Category Archives for "Book Writing"

5 Lessons I Learned Writing a Book

Do you dream of writing a book? Do you have a book started but you can’t seem to finish it?

Here are 5 lessons I learned while writing my book "The Unexpected Entrepreneur: Now You're Here, Make a Difference While Making a Living".

My hope is that these 5 lessons will help you with your book writing journey.

Your dream of writing a book and making it a reality is more than possible.

Understand your motivation for writing a book.

The beginning always starts with the end. If you don't know where you're going, it's pretty hard to know when you get there!

Creating a compelling why before you start writing is critical.

When you plug into your deepest purpose to understand "why" you want to write a book, this will give you a clear understanding of your motivation.

If you don't understand your motivation or know why you want to write a book, it’s difficult to get excited about it. We all know what happens if we're not excited to do something. Nothing.

Your vision for your book will spur your action and it will be your anchor when things get hard. And writing a book is hard.

Don't make the book or the writing process about you.

Unless you're writing a memoir, try not to make your book all about you. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but trust me on this one.

Most writers are writing books to help, inspire or educate people and what do people love to focus on? Themselves!

If your book is primarily focused on you, your reader will lose interest and stop reading your book. This is not good and it defeats the point of a book.

You will have put a lot of time and energy into writing and you want your reader to get the most out of your book by reading it.

So remember that writing a book is about blazing a trail for others to follow. And they will follow if it's about them, not you.

The key is what you're putting out into the world and to leave it better than how you found it.

Have support and accountability people around you when writing a book.

Remember when I said writing a book is hard?

This is why as a writer, you will need support and accountability from the people around you during the writing process.

Ask someone you trust and has your best interest at heart to hold you accountable. Share with them your timeline and plans. Give them permission to hold you to it.

Support is crucial. You will need inspiration and a push from time-to-time to keep you going when you don't feel like it. And trust me, there will be many days you won't feel like it.

Your support people should also be there to help you with "life things" while you focus on writing.

Together, accountability and support are the magic formula to get it done.

If you can find someone who's also writing a book, that's a huge bonus because you can be accountable to each other for the same goal - to write and publish your books!

The support piece can be challenging as you both will be focusing hard on your individual writing goals, but the commiseration with someone who knows exactly what you're going through is invaluable.

Take your tribe with you on the book writing journey.

People are interested and fascinated with the mystery of the behind the scenes of writing a book. Give your tribe regular and real sneak peaks into the life of a writer.

Show them the good stuff, the hard stuff and be honest when you feel like quitting.

The outpouring of encouragement and support you will get will amaze you. People want to get involved (especially when you make it all about them!).

You being open about the book writing process will spark excitement and inspiration in people in ways you won't even realize.

And then when it comes time to launch your book, your tribe will have so much "skin in the game" they will be compelled to show up and help birth your book baby into the world!

Set your work and life up well before you start writing a book.

You must have good organizational and time management skills to write a book.

It takes commitment. It takes boundaries. It takes focus. It takes dedication.

You will have to sacrifice while writing so think in advance about all of the ways you can prepare and set up your work and life before you start.

How do you need to set up your calendar?

Are there tasks you can delegate or automate?

What should you stop doing or eliminate to make extra time capacity?

Are your finances in good shape?

You can do hard things!

There are thousands of books that have been written by aspiring authors just like you.

Is it hard? Yes.

Is it impossible? No.

Use the lessons I learnt while writing my book to help you get your book out into the world.

You can absolutely do this!

Common Challenges Entrepreneurs Face

Your challenges and difficulties are the lessons you need to learn and grow.

They are not a reason to stop moving forward and give up on your dream.

You can change how you view difficulties and use them to your advantage and growth.

Read on and enjoy the next excerpt of my book.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

"A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Success is Built on Challenges and Courage

Challenges are the spaces between where you are right now and where you want to be. They are lessons in disguise. 

The lessons I learned in the valleys of my life are that every success I’ve enjoyed was built upon a thousand failures. When you find the courage to find opportunities in difficult and challenging times, you can dramatically transform your work and your life.

When we are faced with hard times, we don’t always feel all that courageous. Our usual response is anxiety, doubt, and fear.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have courage inside of you. 

