Fulfillment in entrepreneurship
Let’s start by getting clear on what fulfillment even means for an aspiring freelance medical writer. That way, you know what you’re aiming for.
One way to define fulfillment is being in touch with your purpose, i.e., having a bigger reason for doing what you do. The first third of The ‘Thriving & Free’ Medical Writer Program™ involves deeply connecting with yourself and excavating your personal brand. Part of this is deciding on a meaningful niche—something you have a strong connection to or that’s a natural extension of your gifts, talents, and interests. Another part is extracting the stories you have to tell, and helping you connect with your ideal clients in authentic ways. Before that can happen, you also need to be clear on the natural intersection between the value you have to offer companies and what those companies actually need, i.e., your unique selling point and marketability. From this, you’ll identify who your ideal clients are and can strategize around how to attract them in your business, so you’re never out of work. These are the tactical things you can do to ensure your writing business feels fulfilling and exciting.
Another, less tangible way to define fulfillment is being comfortable and confident in getting lost in your business. You can get caught up in the flow of your business activities, whether that be marketing, sales, accounting, or delivering client materials, knowing that you have the tools to survive. You’re not anxious about whether you’re making good decisions—you know what you’re doing and that everything’s going to work out. In The ‘Thriving & Free’ Medical Writer Program™, I talk about fulfillment in relation to the psychological aspects of business (the right side of the diagram below). Unlike the tactical aspects (the left side), this is more about learning to trust your instincts and intuition when running your business so that you feel deserving of success and it feels effortless to operate. It’s only when you start feeling at peace with yourself and are in complete alignment with your business operations that you can achieve the work-life balance you’re craving and feel completely fulfilled.
As you can see, fulfillment in entrepreneurship goes far beyond how much you’re able to accomplish and relates much more to personal alignment with your values and purpose.
The fear of being oneself
While you may be able to identify who you are, what you stand for, what you care about, and why you’re a freelance medical writer with the specialty area that you have (left), this is all decided and communicated on an intellectual level. At Prospology, we call it ‘Business as a reflection of self.’ It’s only when you’re able to fully accept yourself for who you are and operate in alignment with your true interests, beliefs, and values that you are on the true road to fulfillment. If you’re only operating from that intellectual place of “I should do this” “I should do that,” you will never be fulfilled in your freelance medical writing business.
For example, if you feel strongly that remote-working professionals should be allowed to have their kids at home and not penalized if they occasionally make an appearance in their Zoom meetings, but you have a client who is opposed to that, you’ll always live in fear of being reprimanded for such an activity and cannot be yourself at work. In this scenario, your business is not fulfilling—it’s another source of stress, just like your previous job. You know that this client won’t approve if you tell them this is a deal-breaker, so instead of letting them walk away and hire another writer instead, or walking away yourself, you pretend. It requires an enormous amount of energy to pretend to be okay with something you’re not, which is—in my opinion—why most small businesses fail.
Conversely, if you’re able to heal your relationship with yourself (right) such that you know what your deal-breakers are, what you value, what’s important to you, what you want to get paid, how you want to be treated, and so on, you are on the road to entrepreneurial fulfillment.
What matters more to you: Autonomy, Competence, or Relatedness? Control, Growth, or Family? Flexibility, Appreciation, or Balance? To truly feel fulfilled in your life and business, you need to know the answers to these questions and let them be your guiding star in everything you do. You shouldn’t have to change yourself just to take on a client or project. You can’t be fulfilled if you’re people-pleasing all the time; it’s as simple as that.
Growth and development
While happiness is fleeting and often influenced by external circumstances, fulfillment is deeper and more enduring. Along with self-actualization comes the pursuit of meaningful goals and personal growth, both of which drive fulfillment from an internal, grounded place.
Freelancers have the wonderful ability to be able to dictate exactly what they want out of their life and career: their learning is 100% self-directed. Whereas, employees are only allowed to grow so long as it doesn’t affect their job performance. Yes, there may be allocated budgets for professional development, but you sure as heck can’t take extended time off to pursue your interests outside of work or allow your learning to steer you off course—your employer will soon find out about it and put you in your place.
Being open to identifying and working on areas for improvement, as your own manager, is crucial for success and fulfillment as a freelance medical writer. Not only do you have to fund your own professional development, you’ve got to implement it too. But it’s all part of taking ownership of your life and creating a sense of fulfillment. Prospology graduates speak about the significant improvements they see in their confidence as entrepreneurs, as well as how they’ve been able to immediately apply all of the skills they’ve learned to secure clients and run their businesses effectively. If they hadn’t invested in their own growth and development, they literally wouldn’t have accomplished all that they have, and they know it.
If you don’t already have a coach or mentor who knows how to adapt their teachings and support to suit your specific needs and interests, go out and get one. I only work with 10 V.I.P.s a year, so get your application in now if you’d like to be added to my wait list.
It requires an enormous amount of energy to pretend, which is why most small businesses fail.
