How I changed my life

The longer you wait for approval, the more brutal it’ll feel when you realise you never needed it.

I stopped asking for permission.

That's it, really. The whole story could end there.

I stopped waiting for someone to tell me I was good enough, ready enough, qualified enough to write the words burning holes in my pockets. I stopped treating my creativity like a weekend hobby that needed to apologise for taking up space. I stopped believing that my real life — the one where I got to make things that mattered — was waiting for me on the other side of someone else's approval.

It wasn't a lightning strike moment. There was no dramatic quitting scene where I told my boss to fuck off and stormed out to a soundtrack of triumphant strings and high notes (one can but dream). There is really no single turning point I can point to and say: there, that's when everything changed.

It was quieter than that. A slow unfolding. It was a very gradual awakening to the fact that I'd been treating my one, wild and precious life, like a dress rehearsal for something that was never going to arrive.

The first small rebellion was saying no to a client project that would have paid *cough* disgustingly well but made me want to pull my skin off with boredom and clashed values. My bank account screamed at me. My conditioning told me I was being precious, difficult, unrealistic. But something louder — something I'd been trying to silence for years — smushed my cheeks in its hands, looked me dead in the eyes, and said: if not now, when?

The next no was easier. And the next. No to work that drained me. No to people who made me smaller. No to the voice in my head that said my writing needed to wait until I had more time, more stability, more certainty.

And with each no, I created space for a yes.

Yes to the words that wanted to come through me. Yes to the terror and ecstasy of putting them into the world. Yes to building days around when my mind was sharpest, not when some corporate handbook said work should happen. Yes to measuring success by how electric I felt while creating, not just by who was willing to pay for it.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, with each new yes — my life started to change.

The hardest part about changing your life isn't making the decision. It's tolerating the distance between who you know to the bones you really are and who everyone has always expected you to be.

It's standing in the space between your old identity and your new one, feeling half-naked and exposed. It's fielding concerned texts from your mum and judgemental eyebrows from former colleagues and the quiet terror that maybe everyone who thinks you're making a mistake is right.

It's waking up some mornings absolutely convinced you've lost your mind, that reasonable people don't build lives around creativity, adults are supposed to settle and compromise and keep their dreams as hobbies and take sensible weekend breaks to Wales and the riskiest thing they do is neck a block of Lancashire cheese on a “cheat” day.

But then — if you're lucky — there are the other mornings. The ones where you wake up and feel the sun on your face and realise, with a shock that never quite fades, that this is actually your life now. The gap between who you are and what you do has closed. You're no longer spending your days building someone else's dream while yours sits gathering dust, coughing obnoxiously in the corner.

The most revolutionary thing I've learned is that creativity is NOT a luxury. Let me say that one more time for those of you in the back who are gonna scroll right on past this and pretend I can’t possibly be talking to you: CREATIVITY IS NOT A FUCKING LUXURY, GUYS. We were lied to. It's not a nice-to-have. It's not something to squeeze in around the edges of a "real" job or a block of cheese or save for retirement.

It is the whole point. It is a requirement. The thread that makes sense of everything else. The thing we're here to do. Creativity is essential to living a deeply satisfying life. It’s not art or a book or a poem that made you cry or that painting that makes you feel something primal even though you literally have no idea what it actually is.

Those things are all THE RESULT. Creativity is also new technology and building a home and naming your children and how you cook your breakfast.

When you feed your creativity, every. single. area of your life improves.

I changed my life by finally believing that.

By treating my creativity not as an indulgence but as the essential infrastructure of my existence. As necessary as sleep, as vital as breath. By reorganising my entire life around protecting it, nurturing it, giving it the conditions it needs to thrive.

That meant practical things: learning to live on less so I could say no more often. Building financial runways that bought me time to create without immediate pressure to monetise. Setting boundaries that made other people uncomfortable because they contradicted what a good employee/daughter/friend was supposed to prioritise.

It meant psychological things too: untangling my sense of value from external validation. Learning to trust the quiet voice that knows what I need to write next, even when — especially when — it makes no strategic sense. Developing calluses against rejection while keeping my heart soft enough to keep creating with vulnerability.

All of this sounds very noble now, written down. Very brave and certain. Very “oh well bloody good for you”. Sensible, even. But I should tell you about the doubt. About the nights I've lain awake wondering if I've made a terrible mistake. About the times I've scrolled through the LinkedIn profiles of former colleagues, now with senior titles and stock options, and felt the cold grip of fear that I've chosen wrong.

I should tell you about crying on my kitchen floor at 3am the first time I realised I’d hit six figures off nothing but the words I write (I did actually, you can find that story on this very Substack lol). Or the grip of shame when a piece I poured myself into got ignored while something I threw together in an hour went viral. About the isolation that sometimes comes with choosing a different path. About how hard it is to explain what I actually do at family gatherings or to the antagonised man at the customs desk who literally just wants me to say I’m an accountant and shut the fuck up.

But I should also tell you about waking up and realising the day is mine to shape. About the sacred feeling of finding exactly the right words to express something I thought was inexpressible. About messages from strangers saying my writing helped them feel less alone. About the friendships I've built with people who get it, who are also building lives around what sets their souls on fire, all around the world. About the women who inspire me to the ends of the earth, who tell me they like reading my work, who have become clients, friends, mentors, soul alliances.

