#105 - How do writers get beyond fear and self-sabotage?

How do writers get beyond fear and self sabotage? Hi, my name is Shelli Hitz and I help writers get their books out of their heads and onto paper with my book writing formulas and monthly virtual writing retreats so that you can write words that outlive you and self publish books that fulfill your calling. In each of these Ask Shelley episodes, I promise to share at least one thing that will help you write, self publish and market your books so so the message of your books can impact lives. So the question I got today is how do I get beyond fear and self sabotage? This is a big one and I just want to let you know, if you struggle with this, you are not alone. So writers deal with this and we actually did an entire breakthrough series on our blog a few years ago on many of these topics. The fear of sharing your story, self doubt and insecurity as a writer, perfectionism. And so I highly recommend that you go check that out@trainingauthors.com just search for breakthrough series. I'll put the link in the show notes as well. But one of the things I want to say now, look into my eyes. Satan wants to stop you from accomplishing what God has equipped you and gifted you to do. So a lot of times he tries to intimidate us, to prevent good from happening from our lives. And so just recognize, first of all, fear. Unless it's a reverent fear of God, fear is not coming from God. You know, first John says, perfect love casts out all fear. And, and so God is love. And so when we are in that spirit of fear, that is not what God has for us. It's not our design. And so I've been there. I've struggled with anxiety much of my life. CJ has struggled as well. And so just know you're not alone. And this is a spiritual battle. It is something the enemy wants to keep you from. But remember who you're writing for, remember why you're doing this. There's somebody out there that you're wanting to share these messages with, to encourage, to inspire. And so sometimes just thinking about the other person, you know, have you ever heard that when you were depressed or when you're struggling, you know, doing something and helping someone else can lift your mood. It. It's true. And yeah, I mean, sometimes my audience and you may be this way. You're a giver. So you give, give, give, give, give. And you just don't always, you know, have God pour back into you or do things that pour back into you. So you want to think about that as well. But I want you to know that God is with you and he is giving you the power to move forward past this fear. Second Timothy 1, 7:8 says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self discipline. So never be ashamed to.

Admit that you have a struggle with fear. We all do. It might be a fear of what people think, it might be a fear of failure, might even be a fear of success. Sometimes that is. And there's a book called the Big Leap and he talks about this fear, fear of success. And it's like this ceiling that we just can't get over because we're just not sure what's going to happen after we actually take those steps. So when you're dealing with fear, just know that a lot of times it's a spiritual issue. And obviously I know that you're connecting with God and you're working with him. But when you have self sabotage, many times, like our brain is designed by an incredible creator, right, to keep us safe. So if, you know, if writing and publishing or putting ourselves out there in marketing and we have this fear of what people will think, fear of failure, fear of success, or whatever the fear is that.

We'Re dwelling on, then our brain is going to be like, oh, that's not safe. I've got to keep her from that. I've got to keep him from that. Because that thing could destroy them or hurt them in some way. And so a lot of times it's our brain trying to protect us from that fear and that becomes self sabotage. So it's like this loop, right? We have the fear, but then the fear triggers our brain to say, oh, that's not safe. I've got to protect them from that. So the self sabotage keeps you from doing that thing and then you get stuck in this loop. And I've been there as well, but I did a little research and just came up with a few signs of self sabotage. And one of them is you wait till the last minute for deadlines. So that's basically procrastination, right? Another one is that you start projects but you don't finish them.

And another one could be just the negative thoughts. I often call it stinking thinking and just dwelling on the negative thoughts or dwelling on failures of the past, or dwelling on what hasn't happened, or your regrets. And again, we have an entire episode on writing regrets in that breakthrough series. But what should you do if you're stuck in this loop? Well, first of all, proud of you for recognizing it. Because that's the first step is to recognize that it's happening. And then second of all, we can take the power of Christ and the word of God and we can replace the lies and the fear with God's truth. Right? Perfect love casts out all fear. And so.

