What's REALLY holding you back from writing that book?

What's really holding you back from writing that book?

Many people have a dream of writing a book, many even start putting pen to paper, but few actually see it through to completion let alone publishing. 

In fact 97% of people who start writing a book never finish! Why is that? 

As someone who had tried numerous times to write a novel I eventually got frustrated and I enlisted the help of a top life coach to help me succeed. What I discovered was that being creative and able to write well was not enough! The writing of the book is but a tiny part of a much bigger puzzle and we had to do a lot of personal development work turn me into someone capable of being an author whilst I wrote the book.

What do I mean by "someone capable of being an author?" Allow me to elaborate.

Writing a novel is challenging and there are a million and one hurdles to overcome. It requires the mindset of a warrior, incredible commitment and consistency, a huge amount of self confidence and the ability to take a tonne of rejection and criticism. An author is not just a writer, they are also a marketer, a salesperson and a personal brand. The fact of the matter is that most people who set out to write a book simply are not equipped or prepared to handle to all of this and so they give up.

Often the biggest hurdle that we have to overcome is actually ourselves and our lack of preparedness for such a huge goal. The real problem is generally self sabotage in the form of self doubt and lack of knowledge or understanding of the publishing world. We go in ill equipped for the task and so failure is likely, just like someone trying to climb Mount Everest without doing any research or training first.

For many, the first hurdle they hit is usually a massive case of imposter syndrome. How do they tell people that they are writing a book? What will people think?

Most authors are just ordinary people and they've all been there. That horrible place where you're a writer but nobody in your real life even knows about it. You keep your work to yourself or you hide behind a pen name, the thought of people finding out about your dirty little secret leaves you in a cold sweat. The terror of how people would react if they found out you were trying to be a writer haunts you. Generally this comes from a place of insecurity and fear.

Deep down inside you don't really believe in yourself so you fear nobody else will believe in you either. This is where you have to start spending some time working on your mindset and learning to back yourself and not to care for the opinions of others. The book you are writing is going nowhere until you can admit to writing it and own it and trust me when I say this, if you don't feel ready now, you will probably NEVER feel ready to do that without doing some serious work on your confidence first.

If you want to be one of the tiny 3% of people who actually stay the distance and finish writing their book, you might have to start looking at yourself and this goal differently.What you have to understand is that most people go through life being average, they do and achieve nothing spectacular and they are ruled by fear. In society there is a "crab bucket" mentality whereby people try to keep each other on the same level, like having a bucket of crabs and one daring to try to get out but the others quickly pulling it back in. It's not usually from a place of bad intent, the crabs see the one who trying to escape as taking a risk and with the best of intentions they try to save it by dragging it back from the edge and keeping it in the bucket to protect it.

In deciding to go after a huge goal like writing a novel you are daring to climb out of society's "crab bucket" and quite rightly you have assessed that most people in your life won't understand why you'd dare to do that! Some people will doubt you and your ability, some people will try to hold you back to protect you from chasing your dream because they see it as a risk and not a secure career and sadly some people with bad intentions will also try to hold you back for selfish reasons, like not wanting to be outdone or left behind by your success.

Whatever their intentions though, we simply cannot afford to be held back by the opinions of others, I'm sure that the very people whose opinions you fear have made many, many life decisions that you would have made differently. Their choice of career might bore the pants off you, their choice of romantic partner may not be your type... We are not all the same and some of us were not destined for the crab bucket whilst some others live a very happy life from the safety of it. There is no right or wrong and we don't all have to play it safe and stick to the status quo of a 9-5 with a pension scheme, so make your own decisions and don't let people who are very different from you tell you how to live your life.

Once I understood this I just had to surrender my ego, jump out of the crab bucket and stop seeking approval from the people who choose to live differently. I decided to tell the world I was writing a novel and let them say and think whatever they wanted without it affecting my goal. They are doing them and I am doing me, we're not the same and that's OK! They might not understand why I'd chase an "impossible" dream but they don't have to. So what if people laugh? So what if people judge or doubt my ability. The only opinion that matters to me is mine and if I really want to write and publish books I will have to go my own way. It's crowded at the bottom and lonely at the top as the saying goes.

