Fame!
We all hear about overnight successes.
Someone writes and publishes their first book, and BAM! Success. A million sales. Bestseller out of nowhere. Shades of Gray…
One movie – instant star! That’s what happened to Orlando Bloom when he starred in Lord of the Rings.
Oh, how we wish it would happen to us!
That discovery. That one fan who tells all her friends and builds an avalanche of sales. That director who absolutely wants to make that movie out of our book!
We dream of exactly that.
But the truth is, it usually doesn’t happen that way. Usually, there is a lot of work that’s been done in preparation before someone becomes really successful.
Hugh Howey worked in a bookstore for years (and wrote in his lunch breaks) before his books got famous. He knew about the industry before he self-published.
Even J.K. Rowling needed years to get Harry Potter sold and off the ground.
“It takes fifteen years to be an overnight success.”
(Adrien Brody)
And that’s what it takes: Working hard for years in order to gain success.
Is it really worth it to work that hard? To toil away at something for years and years, only to have a slight chance of success?
Years and year of hard work?
If it’s your belief that you need to work really hard for success and that it takes long time, you’re doomed.
Because nobody likes to work hard for that long without rewards.
And that’s the thing. Your work has to be something that you enjoy. That you love – and fortunately, most of us are writing because we love telling stories, creating poems and being creative.
Yes, we still have to put butt in seat and hands on keyboard – but we can make it fun. We can create a habit to write every day, and see our stories grow. To get better at it every day. Learn what it takes, in this new world of publishing.
And then, suddenly, it doesn’t matter how the years fly by.
There will be a growing pile of stories that you wrote, of poems, of artwork. There will be a catalogue of books you published. And that is your real treasure.
That treasure is the foundation of your success.
Nothing else. And only you can create it.
So lets tap on the belief that it takes years and years of toil to be successful.
Even though I’ve been taught that it takes years of toil in order to reach success, I’m still a good writer, and I now give myself permission to enjoy my writing again.
Even though everyone knows that it takes tons of hard work and a decade or two to become an overnight success, I’m still totally okay, and I now allow myself to forget about all those rules and just have fun.
Even though it takes years of hard work in order to have success, I’m totally okay the way I am, and I now choose to enjoy my writing, learn the craft and the business – and then become an overnight success.
Your Turn:
Are you enjoying your writing?
What can you do to make it more fun?
What happened while you were tapping?
And finally – what are you creating right now?
Would love to hear from you!
Image Source: F. Moebius
PS: You’ll find my personal experiences with these beliefs in the comment section. Because I am tapping with these very sentences, I’m inviting you to join me on this journey, and share your experiences.
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