Are you dealing with your personal problems head-on, or are you avoiding them?

Do you engage in conversations about hard things, or do you shut down when you’re confronted by a truth you don’t want to hear?

Would the people who know you best describe you as brave? Focused? Determined? Disciplined? Or would they say you’re aloof, timid, or uncaring?

It’s hard to face your real-life problems instead of running away from them. And it’s easy to turn to substance abuse or other unhealthy patterns as you try to escape from reality.

Henry David Thoreau said, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

Just because you’re a writer, it doesn’t give you the license to check out of real life. You need to show up on the stage of life where the action is happening.

Nobody is perfect. But your writing should reflect the person you are trying to become—bold, brave, and above all, a true-life superhero to the people you love the most.

Today’s Challenge: Think about the past twenty-four hours. What did you do that was brave, bold, or fearless?

The post Before You Sit Down to Write, Stand Up to Live appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Most people are passive observers to their own lives. They accept the choices that life hands to them. They assume what they see other people doing is what they should be doing also. They go along with the crowd, never rock the boat, and never achieve their dreams.

On the other hand, successful writers know that life is not a multiple-choice test. If they don’t like the options in front of them, they create new ones.

How do we do this? We do this by taking advantage of all the amazing opportunities we have today as writers. There is an almost unlimited number of opportunities for you to get your work in front of readers and make a good living while doing it. In fact, we just finished a series on making money as a writer. I encourage you to go back and listen to it if you want a few tangible ways to start making income with your skills.

Is it hard to strike out on your own pathway while everyone around you is conforming to social norms? While everyone else is doing what other people expect? While everyone else is not writing books or putting in the work to build their own writing business?

Of course, it’s challenging. Nobody said this would be easy. But if you are going to make something happen, this is not the time to be passive. This is not the time to limit your options. The world is a giant buffet of opportunity. Will you take advantage of it?

Question: Are you ready to start making the most of your opportunities and create your own success as a writer?

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Here’s just one example. A number of years ago, an aspiring author decided he wanted to write a book about the key personal decisions that determine personal success. Except he didn’t want to write it in the traditional non-fiction format. Instead, he wanted to teach the concepts in the form of a story.

He spent a year writing the book, then proceeded to submit it to a publisher. It was rejected, so he moved onto the next one. Rejected again.

The author tried a third and a fourth time. Still more rejection. Pretty soon, he worked his way up to a dozen rejections. Still no dice. So he kept pushing forward, submitting the book to more publishers. This went on for another dozen rejections. Then another dozen, and another dozen still.

Then after spending three and a half years, and getting rejected by 51 publishers, he struck gold when Thomas Nelson publishers gave him a green light. That book was The Traveler’s Gift, and the author was Andy Andrews, whose books have now sold over three million copies worldwide.

Andy Andrews tried 52 times before he got what he wanted. This may sound like an extreme example, but the story of persevering in the face of obstacles is common in the publishing world. Even if you are self-publishing, you will face challenges, setbacks, and problems that require you to dig down deep and keep moving when things aren’t going your way.

This historical novelist James Michener once said, “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” There are a lot of writers with talent, but not all of them have the character and discipline to keep going in the face of rejection.

How about you? What are you up against in your writing? Are you willing to be persistent? How many times are you willing to try?

Because you may not have success on the third or fourth tries. It might just take 52.

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That’s how the Cowardly Lion felt just before he and the rest of the gang went in to see the Wizard in Emerald City. In one of the best musical moments of the whole movie, he says,

What makes the elephant charge his tusk, in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?

What makes the muskrat guard his musk?

What makes the Sphinx the seventh wonder?

What makes the dawn come up like thunder?

At the end of each line, the group says, “Courage!” Near the end of the song, the Cowardly Lion says,

What have they got that I ain’t got?

And the answer, of course… is courage.

But is it true? Is it true that you don’t have courage? Or is it possible that we have misunderstood the true nature of courage?

One of the great American writers, Mark Twain, is helpful here. He said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” This is a key insight. It reminds us that it’s impossible to get rid of fear. Fear will always be with you. Courage just means that you are taking action and forging ahead even though you are afraid.

This is quiet courage. It’s the kind of courage that ordinary writers practice every day. They get out of bed, they face uncertainty, they feel afraid sometimes, but they do their work anyway because that’s the only thing within their control. They resist fear by taking small daily steps toward their goals.

Quiet courage doesn’t get a lot of attention. The courageous writers don’t make a fuss and don’t draw attention to themselves. They show up, do the work, and serve people through their writing.

