Tuesday Talks: I Am Not That Yet

When we’re young, we are asked constantly what we want to be when we grow up. Working out what you want to be when you’re younger is great, you can be anything you want to be. At five, I wanted to be a vet. At ten, I wanted to be a model. At fifteen, I wanted to be a writer. When I was twenty, I wanted to be a beauty writer. I am not a vet, a model, a writer or a beauty writer…yet.

I’m in my early twenties and honestly, wondering what the hell I’m going to be is exhausting. It’s not like plucking an idea out of thin air and proclaiming it to the world like I did when I was five. Now, you’re supposed to be starting your plan, or at least have an idea what that plan is…

Mainly because of the internet, life plans are very different now. When my parents were young a life plan was pretty damn important. If you were going to be a doctor, columnist or chef – well you’d have to start working on those things pretty much as soon as secondary school kicked you out on your ear.

Now we live in a world that careers are springing up out of thin air. It was only the other day I was reading an article about a woman who bring home a six figure salary thanks to Instagram. Nope, she doesn’t work for Instagram, she’s a self-employed ‘content creator’ (she posts roughly two pictures a day to the platform). There’s also YouTube creators such as Jenna Marbles, Tanya Burr and Tyler Oakley who, through their videos, have forged careers for themselves.

Now, I’m just guessing here, but I’m pretty sure these careers weren’t part of their life plans.

Many online content creators, who now have successful blogs, platforms, apps, YouTube channels and websites, often say they didn’t really know what they wanted to be.

So where does that leave those of us who have grown up with the internet and seen it as a place of opportunity, escape, and fun?

At the age of twenty-two my life plan has switched and changed an awful lot, like I expect most people’s have, and now I want to create online content. It is my dream and goal to be a blogger full time, and yet, here’s the kicker…I’m not that yet.

I feel at this point, I have to kind of justify why I want what I want, so here goes…I want freedom.

Working as a creative, freedom is key to the whole creative process, and blogs give us that.

To an extent, platforms like Instagram and YouTube give creators huge creative license to create online content that is both inspiring and surprising.

Ten years ago if someone said you could make a living, and a comfortable one at that, from writing or talking about your favourite nail polishes on the internet, you probably wouldn’t have believed them. Today it seems perfectly plausible and even within reach for you and I to do that.

Then again, I’m not sure I’ve actually met anyone who is financially stable, happy and progressing in their career who set out to be a blogger. I’m sure there are full-time bloggers out there who did have the intension to be full-time bloggers. But the overwhelming majority of success in blogging has happened by accident.

Now I don’t mean in terms of hard work or opportunities; I would be the last one to suggest that creative people have their success fall into their laps. But most industry leaders and top bloggers have pursued their creative careers after realising they were damn good at what they do.

Is it possible to have success in blogging today, now that we know how it works? Isn’t the beauty of such a creative industry in its surprises, it’s booms, twists and turns?

So what do I want to be when I grow up? A kickass, beauty writing, blogging, twenty-something with a Chanel bag swinging from her arm and a degree on the wall…I’m not that yet…

But getting there.

Sam

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