15 Ways To Overcome Your Fears Of Writing A Book

Much of the population has aspirations of writing a book, but they’re held back by self-doubt and fear.

Not knowing where to begin, how to structure, and the steps to getting published has stopped many hopeful writers from turning their dreams into reality.

Fortunately, there are steps that anyone can take to successfully write a book and get it published.

The truth is, writing a book can help your entire career. It can turn you into an authority on your subject and put you on a road to a speaking career.

If you want to write a book, I am going to teach you 15 techniques to overcome your fear of writing, to get you going, and to get you to stop staring at a blank screen.

1) Write Often, Even When You Don’t Want To

One of the best ways to overcome your fears of writing is to write 1,000 words a day. The key to writing a book is to “Just Write!” It is one thing that you cannot get worse at by doing it.

2) Save Editing For The End

When you edit during the writing process it can hinder your creative flow. I will often write down my thoughts for my books without interruptions or editing. Get all the information out of your head and onto paper, you can go back and edit later.

3) Outline Your Book Before You Begin

 By having a strong outline it gives you a clear sense of purpose and direction. It also helps you see the end.

Start with a strong chapter that gives a lot of value and benefits to the reader, develop the subject throughout the book, and end with a strong chapter that summarizes and emphasizes the main points.

It is a simple formula, but it works, over and over.

4) Know Who You Are Writing For

When you know exactly who your audience is and who you’re writing for, you will be able to speak to your ideal reader easily in your writing.

5) Create Time For Yourself To Write

Some people will create the excuse that they don’t have any time to write. If you want to write a book, you must create a block of time every day reserved only for writing.

6) Free Yourself From Distractions

It is easy to become distracted. Especially when you are nervous about how your writing will turn out. If you need to seclude yourself in a quiet area you should do it. Free yourself of distractions and write.

7) Don’t Worry If Your Book Isn’t Perfect The First Time

Try not to get caught up thinking about errors in your book. Your goal should be to get all your ideas down and finish your thoughts before you go back and edit.

8) Stop Thinking About What Other People Will Think

Do not worry about what others will think of your writing or your book. What matters is that you get your message out.

9) Break Up Your Writing Into Chunks

Don’t think of it as writing an entire book at one time. Break up your writing. Write one chapter at a time or do a section every day. You don’t have to write it in sequential order as long as your book gets done.

10) Rid Your Mind Of The Fear Of Failure

Rather than focusing on fear and why you can’t write a book, focus on the future and the rewards that writing a book will have in your life.

11) Stay Organized

Organize your material into seven, ten, twelve or twenty-one chapters, each following in a logical order, from beginning to end.

Thinking in terms of a number of chapters forces you to decide what will be contained in each chapter, and how each of the chapters will be organized in relationship to each other.

12) Know When You’re Finished

Know when it is a time to put a bow on your work. You must be able to tell yourself that your work is as complete as can be, rather than obsessing over small details.

13) Become An Expert In Your Area

Continuously expand your knowledge on the subject you are writing about. If you have fears of becoming an author, expand your knowledge first.

Buy, read and find out everything you can about other authors, books or articles dealing with the same subject. Make sure that your material is different and better than other people writing in your field.

The more comfortable you are with your subject, the easier it will be to craft and write your book.

14) Craft Your Message First

You must know what message you want your entire book to convey.

• You have a burning desire to tell people this.
• You want to help people.
• You want your children to know about this message.

15) It’s Never Too Late To Start

If you’re worried that it is too late to start writing, it’s not. Take a look at this infographic of famous writers and when they began writing. The first step is to, “Just write!”

8 Task Management Tips To Stop Procrastinating And Get More Done

Tons of time management strategies have been developed over the years by hundreds of people to help you get more done in less time. Here are 6 of my favorite task management tips to help you stop procrastinating in your work and personal life.

Think about which one of these ideas could be most helpful to you right now, in your current situation.

