There’s a secret step, one that you might have skipped, one that no one told you about, that is essential for achieving success in writing. It’s going to sound overly simple but bear with me.
The number one step you must take in order to complete any writing goal is:
Believe you can do it.
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Yes. That’s it. So many times, we set goals for ourselves—say, to write an article a week, or a blog post a week, or finish a novel, and man-oh-freaking-man, we want to achieve that goal, but wanting is not believing.
Somewhere in the back of our minds, lurking around in that naughty subconscious of ours, we whisper, you fool. Who do you think you are? You can’t write. You can’t write a paragraph a day, let alone a whole article. You’ve been trying for years to finish a book and haven’t. What makes you think you’re going to achieve that now? Oh, yeah? Write an article a week? And write a novel? And market your books? And make a living? And pay your mortgage? You. Are. Cray. Cray.
Yeah. We don’t believe it. And it’s the lack of belief that drives our habits. Our daily choices.
Download the above Quote as a Free 8×10 Wall Art Printable: print it. Hang it. Remind yourself every day. Click here to download.
Don’t believe me?
Research has show people “are likely to base their behavior on their own inner beliefs and values—they let their inner thoughts and feelings guide their actions—and they may be particularly likely to strive to succeed on dimensions that allow them to demonstrate their own personal accomplishments (Lalwani et al., 2009).”
So what’s the solution?
It’s easy to say, hey, believe in yourself, buddy. But that’s easier said than done.
That’s why I like to break it down.
First, with myself. I break down the unconscious naysayers.
I pay attention to what I’m thinking and challenge it. If I’m procrastinating on writing that blog post…I ask myself why. Maybe the answer to that is I don’t have the time.
So, I break that down. Is that true? How long does a blog post to my fiction readers need to be? What’s the average word count of a blog post? A quick Google search shows that, for a regular SEO traffic strategy, we’re talking regularly hitting 1000 words a post. However, if you’re just talking about a quick communication to give fans more insight to your writing, regularly posting 500-600 words could suffice.
So, now, I need to ask myself, how long would it take me to write 600 words? I’ve already done the research on that, too. A five-minute email is usually around 300 words. So, in TEN FREAKING MINUTES I could POTENTIALLY write 600 words? Is that true?
OMG. That’s true! So, going back to my NO TIME subconscious mind-f#ck…I feed that information in. Well, mind, I could potentially write 600 words in ten minutes. Stick that down your blah blah blah.
Now, of course, your mind might shout right back: Yeah, but what about GOOD words? What about interesting words? What about entertaining words?
Now, you tackle that untruth. Follow those down the rabbit hole until you can unequivocally say:
I believe I can write a novel.
I believe I can write an article a week.
I believe I can write a 600-word blog post a week.
I believe I can fly…oh, off-topic.
Anyway, in order to succeed at any goal you set, you must first know, without a doubt, without your subconscious mind chiming in with a load of crap, that you can do exactly what you will set out to do.
And the rest is just taking action.
PRO TIP:
Prove it to yourself in increments. If your goal is to write a 600-word blog post a week, then sit down, choose a topic, and write 600 words. How long did that take you? Don’t overthink it. Don’t perfect it. Just see how long it took. Did you complete it? Do you have the time to do that every week? The point is to prove to yourself that you can do it. To really sink into the belief that you have what it takes to complete the goal at hand. Doing it and having success at doing it will build your confidence and belief.
What if you don’t accomplish the task? Then break it down. Ask yourself, what CAN I do instead? Maybe that’s a 250-word blog post. Maybe it’s drawing a cartoon instead of a blog post. Maybe it’s whatever. The point is to break that task into something you can achieve, and by doing that, you’ll be feeding your belief that you can accomplish things. Maybe it didn’t look like what you thought it was going to be when you first conceptualized the goal (I’m going to write a ten-book series!). Instead, you choose to write a novella, or heck, a short story. Choose what you can accomplish and you will build your belief system and confidence in yourself to tackle the bigger goals later.
There’s no shame in choosing what you can achieve. I know there’s that old saying, shoot for the stars, but in this case, you really want to shoot for completion. Shoot for feeling good about doing it, and finishing it, with whatever limitation you’re up against at the moment. Because there’s always that other saying…better done than perfect.
What are your musts for writing success? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
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