The Beauty of Changing Passions: From Songwriting to Freelance Writing

Lights, camera, b*tch smile! - Taylor Swift

For as long as I can remember, music was my life. I grew up with melodies playing in the background, the lyrics of my favorite songs inspiring me to dream of a future where I was the one creating those beautiful harmonies. I knew I wanted to be a singer. It felt like my calling, a passion that burned bright and guided me through adolescence. Music wasn’t just something I enjoyed, it was who I thought I was meant to be. It was my everything. My beacon, my guiding light.

I had found my place with an incredible producer, and together, we arranged songs that I will forever be proud of. With the lyrics I crafted and the instrumentals he forged, I felt like I was finally living my truth. All those years of fantasizing the potentially impossible were coming to fruition. I played a few shows for wonderfully receptive audiences and thrived off the high from the applause. It was everything I ever wanted.

Or so I thought.

As I moved closer to making music my career, I noticed a gradual shift—I wasn’t as fulfilled as I had imagined. This realization didn’t come as a sudden epiphany. Instead, it was a slow, creeping awareness that this path wasn’t quite right. The thing that I had once believed was my lifelong passion no longer sparked the same joy when I turned it into something professional.

When I was younger, writing songs felt like an emotional release. Each lyric, chord, and melody was a piece of my heart. But as I edged closer to making my lifelong dreams a reality, something didn’t quite feel right. I thought I wanted to live a life wrapped in the world of music, but once I was actually walking that road, I felt disillusioned with it all. I began to realize that if I wanted to really make a career of this, I would have to play by industry rules.

In these days, that means creating captivating content for TikTok, Instagram, and being “showy,” which is not at all my personality. It means writing easily consumable, short songs to maintain our fleeting attentions. It felt disingenuous and no longer wanted to cater to a persona industry “experts” said I should be.

Around that same time, I stumbled into writing—not songwriting, but freelance writing. It started small: some articles here and there, a few blog posts, content for websites. At first, I viewed it as just a way to make extra money, something to support my music career. But the more I wrote, the more I realized that I felt at ease, and soon enough, the words I put on the page outside of music began to matter in new and profound ways.

I began to understand that my passion wasn’t necessarily for music as an industry; it was for storytelling. Songwriting had been my first introduction to expressing myself through stories, but writing in a more traditional sense unlocked a different kind of creativity. With freelance writing, I could dive into diverse topics, explore new ideas, and play with language in ways that songwriting didn’t always allow. And the best part? The pressure I had felt in pursuing a music career wasn’t there. Instead, I felt a sense of freedom and fulfillment that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

At first, I was hard on myself for changing course. I worried that I was giving up or that I had failed at something I had invested so much of my identity into. But over time, I realized that changing passions isn’t failure—it’s growth. It’s allowing yourself the freedom to evolve, to embrace new parts of yourself. I hadn’t failed as a musician; I had simply outgrown the dream I once had. And in letting go of that dream, I made space for something new to take its place.

Interestingly, I found that my musical past and my new career path weren’t so different after all. Both music and writing center around communication—whether through lyrics or prose, I was still telling stories, still connecting with people through words. In fact, my experience in music made me a better writer. I was used to condensing emotions and ideas into bite-sized lines in songs, so translating that skill into writing articles or blogs felt natural. My background in music taught me to be concise, to evoke emotion, and to find creative ways to communicate complex ideas.

The transition also brought a sense of relief. For so long, I had placed pressure on myself to succeed in music, and when that wasn’t happening the way I thought it should, I felt disheartened. Realizing that my passion could shift and that I could still be successful in a different field lifted a weight off my shoulders. I no longer had to force myself down a path that didn’t feel right. I could pivot and find fulfillment in something new.

In the end, I learned that passions aren’t always fixed. We evolve, and as we do, our desires and goals evolve too. Changing passions isn’t a sign of giving up—it’s a sign that we are paying attention to our own growth. For me, stepping away from music and into writing felt like I was finally listening to what I truly needed. And it turns out, the relief of following that new passion was exactly what I had been searching for all along.

If you find yourself on the edge of changing passions, don’t be afraid. It’s okay to let go of one dream to make room for another. Sometimes, it’s the act of shifting paths that brings you closer to where you’re meant to be.

You are where you’re meant to be. Even if it doesn’t feel that way