For most of my life, I crocheted. I was taught as a toddler to keep my hands from getting into mischief. (As if…)

I didn't crochet much during my years in the US, but coming back to South Africa at 16, everyone around me was doing it, so I picked it up again. I made things for myself at first, then for my baby, then for the house. Whenever I had a spare moment, I picked up a hook.

Fast-forward to the 2010s. I was running our family glass and aluminium business, which meant I had the pleasure of spending my afternoons carting my girls between school, swimming, and gymnastics. I spent countless hours sitting in the car waiting. To pass the time, I started experimenting with new designs, giving old crochet favourites a modern twist to make custom baskets, rugs, and bags.

My sister encouraged me to turn it into a business, and Moo Chick was born.

Through Etsy, my hobby suddenly turned into an export business, shipping all over the world. I even supplied South African boutiques with exclusive items, sending everything through the local post office.

Then, in 2015, the postal service collapsed into financial ruin. My udderly moovelous handmade goodies couldn't leave the country. Add a divorce and the loss of my day-job income, and suddenly, I was relying entirely on my hobby to pay all my bills.

I managed to get listed with Takealot in its early days. But between strict delivery deadlines and my inability to sprout additional arms (turns out, hand-crochet is not scalable), I couldn't make enough items fast enough to survive.

I had to return to the corporate job market and start over. Life was living, and as we all know, adulting can suck.

I still crocheted now and then (usually to make a blanket as a gift) but the resentment had set in. I couldn't enjoy it anymore. It felt like work.

Repeating the Pattern

Fast-forward to the past few years: I started this blog, and my passion for writing was reignited.

And what did I do? You guessed it.

I got caught up in the fantasy of being a writer, making a living from it, and escaping the 8-to-5 grind forever. (I am stubborn. Apparently, I need to make sure a mistake wasn't a one-off by repeating it until I finally accept it’s not working out the way I envisioned.)

Naturally, the pressure killed my writing momentum. Instead of just putting words on paper, my brain started asking: What’s the point if I can’t make money from this? Or worse, if I wrote something I really loved: Maybe I should stash this away until I’ve figured out how to monetise it.

The same thing stalled my progress with Winning the Fight.

Here I had this powerful idea to use my cancer journey to help others reclaim their lives, and what did I do? I got distracted by the coaching trend. I thought: What if I can build a profitable business out of coaching?

So, instead of just building the free programme to help people, I allowed myself to get distracted exploring paid business models.

Let me be clear: I do not want to charge cancer survivors. Cancer costs so much more than money, and I refuse to add to that burden. The Reclaim Programme is free and will always be free.

Yet, my brain tried to compromise: What if I package these ideas into paid coaching first, and then do the free version later?

The result? I didn't write. I didn't put together the steps to help people. I just sat there and did nothing.

The Soft Life Fantasy

Before we head down Shame Lane, let’s be fair: none of us can be blamed for wanting to make a living doing what we love.

We’ve been sold the scam of the 8-to-5 grind, trained to work forever. When we finally realise we’ve been duped, the escape route sounds glorious. Nobody wants to hustle indefinitely. We dream of the "soft life" like waking up in a little Parisian apartment, strolling to a local café for a croissant and a dark coffee, and spending the day writing. (Okay, fine. Maybe that’s MY specific fantasy.)

On top of the pressure to monetise, there’s the relentless pressure of social media. It feels like making money from anything creative now requires you to become a full-time content creator, performing for algorithms every single day.

This week, it finally clicked for me.

I don't write for likes and follows. I write because it’s part of who I am. It makes me happy. It speaks to and from my soul.

I don't want to support cancer survivors just so that people can see me doing it. I want to share my story because facing cancer allowed me to become the truest, most authentic version of myself. The version that allowed me to be ME again. The me that writes.

The Reset: Alignment Over Income

Through this realisation, I had to apply the exact framework I teach in Step 5 of the Reclaim Programme:

Be Yourself: Write authentically. Tell my story, write my fiction, and share how I came out on the other side of cancer. That is who I am.

Do the Work: Put words on the page without demanding an instant return. Show up, push my limits, and keep creating.

Surrender the Outcome: Release the desperation to monetise every creative spark. For something as deeply personal as my life’s work, the path is already set. Maktub. The rest will follow in its time.

Not Your Average Life Tips

How to Protect Your Creativity from the Monetisation Trap.
If you’ve accidentally ruined a hobby or stalled a creative project by trying to turn it into a side hustle, here is how to reset your mindset:

1. Separate "Joy Projects" from "Breadwinning"

Not everything you do well needs to be on an invoice. Give yourself permission to have hobbies that produce zero income. Your peace of mind is enough of a payout.

2. Identify the True Motivation

Ask yourself directly: Am I doing this because I love the process, or because I’m desperate to escape my day job? When you force a new creative project to carry the burden of paying your rent immediately, you strangle the joy out of it.

3. Create Before You Monetise

Build the thing first. Write the book, finish the project, build the free programme, paint the canvas. Let the work exist in its purest form before you even think about packaging, pricing, or promotion.

4. Reframe "Free" as Autonomy

Creating something free, like my Reclaim Programme, gives you total creative freedom. When no money changes hands, you owe no one a watered-down version of your truth. You get to speak directly from your heart.

Let’s chat: What’s one creative thing you do purely for the joy of it, with zero intention of ever making a cent from it? Drop it in the comments below!