We all self-sabotage but when it comes to our book there might be one reason why. 

Consider the process

Do you often find yourself procrastinating, doubting your writing abilities, or struggling with writer’s block? You’re not alone!

If you are self-sabotaging, there might be one reason: the overwhelming size of the project.

But fear not, as I offer practical advice on breaking your book down into smaller, manageable steps and cultivating a writer’s mindset.

By focusing on individual chapters, paragraphs, and sentences, you can overcome that self-sabotaging feeling and keep making progress.

Remember to celebrate your wins along the way, and before you know it, you’ll have finished your fiction book.  you’re good enough to be a writer.

Full Podcast transcription of episode 03

Did you know I have a master’s degree in self-sabotaging? No, I don’t, I’m kidding, but sometimes it feels like that because I was the queen of self-sabotaging. Let’s talk about this. Do you have writer’s block? Do you struggle with procrastination when it comes to your writing all the time? Do you often feel worried or doubtful about your writing with every click of the keyboard? If so, you are in the right place. My name is Cheryl Reynolds and I help fiction writers become authors. Here at Finish Your Fiction podcast. I will share easy ways for you to move beyond writer’s block, smash those self-sabotaging behaviors and finally stop procrastinating. It’s time for you to cultivate the writer’s mindset and finish your fiction book now. Let’s get started. 

Welcome to the podcast. So I just wanted to talk to you about self-sabotaging your book. We all do it. We procrastinate, walk away and we put the computer off and we get frustrated and annoyed. And then we come up with an excuse after an excuse of why we can’t write, why we can’t get it done, how bad we are, how not good we are, and it just goes on and on and on. 

And I want to give you one reason why you may be self-sabotaging your writing goals. And this is big And it comes down to the fact that it’s big. Because it is big because books are big, they’re long and they have a lot of moving parts and they have to make sense at the end And this is the reason why you’re self-sabotaging yourself is because you’re looking at the size of the book as a huge project and it can get really overwhelming very fast. 

Writing is a process. Writing can be broken down into smaller steps. It can be broken down into smaller digestible areas you work on. Now I’m not saying you don’t have to know the overarching aspect of your book, but what happens is we often look at that way too much and we forget and fail to realize that we only have to write one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter at a time. So when you start to sit down and write your book, if you’re looking at your book as the whole thing, step away from that, go back in and work on that one chapter And then, when you come out of working on that one chapter, then you can look at the book as a whole, figure what you need to fix or do. Maybe you can do a revision sheet on big end of revision sheets If you want to know more about that. Let me know If you can do this. You can take some of that feeling of self-sabotaging and put it away, because now you’re basically micromanaging your book. And when you micromanage your book, what happens is you allow your brain to calm down, it doesn’t get triggered as quickly, you don’t build up anxieties because your brain is not going whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is way too much, i can’t handle it. I need to shut down. Instead, it’s like oh, i can do this, this is easy. Oh, i can do a paragraph, this is easy. Take this big, overwhelming project and break it down into smaller steps. 

Bring your goal down to manageable And please remember as you go along. Remember this is very important to celebrate the winds, celebrate the small things. Give yourselves kudos for getting that paragraph done. Give yourself a high five for finishing a chapter, appreciate your efforts. It may seem like you’re never going to get to the end when you’re on chapter or page 34 and you got another 300 pages to go, but just continue to chip away, because it’s no different than walking a mile. There’s no different from driving to one end of the state or the other. If you keep moving forward, the end result is no matter what. You will finish your book. All right, everybody. That’s all I have to say. Continue to write that dang book and I will talk to you soon. Bye, bye. 

Thank you for listening all the way to the end of this podcast. Head on over to the web page to read the show notes at finishyourfictionnow.com. Be sure to grab the valuable resources and never miss an episode by joining my newsletter. 

Remember you have the power to go from overwhelmed to overjoyed as you become a published author. Go, finish your fiction now. See you next week.