1) Manage And Organize Your Tasks On Paper

Prepare thoroughly if you want to get things done. List every step of the job in advance. Break the job down into its constituent parts before you begin. Simply writing out every detail and thoroughly preparing in advance will help you to stop procrastinating.

2) Fully Prepare For Each Task

Second, come fully prepared for each task you work on.

When you sit down to work or to begin a task, make sure that you have everything on hand so that you won’t have to get up or move until the task is done. Being fully prepared is a powerful motivator for staying with the task until it is finished.

3) Take Small Steps To Manage Your Tasks

The 80/20 rule says that 20% of the task often accounts for 80% of the value of that task.

This is probably what Confucius meant when he said that, ‘‘A journey of 1,000 leagues begins with a single step.’’

Once you have taken even one small step to start the job, you will often find yourself continuing on with the task to completion.

4) “Salami Slice’’ Your Tasks

Just as you would never try to eat a whole loaf of salami at once, don’t try to take on all of a job from the start. Sometimes the best way to stop procrastinating and complete a major job is to take a small slice and complete just that piece, just as you would take a single slice of salami and eat it.

When you select a small piece of the task and then discipline yourself to do it and get it behind you, it will often give you the momentum you need to counter inertia and stop procrastinating.

5) Select A 5 Minute Task And Start There

Just as a block of Swiss cheese is full of holes, you treat your task like a block of cheese and you punch holes in it.

Select a five-minute part of the job and do only that. Don’t worry about the whole job.

For example, if you want to write an article or a book, break the task down into small pieces that take an identifiable amount of time to complete and do just one small piece at a time whenever you get a chance.

Many authors begin by writing one page a day. If you are doing research, you can read one article per sitting. Many people write complete books on airplanes or complete their college degrees with snatches of time between other activities. If you wrote one page a day for a year, you would have a 365-page book by the end of the year.

6) Do The Task That Causes You The Most Fear Or Anxiety

Often, it has to do with overcoming the fear of failure or rejection by someone else.

In sales, it may be associated with prospecting. In management, it may be associated with disciplining or firing an employee. In relationships, this may have to do with confronting an unhappy personal situation.

In every case, you will be more effective if you deal first with whatever is causing you the greatest emotional distress or fear. Often this will break the logjam in your work and free you up mentally and emotionally to get things done.

7) Start Your Day With The Most Unpleasant Task First

Get it over with and behind you. Everything else for the rest of the day will seem easier in comparison.

A recent study compared two groups of people. One group started an exercise program in the morning. The second group started an exercise program in the evenings after work. The researchers found that the morning exercises were much more likely to still be in the program six months later.

Starting the day with exercise was much more likely to lead to the habit of regular exercise than putting it off until the end of the day when it was easier to make excuses and procrastinate.

8) Think About The Negative Consequences If You Don’t Finish

What will happen to you if this job is not done on schedule?

The Power of Great Dreamers;

Every person has the power of dreaming. I believe that if someone truly wants something in his/her life and he/she is ready to stand behind their desire it will surely come in the form of success. He who are in this race of riches should be encouraged to know that this changed world in which we live is demanding new ideas, new ways of doing things, new leaders, new inventions, new methods of teaching, new methods of marketing, new books, new literature, new features for television, new ideas for moving pictures. Back to all this demand for new and better things, there is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.  

  We who desire to accumulate riches should remember the real leaders of the world always have been men who harnessed, and put into practical use, the tangible, unseen force of unborn opportunity, and have converted those forces (or impulses of thought) into skyscrapers, cities, factories, airplanes, automobiles, and every form of convenience that makes life more pleasant.

In planning to acquire your share of riches, I want to tell you that let no one influence you to scorn the dreamer. To win the big stakes in this changed world, you must catch the spirit of the great pioneers of the past, whose dreams have given to civilization all that it has of value, the spirit which serves as the life-blood of our own country—your opportunity and mine, to develop and market our talent.

 If the things you wish to do is right, and you believe in it, go ahead and do it! Put your dreams across, and never mind what “ they” say if you meet the temporary defeat, for “they” perhaps, do not know that every failure brings with it seeds of an equivalent success.