Courage is interesting because you only need it when you’re feeling anxious or afraid, so courage is there even if you don’t feel it during a challenging situation.

Overcoming Deep Challenges

The only way I've found to overcome a deep challenge is to change the way you think about it. The way you think impacts how you feel. How you feel controls your behaviour. Your behaviour leads to your outcomes. 

Overcoming challenges means changing your thinking. 

Changing your thinking means:

Overwhelm From the Outside

Do you regularly think “I need help but there is so much out there I can choose to do - which way do I go?”.

Be wary of every snake oil salesman promising you that if you take their course, download their list, or implement their secret system this will be the key to your overnight success.

It’s not necessarily that what they’re selling is bad, but you may not be ready for their step, or you might be way past what they are offering.

When you have a clear dream and solid goals to get you there, it’s easier to recognize anything that doesn’t support or move your dream forward.

Anxiety From the Inside

Anxiety is triggered when we don’t know or are afraid of what the future holds. But feeling anxious doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on the wrong track.

You may think that if you’re experiencing anxiety that you’re making a wrong choice, but this isn’t always the case. If you start to view your anxiety as simply an indicator that you’re entering the unknown, you get to choose if you move forward or not.

Anxiety also doesn't mean that you won't be successful if you do proceed. 

Change your mind set by thinking of anxiety simply as data. 

Attach your thoughts to your future, not to your anxiety. Ask yourself "What is my anxiety at this moment showing me? What would be different if I were willing to just feel anxious and not fight it?"

If your anxiety gets the better of you, take a break. Go for a walk. Journal. Enjoy a cup of tea. Talk to your doctor. Have a nap. Pick up the phone and call someone and talk it through.

Making the Most of Your Challenges

"A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Your challenges and difficulties are the lessons you need to learn and grow.

They are not a reason to stop moving forward and give up on your dream.

You can change how you view difficulties and use them to your advantage and growth.

Read on and enjoy the next excerpt of my book.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

Challenges Are the Lessons You've Been Waiting For

Challenges are part of everyday life.

However, there are certain points in our lives when a challenge turns into a time of great adversity and hardship.

We sense in these dark and fearful moments that our very survival depends on the decisions we make.

The question to ask yourself is...will this challenge break you or will it be a breakthrough?

As you stand at the crossroads, you need all your strength and wisdom to make this weighty decision.

Now is not the time to base your next move on a whim or out of habit and repeat the past.

This moment is also not the time to beat yourself up with guilt, blame, or shame. 

Instead, ask yourself these 3 constructive questions:

Challenges Cannot Be Avoided

Times of challenge in life cannot be avoided. Mistakes and failures are inevitable. Stress is a given.

As people living on this earth, we experience many highs and lows, fear and freedom, love, and hate, pain, and pleasure.

All your mistakes, failures, and challenges can be used for your good and growth.

The ugly.

The beautiful.

The hard things.

If life was always smooth sailing, you would never experience the refining of your soul.

These hard lessons sharpen your character, your strength, and your faith.

Seasons of challenges are meant for your good, not to harm you.  

Progress Over Perfection

The key to make progress over perfection is to make the decision to take the first step on the journey.

Learn to be content with what you accomplish, even when it's not perfect.

Work on letting go of your fear of failing….failures are simply lessons that improve your future.

Small steps, done consistently everyday makes a massive impact on how productive you are over time.

Read on and enjoy the next excerpt of my book.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." - Martin Luther King, Jr

Perfect Means Less Progress

The quest for total perfection is exhausting when the pressure to be perfect is not necessary.

The more perfect we think things need to be, the more distracted we are and the less progress we make.

Unrealistic perfectionism clings to this crazy notion that if you can’t do it perfectly the first time and you put it off, magically sometime down the road, you’ll be more intelligent, have more time and do it absolutely perfect.

The serious problem with this logic is that it’s flawed.

The perfect time never comes and your work sits there undone. The vicious perfectionism, procrastination, paralysis cycle continues and feelings of guilt, shame, and intense stress get piled on.

Doing Your Best is Progress

Do your best in your work and your best truly is good enough.

Acknowledge that at the beginning of learning or doing something new, you won’t be good at it. You will never be perfect at something the first time you try it.

Keep at it. Persist and be consistent. Practice and improve. Iterate as you learn.