Besides, just because our current inner circle might not understand or support our goal, it doesn't mean we have to go it alone! We can expand our circle and surround ourselves with other people with similar goals. Social media allows us to connect with people globally, we can join online communities where we can engage with others who are on the same journey and who support and understand what we are doing and who will encourage us. We can also start making new friends in our lives who are also the type of people to climb out of the crab bucket and who get it! People who are on business building journeys, fitness journeys, chasing the dream of becoming a musician or actor, influencers or comedians for example will all face the same sort of challenges and are good friends to find support from. They know what it's like to have a big goal that the average person would never understand, much less dare to actually pursue!

Once that initial hurdle was dealt with I had to work on the rest of the issues that were holding me back.

My life coach got me to understand that outcomes are formed by intentions and actions. It wasn't just enough to want to write the book, I had to be carrying out the actions daily and working hard to get it done. I had to knuckle down and write. If I didn't have the time I needed to make the time. I needed to sacrifice in the short term to succeed in the longer term. I had to become very self disciplined and consistent and that was something I struggled with a lot.

He suggested I joined the gym. To be honest I thought he was a bit bonkers, what on earth did joining the gym have to do with writing a book? How would that help?

Well, it turns out quite a lot actually! What he got me to see was that in order to to achieve this goal I'd have to build a very strong and resilient mindset and that the gym was the best place to create one. Whilst writing the book I'd need to have the ability to self motivate, have unwavering commitment, stamina, confidence in my self and total refusal to quit. A good, regular workout regime helped me to build all of these skills. I had to learn to "show up" daily, even when I couldn't be bothered and didn't want to. I had to learn to push through those mental blocks and self doubts when I was struggling and my negative thoughts made me believe I should quit. All of this was transferable to being an author. On the days when I couldn't be bothered writing or on the days where my self doubt took hold I could call upon the resilience I'd learned in the gym to keep me pushing forward. I'd been a quitter most of my life but not anymore! I had learned that I could over ride my self sabotaging negative thoughts and behaviors and stick at it even when the going got tough.

The next big thing we thing we had to address was my massive fear of criticism. As writers we get a lot of this and we need to learn to be OK with it and not take it personally or let it deter us.

Something I came to understand was that confidence can only come from doing and that as someone who was hiding and not putting my work out there I would never become confident. I was stuck in a cycle of self of doubt. I had no confidence because I had no positive feedback on my writing but I refused to put my work out there to get that positive feedback because I was terrified of the possibility of getting criticism. This cycle would go on forever unless I just took a bold leap of faith and broke out of it.

The comfort zone is a lovely place, but nothing grows there! I had to get OK with the uncomfortable feeling of people reading my work.

What my coach got me to see was that writing is an art from and appreciation of the arts is subjective. It's a fact that not everyone is going to like what you write and as a creative you have to learn to be OK with that! Think of your favourite movie of all time, then try to get your head around the fact that there are people out there who despise it! Does that make the movie bad and make you and the other millions of people who love it wrong? Or is that just a difference in taste and opinion? Try to apply the same logic to the prospect of receiving negative feedback on your own work and commit yourself to not taking it personally. This should make it a lot easier to put your work out there and to gain some positive feedback to fuel your confidence whilst not fearing any criticism that may also come your way. 

It is also helpful to keep in mind who your target audience is and to primarily listen to them and their opinions, because if you write teen romance but get feedback from a 70 year old Sci Fi fan they're probably not going to like your book and rightly so, after all you didn't write your book for them! All too often writers are deterred by someone from out of their target audience criticizing their work, when in all honesty that persons opinion shouldn't have ever come into the equation! Would a rocket scientist listen to the criticism of a farmer? I think it is best to stick to listening to those who are properly aligned with your genre because they know best!

I hope this bit of insight into my own journey serves to help you overcome some of the obstacles that get in the way and that I've answered some of the questions people have asked on twitter. I feel like I have barely scratched the surface in this article and would love to share more with you, so if you have any questions either pop them in the comments of drop me a tweet and I'll happily write some follow up articles and expand on this initial mindset piece.

Take care and keep writing, you've got this!

Helen. xx