  Thomas Edison dreamed of a lamp that could be operated by the electricity, began where he stood to put his dream into action, and despite more than ten thousand failures, he stood by that dream until he made it physical reality. Practical dreamers do not quit!

Whelan dreamed of a chain of cigars stores, transformed his dream into action, now the united cigars stores occupy some of the best corners of the America.

The Wright brothers dreamed of a machine that could fly through the air. Now one may see the evidence all over the world that they dreamed soundly.

Marconi dreamed of a system for harnessing the intangible forces of the ether. Evidence that he did not dreamed in vain may be found in every radio and television set in the world. It may interest you to know that Marconi’s “friends” had him taken into the custody, and examined in a psychopathic hospital, when he announced he had discovered a principle though which he could send messages through the air, without the aid of wires or other direct physical means of communication. The dreamers of today fare better.

In last I just want to say that, This world is filled with an abundance of opportunity which the dreamers of the past never knew! 

A Fifty Cent Lesson in Persistence,

This story teaches much, it teaches me how to be persistent and determinant in every walk of life. This is the story of Mr. Darby and his nephew, and a small little colored child, will told you, how to use the power of persistence.  

One afternoon he (nephew) was helping his uncle grind wheat in old-fashioned mill. The uncle operated the large farm in which a number of colored sharecrop farmers lived. Quietly, the door was opened, and a small colored child, the daughter of a tenant, walked in and took her place near the door. The uncle looked up, saw the child, and barked at her roughly, “what do you want?, “Meekly, the child reply, “My mummy say send her fifty cents.”   “I’ll not do it,” the uncle retorted, “now you run on home.” “Yas sah” the child replied. But she did not move.

The uncle went ahead with his work, so busily engaged that he did not pay enough attention to the child to observe that she did not leave. When he looked up and saw her still standing there, he yelled at her, “I told you to go on home! Now go, or I’ll take a switch to you” The little girl said “Yas sah” but she did not budge.     The uncle drop the sack of grain he was about to pour into the mill hopper, picked up the barrel stave, and started towards the child with the expression on his face that indicated trouble. The nephew hold his breath. He was certain he was about to witness an assault. He knew his uncle had a fierce temper! When the uncle reached the sport where the child was standing, she quickly stepped forward one step, looked up into his eyes, and screamed at top her shrill voice, “My mammy’s gotta have that fifty that fifty cents!”

        The uncle stopped, looked at her a minute, then slowly laid the barrel stave on the floor, put his hand in the pocket, took out the half a dollar, and gave it to her.

The child took the money and slowly backed towards the door. Never taking her eye off the man whom she had just conquered. After she had gone, the uncle sat down on the box and looked out the window into space for more than ten minutes. He was pondering, with the awe, over the whipping he had just taken.

Three Feet From Gold.

                                       Now I am gonna tell you about the story of a Mr. Darby and his partner how got caught in the fever of gold. And tell you that nobody should stop by a temporary failure. One of the most common cause   of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by the temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another.

Mr. R.U. Darby was caught by the “gold fever” in the gold rush days, and went west to dig and grow rich. He had never heard that more gold has been mined from the thoughts of the men than has ever been taken from the earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel.

After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of shinning ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, told his relatives and a few neighbors of the “strike”. They got together money for the needed machinery, and had it shipped. Mr. Darby and his partner went back to work the mine.

The car of the ore was mined and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved that they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then would come the big killings in profits.

Down went the drills! Up went the hops of Darby! Then something happened. The vien of gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of  gold was no longer there. They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again—all to no  Finally, they decided to quit.                                                                                                          They sold the machinery to the junk man for few dollars, and took the train back home. The junk man called into the minning engineer to look at the mine and do little calculation. The engineer advised that the project had failed because the owners was not familiar with “fault lines”. His calculations showed that the vein would be found just three feet from where the Darbys had stopped drilling! That is exactly where it was found

The junk took the millions of dollars in the ore from the mine because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.