These are the keys to getting good and "perfecting" a task or new skill and creating a thriving business.

The more you practice being perfectly imperfect, you will see that poisonous perfectionism is not necessary to make progress on achieving your big dreams.

Destroy Your Procrastination

Destroying procrastination and improving your productivity gives you the freedom to live your best life, whatever that means to you. 

Striving for perfectly imperfect (not perfection) is a good thing. Wanting things to be well done and polished is perfectly fine. An excellence mindset is far more balanced and attainable than an unhealthy perfectionist mindset. 

Read on and enjoy the next excerpt of my book.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." - Martin Luther King, Jr

Procrastination is a Habit You Can Change

How much time and energy over the years have you wasted telling yourself you can't? Or I don't feel like it? Or I'm afraid. Or I'm not prepared, ready, excited…?

Procrastination is an irrational and unnecessary delay of a task or activity and it happens to everyone at some point or another. It’s your ancient brains way of keeping you safe by avoiding things that are scary or consume more energy than it thinks it’s worth. Your mind is wired to dislike change and it puts off until tomorrow what it should do today.

But the habit of procrastination doesn’t have to be your experience. 

You can override your ancient brain with the more robust and modern prefrontal cortex part of your brain. Procrastination makes simple things difficult and difficult things even harder.

Stop procrastinating and start right where you are. Even if you don’t feel like doing something you know you need to do, do it anyway.

Focus on your strengths, abilities, and skills rather than on what you think lack. 

Destroy Your Procrastination

Letting go of perfectionism combined with goal setting, planning, and taking action is the secret to destroy your procrastination. Not doing the things you don't like, what you aren't comfortable with or what you’re "afraid of" is your brain controlling your actions.

When you choose to act and do it anyway, you WILL retrain your brain NOT to procrastinate.

Starting is always the hardest part. Once you get going on a task, it is never as difficult as your brains tells you it will be. So as you continue working on a task, you start to feel better and better. Reminding yourself of this whenever your ancient brain tells you to procrastinate, will help encourage you to start.

Good Enough, Not Perfect, Will Make Your Procrastination Quit

We already know it's 100% impossible to do everything perfectly. Excellent, yes. Good enough, yes. Perfect, no.

Perfection doesn't exist. 

When you overcome the habit of procrastination, the work you have to do, but don't like, won't hang over your head. You will get better at the tasks you don't know how to do well. The unrealistic fears and limiting beliefs in your head will stop choosing for you.

Instilling new ideas about unhealthy perfectionism into your mind and then deciding on new practices and ways of working is what will make your procrastination quit.

What is Poisonous Perfectionism?

Poisonous perfectionism derails your productivity and makes it very challenging to achieve your goals and realize your dream.

This is why it’s important to reprogram your unconscious negative thought patterns to a healthier and more balanced “perfectly imperfect” mindset which helps you accomplish more of the right things with ease.

Read on and enjoy the next excerpt of my book.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." - Martin Luther King, Jr

Poisonous Perfectionism Defined

Poisonous perfectionism is a deep need to appear flawless and a wrong way of thinking that perfection is possible. The real cause of poisonous perfectionism is based on a low self-image, a lack of self-worth, limiting beliefs and fears.

These seeds of negativity will never bear good fruit. It is impossible to think negatively and have a positive outcome.

When you’re so afraid of making a mistake or looking foolish in front of others, you tend to put off that task and procrastinate. The more you procrastinate, this eventually leads to paralysis. When you become paralyzed by your poisonous perfectionism this is when the negative effects start showing themselves in your work.

This is the Poisonous Perfectionism, Procrastination, Paralysis Loop and once you are in this vicious cycle, it is very difficult to accomplish what needs to be done to realize your entrepreneurial dream.

The Poisonous Perfectionism Antidote

There is a way of breaking this poisonous perfection loop and it's found in one basic mental law.

What you choose to put into your subconscious brain will always show up in your reality.

Your subconscious mind dutifully accepts your  thoughts as facts and acts on them as if they 100% truth. Unhelpful thought programs (such as poisonous perfectionism) are easy to hold onto as you don’t need a lot of mental energy to keep them running.

Your brain already believes them and just keeps operating on this level unless you decide to replace these old thought patterns with new ones.

