Most writers are fearful of something. And for most of us we are afraid of any public acknowledgement and presentation of our work. So, for many of us, this can be a really difficult thing to overcome. But it can have a negative impact on our health and well-being as writers.
One of the most important ways to deal with your fears is to ensure that they don’t define you. Most of us take our fears personally. The important thing to remember is that our fears are out there just as your face and body image is. Also, our fears are merely negative stories that our mind keeps telling us over and over again. The real difficulty is that we usually end up believing these stories over time. And this is where our real problem lies.
Embracing Your Fears
So many writers are plagued by fears when they write, regardless of whether they are beginning writers or more mature ones. They have so many negative thoughts and feelings about their writing career and their ability to complete these projects. This negative mindset can wreak havoc with a writer’s self-confidence and overall productivity levels.
So, it is important to deal with these fears and embrace them as much as possible because if you don’t your fears will define you and possibly many of your writing projects. So, you have to deal proactively with your fears and come to terms with them before they start running your writing life.
Here are a few ways to take steps to embrace your fears.
• Sit down with your writing journal and write down all of your fears. Take your time coming up with your list. Be as honest as possible. The more honest you are the better it will be.
You may want to spend a week or so compiling your list. One way for you to generate this list is to carry your notebook with you at all times, especially when you sit down to write. As soon as you have a negative thought, write it down right away.
• Once you have your list of fears and negative thoughts, examine them. Write down the recurring negative thoughts on a separate sheet of paper. Then, choose one of the most common negative statements and work at stamping it out over the next few weeks. Choose one that isn’t very emotional but yet consistently on your mind. Then beside it, write a positive statement to replace the negative one. Practice saying the positive statement for a few weeks.
For instance, if one of your negative statements is that I will never finish this project, change this statement to I plan to finish this project this time. And keep repeating this positive statement.
By taking these steps, you will be gaining self-confidence as a writer, and you will be embracing your fears. This is not a recipe for success and happiness but for overall health.
So, you don’t have to be defined by your fears. Instead, you could problem-solve around your fears and resolve to be the best writer that you can be one step at a time. Just determine your worse fear and then work from there. In other words, work through your fears to eradicate them. By dealing with your fears directly, you will be taking steps to lessen their negative impact on you and in the process you will be taking control of these negative mindsets.
For a lot more tips on how to be a healthy writer, double click on this link: http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Writer-Irene-S-Roth-ebook/dp/B0176Y6NWG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1446101541&sr=1-1
Irene S. Roth, freelance writer and author, writes for teens, tweens, and kids about self-empowerment. She is the author of over thirty books and over five hundred online articles. She also writes articles for kids, tweens and teens and her articles have appeared in Encounter, Pockets, Guardian Angel Kids Ezine, and Stories for Children Magazine and Online. She also has five hundred published book reviews both online and in print. For more writing tips, please visit my website at: http://irenesroth.wordpress.com/
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5 comments:
Ah, the writer's fears. Great tips on how to get a handle on them so you can keep your writing life moving forward. Thanks for sharing, Irene.
For some people, fear doesn't stop them from writing but from submitting to publishers. If you don't submit or self-publish, your work is not allowed an audience.
Oh, gosh, Irene. I love this topic. My Frugal Book Promoter includes a chapter on the fears that hold us back--including fear of success, fear of failure, fear of marketing . . . It, too, gives a some info on how to get over fears. I believe the best way is to tuck a lot of knowledge under your belt. The more we know about something, the less fearful we are!
Nice to meet you!
Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
http://howtodoitfrugally.com
@Mary Jo Guglielmo, one of my secrets for submitting is having lots of submissions out at once--whatever genre we write in. Poetry. Short stories. Even submission for agents, etc. We are less likely to focus and worry when there are so many we can't track them all! (-:
Thanks for sharing, Irene. Your words will surely provide encouragement to aspiring and struggling authors face their fears and do what they love. ChatEbooks recently posted https://www.chatebooks.com/blog-Book-Marketing-Why-Authors-Should-Partner-With-Book-Bloggers
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