TSIY

If you’ve been trying to break into UX writing and feel like you’re hitting the same wall over and over, you are in good company! Maybe your applications go unanswered. Maybe you have tried a UX design course, hoping it would open doors, but nothing has changed. It’s like pushing a heavy rock uphill, waiting for the moment things finally click.

I’ve been there too. So have my students. The good news is that you can learn the process that opens doors!

Long before I became a Senior UX Writer at Etsy, my career experience spanned across journalism, fundraising, marketing, and e-commerce. When I first started applying to UX writing roles, I was met with silence. Looking back, the turning point came when I stopped seeing my past as a mismatch and started reframing my unique set of transferable skills as an advantage that made me the right person to solve problems. I patched together the resources I needed, learned the UX writing skills I was missing, and told my story in a way that made me stand out to hiring managers. That shift got me my first contract at Etsy, and within three months, I was promoted to an in-house Senior UX Copywriter, a role I held for 2.5 years.

Today, I’m the founding Senior UX Writer on the digital advisor experience side at a Fortune 500 financial services company. Through my Maven course, Launch Your UX Writing Career in Six Weeks, I coach others through the same career change into UX writing. The process I used has become a repeatable framework, and I’ve watched it transform the way my students approach their own career pivots, to great success.

Why Career Pivoting Into UX Writing Works

A UX writing career is often built on skills you already have. Journalists bring interviewing and storytelling. Educators bring clarity and structure. Marketers bring conversion-focused copy. Project managers bring governance and process. Human resources professionals bring an understanding of pain points and solving for them. The challenge isn’t whether you can do the work. It’s whether you can connect your transferable skills to what UX hiring managers are looking for. Career pivoting is about positioning, not starting over.

Building Your UX Writing Portfolio

One of the biggest fears mid-career professionals have is not having the “right” portfolio. But here’s the truth: your UX writing portfolio doesn’t have to include big brands or well-known company names to stand out. What matters is showing your thought process. You can start with freelance projects or practice work. My own first portfolio was a mix of freelance projects and UX writing case studies, with the main case study coming from my Google UX Design Professional Certificate program, and it was enough to open the door.

If you’re wondering how to build a UX writing portfolio from scratch, start by documenting your process: what problem you identified, how you rewrote the microcopy, and why your version improves the experience. Hiring managers care about your user and problem-solving-focused UX thinking just as much as the final words (and often much more!). After all, final “copy” choice can be subjective. Great UX content strategy is more tangible and universally speaks for itself.

A Simple Invitation

A career change to UX writing takes courage, but you don’t have to do it alone. That’s why I created Launch Your UX Writing Career in Six Weeks. It’s a focused process that helps you build a polished portfolio piece, highlight your strengths on your resume and LinkedIn, and prepare for interviews with confidence.

Your best chapter is waiting. The first step is deciding you’re ready to turn the page.

Because I’m so into signs, here’s one for you: if you’ve been banging your head so hard against the same wall you have a headache, it’s time to stop and evaluate if you want to spend your energy on that wall in the first place.

When we stop obsessing over outcomes and start putting our energy into finding our inner purpose and serving others, the noise quiets. The anxiety fades. The self-doubt loosens its grip.

Not sure what you would do without that wall? Maybe it’s something you’ve done for so long it’s “safe”. Maybe it’s a role that defines your life, and though you love to vent about it, you don’t know what would replace it.

An instant way to feel more at peace is to get clear on what you want to put into the world. What do you want to spend your time on and why? Answer that question honestly for yourself (not for anyone else) and the reward will be that at the end of the day, whatever you’ve done will feel like enough to you, regardless of how others respond.

I didn’t always realize I had this power. I used to give it away every day, thinking happiness came from achieving things that required controlling outcomes (and truthfully, I still catch myself defaulting to this when tired, not feeling well, or ‘in a rush’)—making things look good on the surface. If I just worked harder, positioned myself better, or got people to see my value, everything would click.

But true progress doesn’t come from gripping harder and forcing it. I mean, it can happen that way, but who wants to spend their life pushing a rock up a hill like that? Gravity is there for a reason. Inspired change comes from shifting your focus to what you can control—your motivations, your energy, and what you do next.

Why Do We Pour Energy Into What We Can’t Control?

So much of overachieving, self-doubt, and perfectionism comes from worrying about or taking responsibility for things outside our control (I personally relate to these themes so much, I wrote a book about it). We try to prove something, convince someone, or force an outcome that’s (mostly if not completely) outside of our control. And the harder we push, the more restless, resentful, or even helpless we feel.

Especially when perfectionism takes hold, our brains make most things feel urgent, all external validation appears necessary to avoid rejection, and endless internal what-if spirals seem normal. I spent years of my life silenced by the fear of others misunderstanding or judging me, without realizing my real power was in focusing on what I could add to the world around me, what I wanted to create.

What Happens When You Focus on What You Want to Create?

Everything changes.

When we stop obsessing over outcomes and start putting our energy into finding our inner purpose and serving others, the noise quiets. The anxiety fades. The self-doubt loosens its grip.

That’s why I created The Story Is Yours—to remind myself (and maybe you) that we get to choose where we put our energy. Throughout my life, I heard some variation of “Focus on others, and you’ll find more peace.” It took me years to fully absorb just how beautiful that idea is when put into action. As I understand it, simply put, if you give because it feels like the right thing in your heart, not because you expect, want, or hope for a certain response or outcome in return, you’re already there. And your arrival has so much peace because the destination and when you get there is yours to claim (pro tip: leave the baggage on the spinning conveyor belt, it’s dead weight, and you deserve new luggage.)

So Here’s My Simple Invitation for You:

What’s one small way you can shift your focus today? Not on what you hope will happen, not on how others might react to it, but on what makes you feel happy, inspired, and hopeful when you put it out into the world. I invite you to define it and take steps to make it yours.