#033 - What Story Are You Telling Yourself?

Welcome back to the Hit Splits Podcast. I want to tell you that I truly enjoy recording these podcasts for you. And it's so interesting because, and this is just a bonus tip for this episode, when you find something you truly enjoy and you find something that also connects with your audience, you're going to find that it doesn't take like much to stay consistent with it to market your book. And so I dread, I dread social media and even like writing emails. Like, oh, it's just like I, I, I like using email marketing and it's very effective, but I personally dread it sometimes. And so being able to do this hit Splits podcast has just been really, really fun because it's something that is, it's just easy for me. And anyways, wanted to share with you something today about like, this, the story you're telling yourself about your writing, publishing and marketing and how that's impacting the actions that then you take. And this last week I was on vacation with my family and I literally took like the time off. And in the last year and a half, this has rarely happened just because I had turnover of my main assistant twice. And it happened during like a vacation and when I was going to take time completely off. And so just to have a team that I knew was going to handle things and be able to unplug from email, social media, from business, and just be present with my family with social media. Such a gift. But we stayed with my mom and stepdad and my, my mom and stepdad love to play games. C.J. not so much. And so I usually try to get some games in while I'm down there with them. And my mom introduced me to a game that now I love. It's called Quirkle Q, W, I, R, K, L, E. And my mom and stepdad are really, really good. And my sister, too are really good at Scrabble. And even though I'm a word person and a writer, for some reason, my brain just doesn't work as well with Scrabble. But with Quirkle, I'm pretty good at it. My brain just works in those ways to, you know, put the colors and the shapes together and to find the places to put things. And I don't know, it's just interesting how our brains just work differently, right? Anyways, one night we were playing Quirkle and.

Oh my goodness, my, my mom won the first game, but the second one we were playing and the whole thing is you want to get a corkle, which is six tiles in a row. It's like the most points you can get. And that game, no one had gotten a quirkle yet while, well, I drew some tiles and I knew I was going to be able to get a quirkle my next turn. I was so excited.

I was so excited, in fact, that then I ended up showing my tiles and saying. And going out of turn. So it was my stepdad's turn. And I ended up laying down my tiles and showing my tiles. And I was like, oh, no, it's not my turn. I was like, oh, man. I said, now, now you can block me, you know, if you wanted. And I said that not thinking my stepdad would actually do it. He's pretty competitive and. And I told him to do it. You know, I told him, I mean, if I wouldn't have said that, he probably wouldn't thought of it. But he ended up blocking me from laying down my quirkle and. And I was so upset mostly at myself, not as much at my stepdad. I mean, he was just, he's just playing the game. But I was mad at myself because I had revealed my hand. I was so excited. I went out of turn and then I ended up losing that quirkle. And I was literally so upset at the moment, I almost just stopped playing the game altogether because I just, you know, I was just kind of like a bad sport or. And like I said, most of it, it was, I was upset at myself. It was also getting late and I was probably ready to go to bed anyways. I'm an early to bed type of girl. But anyways, I, I just kind of worked through it and I kept playing. And wouldn't you know it, I ended up winning anyways. And later my stepdad's like, I, I wonder if I would have done better if I. If I hadn't tried to block you that time. And, you know, but I was watching our church's sermon online that week later, after, after this happened, and.

My friend Jordan was preaching that night and she was talking about this. What is the story you're telling yourself? And she used the. The story of the woman with the issue of blood. And the woman with the issue of blood could have got to the place where she was completely hopeless, not even trying to get better at that point. But she had had a story. She was telling herself that there was still hope, there might still be something out there to help her. And once she heard of Jesus, she decided that he could be potentially the answer to her prayers. And so these stories that we tell ourselves can then lead to the Actions we take. You know, I could have totally just quit the game, you know, maybe even damage my relationship with my stepdad or, you know, I mean, it's just a game. It was just a silly mistake, but in the end I still ended up winning and I could have totally went a different direction.

Had I just really dwelled on that mistake that I made and dwelled on that. So what story are you telling yourself today regarding your writing, publishing and marketing? Has there been something that happened? Have you been getting like crickets with your marketing lately and you're just. The story you're telling yourself is. No one is interested? Well, it might just be that you haven't connected with the right audience yet. There might be different marketing techniques that will work well for you. What story are you telling yourself regarding your writing? Oh, this has already been told. You know this. Why should I write another book on this same topic? No one's going to want to read my book. What story are you telling yourself regarding publishing? Like, oh, self publishing. It's like it's less than. Or, you know, I'll never get a traditional publishing contract, so why even try? You know, whatever it is you're trying for, you can tell yourself these stories and then it can affect then the actions that you take because you start believing these things. And so I really encourage you to dig in deep. We have a workshop called Kingdom Writer Renewal. It's all about the stories we tell ourselves, the lies that we may be dealing with. And if you're a Christian Book Academy member, it's in the Kingdom Foundations module. If you're not a member yet, we'd love for you to join us@christianbookacademy.com or you can find it in our bookmarketing shop.com as well. But you can also just, you know, sit down for five to ten minutes right now and just start journaling and say, what things, what story am I telling myself? You know, what are the things that might be holding me back right now? So let me pray for you, Lord, I just thank you for every single person listening right now. I thank you that you have a plan and a purpose for their writing, their publishing, their marketing. And I just pray that you would reveal, bring it to the surface any stories they're telling themselves that are not true or that are causing them to be paralyzed or to not take action or to take action, actions that are not what you have for them. So I just pray that you would just begin clearing the air and helping them to move forward in their call to write, publish and market their books and we pray this in Jesus powerful name. Amen. Amen friends. And if you are a game person, I do recommend Quirkle. Check it out. It is a lot of fun and I will talk to you next time. Bye bye.