Poisonous Perfectionism is the Effect Not the Cause

Your brain's subconscious conditioning is trained to avoid uncomfortable emotions, feelings, and failure. This means that poisonous perfectionism and procrastination is the EFFECT not the CAUSE.

This is really great news because it means that unhealthy, poisonous perfectionism and the ramifications of paralyzing procrastination can be altered. It is possible to change the program in your subconscious mind and turn the switch off on your poisonous perfectionism, if you choose to.

Simply change your mindset and your results WILL change.

Now that we've established that success and failure are the result of your mind, you can decide to stay as you are in the limiting and toxic perfectionism, procrastination, paralysis loop or you can decide to be uncomfortable for a while and change how you think.

Success means deciding to change and act. Failure means indecision and delay.

The Two Sides of Perfectionism

Poisonous perfectionism derails your productivity and makes it very challenging to achieve your goals and realize your dream.

This is why it’s important to reprogram your unconscious negative thought patterns to a healthier and more balanced “perfectly imperfect” mindset which helps you accomplish more of the right things with ease.

Read on and enjoy the next excerpt of my book.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." - Martin Luther King, Jr

Poisonous Perfectionism Versus Perfectly Imperfect

As an unexpected entrepreneur I struggle with the dark side of my imbalanced and unhealthy perfectionist habits every single day. 

Trust me friends....this is written from a place of hard-learned lessons.

I started my 30-year corporate career in commercial real estate knowing absolutely nothing about the industry or corporate practices. I didn’t even know how to turn on the shared computer (yes we shared one computer back then!).

My new boss was tough as nails and wouldn’t accept anything less than 150% effort and 100% perfection. There was no room for errors. I was expected to stay late or come in early to ensure whatever project I was working on was absolutely perfect.

Perfectionism Works...Until it Doesn't

At the time, I thought I was learning the right way to approach my work. I excelled, I grew, I learned, I was promoted and I accomplished many things which I’m very proud of.

My perfectionism was one of the greatest sources of my accomplishments but also of my anxiety and stress.

This perfectionism was repeatedly etched into my brain over the first 5 years of my career. As I rose up the ranks, my subconscious fear of making mistakes grew. The stakes were so much higher as my role and responsibilities expanded.

The perfectionist habits that got me to where I was in my career began to reveal a dark side, especially as an unexpected entrepreneur.

The late nights took a toll on my husband, my kids, and my physical and mental health. The impossibly high standards for my team made them feel like they could never measure up.

Good enough was never good enough so I dug in harder, longer, stronger. The stress was killing me and I never attained the perfect results I wanted.

My drive for absolute perfection never worked the way I thought it should.

Practice Being Perfectly Imperfect

My poisonous perfectionist habits were getting the best of me and taking my focus away from where it needed to be.

What I didn’t realize at the time is that there is a level of perfectionism that works but that my perfectionism was based on unrealistic expectations, fear of failure and disappointing others.

When I eventually realized the negative impacts of my unhealthy perfectionism, I knew I needed to delve deeper and regain a balanced sense of perfectionism, one that works and not undermines my progress and success.

I’m now a recovering perfectionist by practicing being perfectly imperfect.

Believe Your Dream is Possible

Starting with a powerful vision for your work is the first step we conquer in the Productivity Mastery Program.

Your vision from your passion is what guides your steps.

It anchors your focus to accomplish those things that make the biggest impact in your work to achieve your dreams.

By creating a powerful vision you cannot ignore, this lays the foundation for “why” you decide to become more effective, efficient and productive.

Believe your dream is possible and do everything you can to turn it into your reality.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

"When you see the invisible, you can do the impossible." - Oral Roberts

Believe Your Dream is Possible

What if, in dreaming and designing your future, you write your name down on the Master Plan?

What if, in dreaming and designing your future, your mind moves in agreement with what it already knows is true and creates it as your reality?

What if, in dreaming and designing your future, waiting for you is abundance, magnificent plans, rich blessings, and the ability to serve others?

My dream has now come alive.

Every day I'm actively and strategically participating in the creation of my dream. Step-by-step my dream is growing and thriving inside my mind as it becomes reality in the world.

Awaken the longing that lies dormant inside of you by finding the dreams you were born to create.

Focus your attention inward to the truth of your dreams so that your deepest purpose will be revealed.

