8 Lessons for When you Want to Achieve Something Big
Writing my book taught me so many lessons.
When you have an ambition or dream it involves grit, consistency, failure and rejection…and it hurts.
The biggest barrier was my limiting beliefs about being able to get it done. ‘What you believe you achieve.’
So true.
Lesson 1: Raise awareness of limiting beliefs and then challenge them.
12 years ago, the first chapter of my book was red ringed by someone close to me. I felt about age 7 failing a spelling test. I ignored all the other positive comments about it and put my quill down …for 10 years!!
Then a client, (now friend) called me out one day and said, ‘So when are you going to write this book then?’ I felt embarrassed. How could I coach her towards achieving something better and not do it for myself?
I asked myself some questions:
- Really, why not?
- How would you feel if you didn’t do this?
- How would you feel if you did do this?
- What is the worst that can happen?
- If that happened, can you cope with that?
Lesson 2: Recognise when you need help.
I procrastinated a bit more to the point where it became uncomfortable. The first easy step was contacting a book coach. She was great for arse kicking, motivating, advising and supporting. Before I knew it, I was off the starting blocks.
Lesson 3: Work consistently towards your goal.
My coach kept me accountable. This meant I needed to schedule time in my diary to work on my book. Every Monday was book writing day. Did I get writers block and write a load of rubbish some days? Yep. I carried on regardless. The momentum got it done.
Lesson 4: Be prepared for rejection and failure. Learn to brush yourself off.
Once I completed my manuscript, I sent it to an agent. They gave lots of warm fuzzy indications which made me believe they were going to take me on. Three months later I got the rejection email. I was annoyed that I’d wasted three months and felt embarrassed that my work had failed to secure the agent.
Lesson 5: Patience really is a virtue. You’re in it for the long haul.
I’m an impatient bugger.
ONE rejection led me to scrap getting an agent and do the leg work myself, which immediately excluded me from the big publishing houses. If I ever write another, I’d get an agent.
I tarted my manuscript around many publishers. Some flatly ignored my submission which left me wondering…Oh what if. Should I hang on? Limbo land was awful.
One publisher said, ‘It’s not a best seller’. I brushed myself off.
Lesson 6: Keep the faith. Keep at it.
They were like buses. Nothing for months, then all of a sudden, I got offered three publishing deals. You never know what’s around the corner.
Lesson 7: Sometimes you have to do, what you don’t want to do and think of the end game.
I rarely read a book twice. Imagine having to re-read my own book a dozen times. I really disliked this activity. I’m also rubbish with detail, so trying to spot mistakes was difficult. Whenever I caught myself groaning at the prospect of re-reading my own material, I imagined how I would feel if I saw the mistake on Kindle. Sometimes we have to think of the pain we will experience by not doing an activity, to spur us on.
Lesson 8: Really stop and relish.
My first book delivery took me by surprise. I knew that the publisher would send me 6 free copies, I guess I expected to get them with the rest of the population. I got them 9 months before the book launch date!
Whenever I thought about writing a book, the image that sprung to mind was of my daughter and I opening the package together, (she loves a package delivery). That was my evidence of achieving the goal. To have the thing in my hand. Nothing else.
The boxes sat idly in my hallway all day. It looked like a boring package. When I eventually got around to opening the box — my daughter happened to be in the room with me, I went into shock. A good shock. It really was a moment. It took my breath away. I spent the whole weekend looking at it, absorbing it….and re-reading it! I allowed the achievement to settle in. Because here’s the thing, when something good happens, to really make it stick we must sit with the moment longer than we would a negative moment.
Negative moments get automatically encoded and quickly. This is our survival mechanism. We want to avoid that negativity next time to stay alive.
Whereas our survival isn’t reliant on us fully absorbing the good stuff.
This Segway’s nicely into one of the topics of my book: imposter syndrome. One of the reasons we feel like an imposter is that we don’t fully own our strengths, gifts, successes and achievements.
The average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are the same repetitive thoughts as the day before. This is because of negativity bias.
Therefore, to counter this negativity, we need to own our successes. Sit with the positive experience for 20–30 seconds longer, so that it sticks like Velcro. This is one of the antidotes to imposter syndrome. You can practice this habit by using my journaling template which you can download here.
To celebrate the publication of my book Inner Brilliance · Outer Shine: 10 Antidotes to Imposter Syndrome, Workaholism and Stress on 25/3/22, there’s still time to download a free copy of my here.
