You Will Do This!
By James Batchelor on September 29th, 2022
“That is a really tough industry to break into.”
“Well, what are you going to do as a backup?”
“Most writers never make it!”
Sound familiar? From the first moment you summoned the courage to tell someone that you wanted to be a writer/artist/entrepreneur, you have been bombarded with cautionary, negative statements like this from well-meaning friends and family. This will typically be followed up with stories about how much rejection some famous author faced before finally have his or her first manuscript accepted. The unspoken message being that “if even JK Rowling barely made it, what chance do you have?”
It gets discouraging to forever be hearing about all the rejection and failures. It’s one more thing to weigh you down in the dark moments when you are wondering what you even do this for when not a single person in the world even cares.
But here’s the secret: all that rejection talk is a lie! It’s an illusion created by fearful people to warn you not to do something that they themselves did not have the courage, understanding, or drive to do. It is not that those things did not, and do not happen, but they did not happen to the people spouting it, and THEY DID NOT HAPPEN TO YOU!
I am here to tell you a simple truth that none of your well-meaning friends or family want to acknowledge because of all of the profound ramifications. And that truth is this, “not only can you do this, but you WILL do this!” How? By dealing with what’s in front of you right now. Forget all the nonsense that might happen in the future. It is impossible for anyone to contend with of all the future possibilities. No matter how much anxious worry you devote to the future, it will only accomplish one thing. It will keep you from doing your work in the here and now!
The only thing you have in this world is this moment right before you. The only thing in the universe you can control is yourself in this exact moment. The past is gone, and the future will never be. So, stop trying to control what can’t be controlled. Stop reading this blog, stop scrolling through social media, stop trying to plan for how you are going to publish the book you have not written, and get to work! Deal with the problem right in front of you at this moment and leave the future problems for the future.