How is God loving you? How are you loved? You know, just studying more about love, studying more about who God is and how he is love. You know, a lot of times we think the opposite of fear is peace. And you know, there, there is a sense that, yeah, that you're going to feel at peace. But I really feel, I really believe that. You know this scripture, perfect love casts out fear, shows us that it's actually love. Like when we are truly loved, when we know our identity, when we're rooted in that, then fear just dissipates. Right? And so it's a process. And I have a workshop called Kingdom Writer Renewal. If you're a Christian Book Academy member, it's in the Kingdom Foundations module. Otherwise you can get it in our bookmarketing shop dot com. So you recognize the self sabotage and fear, you replace those lies with the truth. I also recommend having a prayer team and sending regular emails or text or however you're communicating with them. We have a training on that in the Kingdom Foundations module as well in Christian Book Academy but with a prayer team, you know, asking them to pray for you and say this is what I'm, I'm dealing with. I'm, I'm dealing with procrastination. Or I've, I've been dealing with some self sabotage or you know, I want to move forward in this particular project and I feel stuck and asking them to like Aaron and Hur with Moses, lift up your arms so that you can continue. So number one, recognize it. Number two, replace lies with truth and have a prayer team praying for you. Number three, get organized. Sometimes the clutter and the disorganization is overwhelming to our brains and again our brains just want to shut down and say, nope, I'm not going there. It's too stressful. So maybe you need to organize your digital files for your book project or whatever marketing thing you're doing. Maybe you need to organize your workstation and your writing area. It always makes me feel better when I declutter when I clean up and I just have.

A clean space to work.

So recognizing it, replacing the lies with truth. Having a prayer team, getting organized. Start small. Start with putting 15 minutes on a timer. So I bought this little timer. It's a Hexagon timer with different numbers on it on Amazon and I can just flip it to 15 minutes and then it just starts a 15 minute timer. You can also just use an online timer or a timer on your phone or whatever. It doesn't have to be fancy like that, but it gives your brain a deadline and just say, okay, for the next 15 minutes, I'm turning off everything else. I'm going to do this. And just say, tell your brain you're going to do it for 15 minutes. Now, many times you'll get in the flow and then you'll do it for a lot longer than 15 minutes. But start small. So when you're dealing with sabotage, when you're dealing with fear, starting with something really big, it just is even more overwhelming and even more of an excuse for your brain to say, danger, danger. Don't do that, don't do that. You know, start small. 15 minutes. And we have our 15 minute writing challenge once a month. It's for five days in Christian Book Academy. That's a great place to get started. And you can post in our group for accountability and just share how it went each day. So recognize it, replace the lies with the truth and have a prayer team get organized. Start small with just 15 minutes. And then finally, just get used to clicking Publish. So what does this mean? Well, okay, first of all, I want you just to start right now. Today. Right now. I'm serious. Like, get out your phone or log into your email and I want you to write one sentence or one paragraph of encouragement or gratitude. Maybe there's someone you're grateful for in your life and you can just write them a quick text or send them a quick email and just say, hey, I am just so grateful for your friendship. Or I'm so grateful that you support my writing journey and I just wanted to reach out and let you know just something. And click Send. You get used to writing something and clicking Send. Then once you've done that, I want you to consider doing social media posts or blog posts and just get used to writing things and clicking Publish. Writing something and clicking Publish. And the cool thing is you can always delete the post later. It's not permanent. It doesn't feel as big or scary as a book. Just get used to putting your words out there and what happens. It's almost like when you're walking on gravel and your feet start to develop calluses, you start to develop that confidence of like getting your words out there. And you may even start to get some really great feedback. I noticed that when I started publishing things and sharing things on social media or on our blogs and, you know, getting that feedback, it was just so encouraging to keep moving forward. So I hope that this was helpful. I don't have the easy button, but God does. So let me pray for you. Lord, I just pray for every writer right now that's dealing with fear or self sabotage and this loop that they get caught into it. God, I just pray it would stop in Jesus name right now, today. I pray that they would take these steps of recognizing it, replacing the lies with the truth, and having a prayer team, getting organized, starting with just 15 minutes and then getting used to clicking publish. Lord, I just pray that whatever it is, reveal it to them, bring it to the surface. Just like dross is, you know, comes to the surface and you, you, you just can take out the impurities, Lord, just bring all of this to the surface and may you just take it in Jesus name and fill them with your love. May, may your perfect love cast out all fear and. And Lord, just give them a joy to be able to use their gifts, to be able to share with others and impact lives. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. I'm so glad that you're here and I hope this was helpful. And if you're not yet a member, we would love to have you inside Christian Book Academy. Every month we have a war room prayer meeting and it's where you can get prayer and really get help on these mindset issues that so often get us stuck. All right, I will talk to you next time. Bye Bye.