Resilience vs. endurance
In order to achieve the state of flow I mentioned earlier, where you’re at peace in your business and know you can handle anything that comes at you, you must understand the difference between resilience and endurance.
- Endurance refers to the capacity to sustain a specific activity or endure an unpleasant situation over a long period. It emphasizes the ability to continue or last despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions.
- Resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity. It involves not just enduring but recovering and growing from difficulties.
Working for someone else is a way of building and practicing endurance. This is why many people leave corporate jobs feeling completely drained and like a shell of themselves (and understandably so). I felt this way throughout school, not wanting to conform to nonsensical protocols and unnecessary restrictions. I felt this way while living with my family, having to follow the rules to try and keep everyone happy. I felt this way when working as a full-time nanny and housekeeper, never having the energy to be myself or do anything besides serve.
As an employee, your goals must always be supportive of your company’s goals. Therefore, any time you want to do something for you, you’re going to get pushback. The ability to endure (i.e., put your own needs and desires on hold) to do your work is rewarded; everything else is punished. On the flip side, it doesn’t make any sense for a freelancer to practice endurance—that’s not why you went into business for yourself in the first place. You can decide on your own goals and set your own agenda. That’s one of the things that makes entrepreneurship so fulfilling.
You shouldn’t have to change yourself just to take on a client or project, so don’t.
Mindset as a conduit for success
It’s empowering to make all of the decisions in your life and business. It’s also overwhelming and scary AF. One of the reasons I spent the past six years creating The ‘Thriving & Free’ Medical Writer Program™ is because I see so many people getting stuck at the starting line, or wasting precious time and resources trying to go it alone and not getting results. They needed a proven roadmap to follow so that they could focus on building their business and seeing (and celebrating) the progress they were making, rather than questioning every step and decision along the way. It strips away the uncertainty and anxiety, allowing them to focus on being creative and getting into their zone of genius as entrepreneurs.
It’s never as simple as wanting something and doing it, even if you know it’s what’s best for you (especially if you know it’s what’s best for you!). Your mindset and belief system will get in the way at almost every turn, like trying to cycle through a forest during a mud slide. Not only do you need to solidify that mud so that you can actually move forward, you also need to upgrade your bike to a friggin’ monster truck. That’s what I do with my 1:1 students.
Knowing what to do is the first hurdle, but the second one—implementation—is often the hardest. Us humans have an incredible ability to talk ourselves out of things we want or need. Usually it’s because our adult preferences clash with what we were taught to believe as children, and we have a distinct awareness that what we think or want goes against what the majority thinks or wants. We are hard wired to avoid conflict, and yet we usually know when we’re doing things for ourselves versus doing things for others, or out of fear of upsetting others.
This is why the process of learning self-acceptance, i.e., healing your relationship with yourself (right) is just as important as building a business that aligns with who you are as a person (left). Strengthening both the tactical and psychological sides of the equation will allow you to make the distinction between what you need (e.g., identifying a specific mental block or belief that’s getting in your way) and what you can do about it (i.e., re-framing it).
If I had to break down what I do as a business coach into two main areas, it would be this:
- Validating what my students feel, on an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual level.
- Helping my students re-frame how they view themselves and the challenges that they face (e.g., providing constructive feedback or an alternative perspective that gets them unstuck).
When they are able to let go of negativity, blame, shame, self-doubt, etc., they can get to work on the creative aspects of their business, building resiliency, acquiring monetizable skills, and growing in confidence as entrepreneurs. It’s the difference between covering up or avoiding issues versus dealing with them head on. You can tell yourself that you’ve got things covered until you’re blue in the face, but if that negativity and anxiety is carrying over from one day to the next, even subconsciously, you’ll soon find yourself feeling depleted and unfulfilled: the opposite of what you want.
Us humans have an incredible ability to talk ourselves out of things we want or need.
Key takeaways
Any time you’re lying to yourself, you’re slowing down your growth and reducing your fulfillment. There are no “shoulds” in entrepreneurship—what works for one person may not work for another. The only person who knows what’s right for you is you. A good coach will be able to see it right away (spotting authenticity is one of my superpowers) and help keep you on track. But if you keep creating pressures for yourself that don’t exist, blaming yourself for perceived mistakes you made in the past, telling yourself you’re not good enough, or creating rules to follow that you don’t want to follow, you’re sabotaging yourself.
What has kept you afloat as part of society in the past may not coincide with your ideals. Progress in entrepreneurship is not linear and cannot be measured in conventional ways. Take steps to heal your relationship with yourself such that your business feels exciting and fulfilling every day. And if you know you can’t do this effectively alone, get on my waitlist.
Sophie Ash, BSc (Hons), DipION is a full-time business coach for freelance medical writers who has shared her expertise through appearances on ABC 7, ABC 13, ABC 27, FOX, and KRON news stations and countless conferences and webinars, globally. Sophie offers both 1:1 coaching for 10 V.I.P.s per year, and a ‘Do It Yourself’ version of her program.
