Why it's taken me 12 years to write my first book

Is there something in your heart that you’ve been wanting to do for the longest time, but for whatever reason you haven't been able to do it? 

For me, I had this brilliant idea and dream to write a book.

In my mind, it was going to be a best-seller! Thousands, maybe millions of people, from all over the world were going to buy it and love it.

But what happened is, year after year, I just didn't do it.

I had so many different reasons that came up. 

“Oh, I'm so busy. I have to work on this first.”

“I want it to look this particular way, so I’ll just wait until I have all the other pieces in place and lined up first.”

“I’ll get to it next month.”

Do you know when I first had the idea to write this book?

12 years ago!!!

All these excuses, year after year, for the last 12 years.

A few months ago, though, I made the decision that I wasn’t going to wait any longer. 

Let me tell you what happened to make that change.

I realized that a lot of my focus was on all the hype I placed on the book...that it would be a best-seller, that millions would love it, or that it was the pinnacle of all the key lessons I’ve learned in life.

In other words, my book had to be perfect.

I continually stopped myself from even writing the first word, all because everything had to be just perfect.

Have you ever stopped yourself from taking any action towards your dream vision, all because everything had to be perfect?

I finally took action when my business coach, Shawn Shepheard, gave me a writing exercise to help get my writing juices flowing, just to get any words on to a piece of paper.

For this exercise, Shawn asked me to write five short stories that defined my life.

I happily agreed. Five short stories. That seemed simple enough. Anything to get the writing flowing.

In less than a couple days, I picked five defining moments in my life, and I wrote a short story about each of them.

Let me tell you. A defining moment isn't a simple re-telling of a walk in the park. A defining moment, by its very nature, is an experience that ultimately changed you and the trajectory of your life.

As I wrote, I remembered the challenges and the frustration I faced in each of these moments. 

I recalled when I had to turn to others for support, or when I had to dig deep to turn to my own inner reservoir of strength that I didn’t know that I had...all to overcome different challenges in my life.

After writing these five stories, I realized how powerful my experiences were. And each moment contained a life lesson that could be shared with others.

That’s when a lightbulb went off in my head.

“OMG! This could be my book!”

In fact, it was the start of the book that I'm working to finish now.

Since then, I've added more stories from my life, and I've added life lessons to each of these stories.

These last couple of months, what helped me to get over this hump of not writing a book for the last twelve years was to simply take action.

You see, it’s when you take action, when you take the first step, that you actually get more clear on your vision.
How many times have you heard this nugget of wisdom from others?

How many times have I told my clients to do the same thing?

Sometimes, the person that needs to hear your wisdom the most, is yourself.
And so my coaching question for you today is: 

What's one thing that you've been wanting to do for the longest time that's in your heart but you haven't done it yet? 

Now, think about one little action step that you can take towards the direction of that vision.

What’s that one baby step?

The smaller and easier the baby step, the better.

Then, go ahead and take that step. 

It doesn't matter if that step is going to ultimately be a part of the picture of your vision. 

What taking that first step does is open up and activate the energy of possibility.

Taking that first step leads you to the next step, which then leads you to the next step.

You can take my own learning in writing my book as a lesson.

Take a step and be willing to be surprised.

And then watch as, what for me was 12 years in the making, will soon become a reality.

Abundant Blessings and Namaste.

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