Trust that all of the ideas you will need will be revealed to you in the right order when you decide, design and act upon your dream.

You are the only one responsible for your dream. Wrap your arms around your dream. 

Let go of the fear and worry that holds you back.

Believe in your dream and do everything in your power to turn it into your reality.

You are more capable than you know.

Your dream can change the world, and you are a dreamer my friend.

Designing Your Dream

As an entrepreneur, it's essential to have a big dream, the right mindset, and solid productivity skills to build your business.

One of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face are the constant feelings of overwhelm, doubt, and fear that seems to be inescapable when you work for yourself.

This book is being designed to help you as an entrepreneur gain clarity on your dream, create a positive mindset directed towards success plus discover and overcome your productivity blocks.

Expanding your vision and polishing your productivity skills lays the foundation to transform how you work to enjoy greater results, freedom and success in your business.

Read on and enjoy the next excerpt of my book.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

"You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world." - Sheilah Graham

Designing Your Dream

Your powerful why and hope for the future rests within your dream.

It provides a sense of purpose and steers your direction.

It influences the decisions you make along the way.

It’s your anchor which holds your dream in place to keep you from drifting off course.

It keeps you focused.

It’s your guiding light which reveals the deeper meaning and purpose to the work of your hands.

Clarity is created when you catch sight of your dream for the future.

Clarity is power and the clearer you are, mountains mysteriously move to make your desire a reality.

If you're not crystal clear on your vision, focusing on what’s most important in your work is challenging.

Look at your dream as the function of connective tissue in your body. It is the lifeblood that runs through your work.

Design a dream that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. 

Make your dream so compelling and exciting that you can’t ignore it and you refuse to let it go. The act of designing your compelling dream sets the foundation for your productivity.

My new dream came after I helped my mom overcome many decades of chronic disorganization in her home.

I realized that what made me successful and a high achiever in my life and career was my natural talent and skills around time management and productivity.

This was it!

This was always a love of mine and what I taught to people on my team for decades. This was my unfair advantage.

This was my dream!

And so I became an unexpected entrepreneur.

Once I planted this flag, I set to work researching, planning, and piecing together my business from nothing to a what it is today.

Slowly, step by step, my dream unfolded.

I worked at not rushing it or becoming unreasonably fearful of the unknown.

The pencil sketch of my budding dream was coming together.

It was like carrying a child inside of me as I felt it grow and expand in ways that still amaze me.

The freedom I finally felt being able to be as creative and crazy as I wanted to be was liberating and exciting.

My dream still hasn’t found the edges of its boundaries but I’m in awe of how letting go of my limits and letting my dream live in the land of possibility has given it space to grow.

So let your imagination run wild.

Set it free to wander.

Dream dreams - big dreams, crazy dreams, the kind of dreams that will fail if you don’t have total faith in possibility.

Nothing is impossible when you decide on possibility. You might think you’re limited in your dreaming, but the realm of possibility is not limited.

Looking within will lead you to the place where your greatest dream for your life lives and you will catch a glimpse of the you that you’re going to be.

Doing What It Takes

When you discover your compelling dream and do what it takes to turn your dream into reality, this is your greatest business asset.

Dream on my friends.

Looking for home and / or business and productivity solutions?

Check out my collection of FREE resources prepared just for you!

“We are often pushed by pain until we are pulled by a vision.”  - Dr. Michael Beckwith

Vision isn’t just about seeing your future.

It’s about organizing, planning and then acting on the steps to get you there.

When you get involved in the realization of your dreams, unseen powers remarkably start bringing you what you need, when you need it.

Revealing and plugging into your compelling dream will inspire your action and the action of the all powerful Intelligent Mind.

When your dream reveals your future centred in the truth that lives in your heart, you are able to clearly recognize any invading untruth.

It makes knowing what steps to take in the journey much clearer.

Becoming crystal clear on your vision for your work is the first step.

Next is to put in place actionable stepping stones designed to lead you to achieve your dream over time.

Feeling overwhelmed and unfocused in your work happens when you don’t have goals that support your vision as you struggle to pin point your most meaningful work.

Dreaming and then doing what it takes to turn your dream into a reality is your greatest business asset as it helps you to challenge your current state and change your future circumstances.