Sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest difference. This has certainly been true in my travel-writing career. Over several years, I made hundreds of little baby steps as I put one foot in front of the other to follow the path to my dream to become a travel writer.
There was the baby step when I ordered the travel-writing program from Great Escape Publishing. Another baby step when I started reading the chapters in my spare time. Then I made a slightly bigger step by attending the Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop. The workshop gave me the ultimate reward – confidence.
As I sat in the workshop listening to the speakers, I realized I had everything I needed within me to become a travel writer. But even with that newly-realized confidence, I kept making baby steps. I was working full-time as a tax accountant, spending 50-plus hours a week at the office and I only had three weeks of vacation time – baby steps were all I could manage. So I continued.
There was the baby step when I began posting some of my articles on the newly-created Facebook page for the attendees of the workshop. That led to a contact with an editor at International Living, who published several of my articles.
Following that bit of success, I took another baby step when I looked up the contacts at tourism boards for various European countries like Germany, Norway, and Belgium and sent out e-mails to introduce myself.
Taking another baby step, I accepted an invitation to attend a lunch sponsored by the Germany Tourism board. Fate provided an extra nudge when I was seated next to an entertaining gentleman who just happened to be the editor of a popular online magazine. A friendship was born, and he hired me to write for his publication.
Today I’m no longer spending those 50-plus hours behind a desk in an office preparing tax returns. I’m writing and editing. I’m the author of three columns, editor of two online publications and have had more than 300 articles published. I’m definitely not an overnight success, but I’m fine with that – because all those little baby steps led me down the road to living my dream.
And I’m still taking baby steps every single day.
[Editor’s Note: Learn more about how you can fund your travels and make an extra income with photography, travel writing, blogging, and more in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel. Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Five Fun Ways To Get Paid To Travel: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.]