The Best Gift You Can Give Yourself This Holiday Season
By Guillermo Rubio

If you’re like most, you spend the holiday season stressing (to one degree or another) about what to give to your friends and family.

But in doing so, chances are you forget about giving you a gift.

This holiday season, I’d like to suggest giving yourself what I consider to be the best gift in the world.

It’s something that will totally change your life for the better. It’s something that can become a wellspring of joy and abundance.

And, it’s something you’ll always thank yourself for doing.

What is it?

Give yourself the gift of “the writer’s life.”

Allow me to explain …

Depending on whom you ask, the writer’s life means many things …

For me, it means being able to pursue my passions and having the freedom to travel without having to ask anyone for “permission.”

I’ve been able to indulge my passion of ballroom dancing — and more recently, music. It also means having the freedom to be there for my friends and family when they need me most, without worrying if my job will be at stake.

For Will Newman, it’s having the time and freedom to cook 400 tacos to raise money so his town’s small elementary school band could go on a cruise to Mexico …

 … being able to help Andrew, a 7th grader who’s a part of a Rotary youth service group called Interact, get past “hating” to write … and tutoring elementary-school kids in math two days a week.

None of which would have been possible with a 9-to-5 job.

For John Torre, the writer’s life means he was able to be there and manage the care for his 86-year-old mom who went through 16 straight weeks of bouncing back and forth between the hospital and a sub-acute rehab facility.

For Jen Stevens, the writer’s life includes travelling to Paris, Ireland, Florida, Nashville, Las Vegas, and Vail — all in the span of a year.

Bob Bois’s version of the writer’s life is building his own sailboat with his wife and sons. A boat that’s to become their mobile home for however long seems “right.”

Pete Savage’s version means the high-quality (and early) part of his day includes making his “famous” French toast for his two “ankle-biters” Callum, 4, and Liv, 2.

Like a snowflake, no two versions of the writer’s life are the same.

They’re the offspring of long-harbored dreams, turned into reality.

Which brings me to my point — the best gift you can give yourself this holiday season is YOUR version of the writer’s life.

Decide right now that from this day forward, you’re going to do everything you can to live your dreams in the coming days and coming year.

It’s not complicated at all. You always have a choice. Choose to be good to yourself this holiday season, and in 2011. Here’s how:

1. Create your vision. Decide what you want YOUR version of the writer’s life to look like. Where do you want to live? How do you want to live? What things do you want to do, be, and have? What kind of person do you want to be known as?
2. Figure out WHY. Decide WHY you want the life you want. This will give you a powerful purpose that will get you through those inevitable tough times. Get deep into this. Go past the surface reasons and figure out the hard-hitting emotional reasons that will give you clarity and power. Once you’ve got it, write it out, along with a statement of how you want your life to be like. Read this daily.
3. Take action. Are you learning copywriting yet? If not, get on board with AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting. This is the bedrock skill that will allow you to live whatever your version of the writer’s life is. If you’re already learning copywriting, what are you doing to move your career forward? Are you actively marketing yourself? Have you created a website? Figure out what you need to do next to move one step closer to your ultimate life and then DO it.
4. Keep moving the ball forward. This is a daily self-discipline. Every day, make sure you’re doing at least one thing to move toward your goal. The key here is consistency. If you keep moving forward on a daily basis, before you know it, you’ll have arrived. And believe me, it’s an incredible feeling when you do.
5. See the gift in problems that come up. Along the way to living the writer’s life, you’re bound to encounter challenges. See them as just that, and not as insurmountable problems. Every challenge brings with it an opportunity, if you look for it. And, if you ever find yourself dwelling too much on a problem, remember to put it in perspective (so you can move forward). As Socrates once pointed out, if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, where each had to take an equal portion, most would be content to take their own.

Be good to yourself this holiday season. The journey is 100% worth it. And when you get there, pay it forward.

Let others know about this “crazy” career called copywriting. Who knows, you may completely change the course of their life for the better!