The whole week I’ve been thinking a lot. The more I thought the more I got confused. Well thinking too much is a dangerous thing I have to say. Sometimes overthinking keeps you from actually taking action. You keep thinking and analyzing and coming up with outcome scenarios and after that coming up with back up plans… then back up plans for the back up plans which would not work… In short I was totally confused and lost.
I was thinking about my personal brand, about my presence online… about what to do next, about what to change and what to keep the same. I got in touch with good friends, who spent their time listening to my stories and plans and hopes and stuff.
I guess I wanted to know what I had to do… I was trying to map up my desired future and retro-plan it coming up with a plan how to get there. And as a result I learnt few things which I want to share with you today.
The first thing I realized after speaking to many people, and most of them are quite successful and prolific - is that I am not alone and many of them don’t have a clear vision either. And that’s ok… You see as far as you can see and you are able to see further only if you move forward. So by staying in one place and not moving you won’t see the future I’m afraid. No one knows where he or she will end. We can’t predict how life will turn out. But what we can do is act, try, experiment, do our best and walk one step at a time.
The other thing that I understood was - I was stuck because I felt overwhelmed. And I was overwhelmed because I was dreaming big. Please don’t get me wrong, dreaming big is good. The thing is when you are planning your actions looking at the big dream it may feel impossible. Reaching that big dream may feel very complex and complicated. And when that happens you may get stuck at one place.
So I would rather say Dream Big but Start Small. As Lao Tzu said the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. No one reached enormous success immediately. The success we see and think is an overnight success is cumulated result of many consistent small victories and accomplishments. So instead of feeling confused and instead of panicking because I did not know what to do next, all I had to do was take the first step and see where it takes me.
Putting these lessons into the more specific writing sphere I could say that don’t think too much whether you are good enough or not to write a book, don’t think too much whether people will like it or not, don’t overthink about how to promote, market and sell it. And also don’t think about a 600 page novel right away. Simply take action and write your first page.
Ok so that’s it for now… Move forward by writing one page at a time and enjoy the process!
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