I should tell you that ultimately, living this way has allowed me to earn a hell of a lot more money than if I’d done literally anything else. Because, even though I hate saying that, you need to know that building a life from your creativity isn’t JUST a noble pursuit. It can be a very, very, very profitable one, too.

I should tell you that changing your life doesn't mean never being afraid again. It just means learning to build a relationship with fear that isn't based on obedience.

So this is how I changed my life: I started treating my creativity as non-negotiable. I stopped waiting for permission to prioritise it. I built a life that serves it, not one that tries to fit it into spare moments. I learned how to write in a way that has brought the right kind of opportunities, clients, invitations and ideas to my life.

And on the hardest days, when I question everything, I try to remember what it felt like before. The slow suffocation of treating what mattered most to me as least important. The belly ache of watching my one precious life slip by while my truest work remained undone.

Sometimes changing your life looks like dramatic gestures — quitting jobs, moving countries, burning bridges. But more often, it looks like small, daily choices that most people won't even notice. Protecting your creative time with the ferocity of a mother bear. Learning to say “no, thank you, I don’t do work that makes other people rich while making me miserable for almost no money” without apologising. Choosing what feeds your soul over what feeds your CV.

It looks like finally understanding that no one is coming to discover you, rescue you, or tell you it's time. That the permission you've been waiting for can only ever come from you.

It must come from you. Nobody. And I mean nobody, is coming to give it to you.

I changed my life by writing this. By writing anything. By remembering, again and again, that this is what I came here to do.

What did you come here to do? Whatever it is, start now. The world needs what only you can make. And more importantly, you need to make it.

That's how you change your life.

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Your writing practice

Take a blank page and finish the sentence “I want a life where...” Write quickly, without censoring yourself, until you've filled the page. Don't worry about being realistic or practical — this is about desire, not logistics.

Now, circle the three items that make your heart beat faster. The ones that feel most alive, most necessary.

For each of these three, write down one small action you could take this week — not to achieve the whole vision, but to slightly turn your body in its direction. Something tiny but concrete.

Then do those three things before next week. It won’t change anything overnight but taking action is how we begin to believe that change is possible at all.

Permission is never going to arrive from outside. The life that's waiting for you begins with the smallest step toward what matters most.

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Hi, I’m Lois — writer, strategist, storyteller, creative living advocate, and full-time heretic when it comes to how we’ve been told to sell online.

I live in the Costa Rican jungle with my kids, a keyboard and about 76 half-finished Google Docs. I’ve spent the last decade helping creatives and founders write the kind of words that change the room, build movements, and feel like home. This is my Substack, The Smoking Area, where we say the things we’re not supposed to say out loud — and then figure out how to turn them into art, revenue, or both.

You’ll always find a writing prompt throughout the article or at the very least, at the end. Because reading is great, but expression is the real medicine.

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Do you dream of building a life around your words or a business that thrives because of the words you write instead of in spite of it?

Sweet Talk is my mastermind-come-group program that I’ve quite literally poured 17 years of copywriting, messaging strategy and creative-business-building experience into. It’s where I teach people how to write marketing that feels like art and create success in business using powerful words, language, community-driven writing and storytelling.

Over 16 weeks, you’ll learn how to:

→ Write copy that sells without shrinking your creativity into a formula.
→ Turn your ideas, your stories, your real voice into movements that make people move.
→ Build a body of work that works harder for you than any algorithm ever could.
→ Stop sounding “good enough” and start sounding like the only option.
→ Create demand not by shouting louder, but by writing in a way that cannot be ignored.
→ Build a community around your voice — not just your products — so you sell faster, grow deeper, and stay relevant without being chained to content creation 24/7.
→ Make money because of your creativity, not in spite of it.

And, aside from the 8 comprehensive modules & 8 unhinged-level-knowledge workbooks (a Sweet Talk grad’s language, not mine), you’ll get 4 months of coaching and support with me and a tight knit group of creatives going through exactly the same period of growth, dreaming and creating. The modules are wild and will change your life, the coaching and group calls are quite honestly sacred.

Sweet Talk grads go on to leading movements, writing marketing that feels like art, building communities that are full of people who believe in your work, clients who become friends, important work, making good money and marketing that works hard FOR YOU (which is what it’s supposed to do). So you can take days off and not feel like everything is going to fall apart.

If you’re tired of writing what you’re supposed to write.
If you’re tired of publishing “good enough” posts while knowing your real work is still sitting somewhere under your skin, untouched —
Sweet Talk is where it all changes.

It’s where you stop following formulas that flatten your voice —
and start building a business that blooms because of it.
It’s where your marketing stops feeling like a job you resent —
and starts feeling like your sharpest creative work.
It’s where you stop begging people to notice —
and start making your presence inevitable.

You will not leave Sweet Talk sounding like anyone else.
You will not leave Sweet Talk needing to 'try harder' to be seen or being told to “create more content” when you’re already at your wits end with fucking Instagram.
You will leave with the words that carry your work into rooms your feet haven't even entered yet.

Sweet Talk Round 5 opens next week.
We begin in August.
And if you’re coming, you’ll know it.

You’ll feel it.

👇

Join the waitlist for first dibs on very limited spaces and a ridiculous discount as soon as the doors open.