Inspiring dreams and doom-mongering fear

Have you ever considered making some kind of big change in your life, but felt too afraid to take the plunge? Have you imagined yourself taking that plunge and what it could do for you and felt pretty awesome about the whole thing? Have you then found yourself worrying about what could go wrong or what your partner / friends / sister’s cat (delete as applicable) might think?

In that case I can tell you two things – you’re human and you’re not massively different to me.

I have oscillated many times between a sense of overwhelming inspiration and doom-mongering fear whenever I’ve thought about trying a new career path. For many years, the doom-mongering fear won hands-down. No contest. In my last year at university I thought ‘I need a job’ (you may also remember a panicked trip of your own to the careers office). I never really considered what I wanted from said ‘job’ and didn’t realise (or wanted to ignore the fact) that ‘a job’ (in whatever shape it came) would be the thing I would spend most of the rest of my life doing.

So, I left university and tried a number of different jobs which taught me a lot, but none of which inspired me for very long. What I was really missing, I soon realised (well, after about 8 or 9 years), was a sense of creativity. Until now, though, I was too nervous to try something different and, potentially, risky to satisfy this desire for a sense of creativity.

Becoming a writer

I’ve now finally decided to put the doom-mongering fear aside (though he likes to make a little cameo now and again) and try to become a writer. Surely, you say, to become a writer all you need to do is pick up a pen (or tablet or smartphone) or turn on your computer and get going? That’s the bit I’d been missing (a pretty crucial part of becoming a writer it would seem). Instead I’d just been thinking about it.

That is until one day when it struck me: the only person who decides if I’m a writer is me. I would simply have to write something, firstly, to be a writer. Secondly, I would have to call myself a writer. And that’s it. Obviously, many of us assume, as I think I had previously, that ‘writer’ means someone who has sold lots of books and is a celebrity of minor or major standing in their own right. That is a ’successful writer’, but being a ‘writer’ only really requires those first two things: write something and call yourself a writer.

So, anyway, I started writing and telling some people, but only a few as I was slightly nervous about doing this, that I was an aspiring writer (I always added the term ‘aspiring’ as if I aspired to write, but I hadn’t got round to it, which I guess, until recently, was true). Then I heard about ‘independent authors’ and self-publishing and thought that this might be the right path for me. I will explain a bit more about what these two things entail in a future post. Suffice to say, for now, that I am on the brink (in the next few months) of self-publishing my first two books for ‘middle grades’ children (approximately 8 to 12 years-old). So, what have I learned from the first few months of this journey?

5 things I’ve learned from trying my new path

1. No one’s going to tell you off – This is something I regularly have to remind myself before I write something or give it to someone to review (this blog post included to be honest with you). I get this odd feeling that I’ve done something wrong like a little boy who’s just been called to the headteacher’s office (obviously I was never called to the headteacher’s office myself…that much). I think people will be angry or disappointed (not sure who these people are or why they might be angry, but I couldn’t bear to disappoint these imagined people). I have learned that it is highly unlikely that people will be angry or disappointed (unless you’ve committed a crime or written something pretty unpleasant about them) and people are normally more supportive than you think they’ll be.
2. You need to know what you want and WHY – Identifying a vision of what you want and why you want it makes it easier to navigate the times of doubt and difficulty. This is because you know what’s at stake if you don’t do it. Doing this myself has also given me the confidence to know that any setbacks I’ve encountered aren’t fatal to achieving my vision – you just need to find a different route.
3. It doesn’t matter what others think (they probably don’t think it anyway) – We all suffer self-doubt based on our perception of what others think of us (my friend the ‘doom-mongering fear’) and, sadly, often this leads to inaction. The truth is that other people are not thinking of you the vast majority of the time: they are thinking of themselves. As Eleanor Roosevelt once put it, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do”.

4. 

   We decide how we use our time – We often tell ourselves we don’t have time, whether it’s to call that friend, take a short break away or even write a book. The truth is, we choose not to make time. This is perfectly acceptable as long as we’re making that decision on an informed and sound basis. The truth is, I’m not sure that I was making those decisions on an informed and sound basis in the past. Instead I was spending quite a bit of time doing things I didn’t like or things I’d drifted into without thinking. Being more intentional about how I use my time now has meant I am using more of my time for the things I find fulfilling (you will always still have to do some things you don’t like, of course).

5.  If you don’t define happiness someone else will do it for you – We don’t define happiness. We let society define it for us. Few people stop and identify what happiness is for them, but instead fall into patterns determined by what they see in the media, on adverts or by what they think others think they should do (I’ve definitely been guilty of this). Then they stop after a number of years and wonder why they are unhappy.

And a sixth bonus learning (just thought of it as I was writing this):

6. The journey is as important as the destination – We shouldn’t be too impatient to arrive at the goals we’ve set ourselves and the aspirations we want to achieve. Instead, we should appreciate and enjoy the journey – it is as much a part of our lives as the fleeting moments of ‘arrival’. This is something I need to remind myself of regularly as I go down this new route I’ve chosen.

This particular journey into writing and self-publishing is still new and I’m very much at the beginning. It may not work and I will no doubt make more mistakes. But I’m glad I’m doing it and I look forward to sharing with you more thoughts on my journey.

Have you tried a big change in your life or are you thinking about it? If you have any thoughts yourself on the above please leave me a comment below. You can sign up for email notifications here, follow me on Twitter (@BarfordFitzG) or ‘like’ my Facebook page to keep up with what I am doing and any future posts.

You can find out about the two books on which I am currently working here. I hope to publish the first of these in Spring 2016.

Image credits:

Cliff Image – Patrick Pilz, unsplash.com

Oscar Wilde, angry man and ghoulish face – pixabay.com