You don’t win your inner creative battle with a giant explosion every once in a while. You win it by getting into the trenches every day, staring your fear square in the face, and doing the work anyway.

So, the next time you hear yourself asking, “What have they got that I ain’t got?” … the answer is, “Not a darn thing.” You’ve had your courage with you the whole time. You just need to use it.

Question: What could your life look like a year from now if you practiced quiet courage every day?

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If writing is a house, each of us lives on two levels.

The ground floor is where we invite people in. We share things we think people want to hear. We say a lot of nice things, put some coffee on, and invite people to sit around the table. On the ground floor, we have the furniture arranged just so and we try to keep things spic and span.

Underneath the ground floor, there is also a basement. The basement is where we keep boxes full of the things we really want to say. But we rarely bring them out because we’re not sure how people will respond. We keep things in the dark out of fear. But it’s important to bring those things into the light.

What might some of those things be? Maybe it’s a trauma you experienced like losing someone you love or going through a divorce. Maybe it’s your controversial opinions about something. Maybe it’s telling the not-so-nice parts of your story so you can help others. Maybe it’s talking openly about your mental health issues. Who knows what it might be—it’s different for every person.

The point is that you have things to say that people might object to, things that might get you in a little trouble. It’s not that we should seek to be controversial for its own sake. Rather, the point is we should be brave and bold when the time and situation are right.

We must be smart about all this, of course. But there is a time to stop holding back and just tell it like it is. Could it be that your time has come?

Daily Question: What is it you really want to say? What is holding you back from saying it?

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The way some of us writers shrink back from a challenge, you’d think we live forever.

We hesitate to write that book because we fear what others will think. We don’t set up that website because it feels too hard. We don’t meet with that person who is five years ahead of us because we’re intimidated. We don’t make that social media post because we question whether we’re a good enough writer.

It might feel scary in the moment, but what about a hundred years from now? We will all be gone. That’s a hard truth to hear, but it’s still the truth. Our lives are but a blink of an eye compared to the endless expanse of eternity.

Steve Jobs gave a helpful perspective when he said, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.”

When you die, you can’t take anything with you. All those words and ideas and stories you have been storing up to write “someday” will vanish. You can’t take that material with you. If you don’t write it, it won’t get written and we will all be the worse off for it… simply because you were too scared.

When you’re gone, everything goes back into the box. All your goals, hopes, dreams, plans, stories, ideas, and vision. So, you might as well go for it now while you still have time. What have you got to lose?

Daily Question: Does knowing that you will die someday help motivate you to say what you want to say in your writing?

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One of the curses of being a writer is that we are too rational.

We pride ourselves on reporting the facts of a situation accurately. We love the idea of having an objective point of view, then giving our commentary or perspective. We don’t like the idea of getting carried away with our emotions. We don’t want to be irrational or have a skewed point of view.

Is being “rational” really the best way to approach life, though?

It’s hard to believe John F. Kennedy was being entirely rational when he challenged the nation to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. It’s hard to believe Michelangelo was being entirely rational when he set out to paint the Sistine Chapel. It’s hard to believe Harriet Tubman was being entirely rational when she risked her own safety to help free slaves in the days of the Underground Railroad.

None of these leaders were operating solely on what others had done before or by what other people thought was possible. They were operating by vision and an intense confidence that they could pull off something extraordinary.

Walt Disney famously said this: “Somehow I can’t believe there are many heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C’s. They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy, and the greatest of these is Confidence. When you believe a thing, believe it all over, implicitly and unquestioningly.”

Do you believe you can write? Do you believe your book can change somebody’s life? Do you believe you can create a business with your writing? Do you believe you can achieve it with enough work, time, and connections?

Whatever you’ve set out to do in your writing, you must believe it. And once you can see the vision clearly in your mind, you have now set the stage for making that vision a reality.

Daily Question: What is your vision for your writing? Do you believe you can achieve it?

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“You need courage. Fear of failure is the saddest reason on earth not to do what you were meant to do. I finally found the courage to start submitting my first book to agents and publishers at a time when I felt a conspicuous failure. Only then did I decide that I was going to try this one thing that always suspected I could do, and, if it didn’t work out, well, I’d faced worse and survived. Ultimately, wouldn’t you rather be the person who actually finished the project you’re dreaming about, rather than the one who talks about ‘always having wanted to?’”

There are a lot of writers who fit into this category. I call them “someday” writers. They always talk about how they are going to start that blog or write that book “someday.” But without a clear sense of direction and a firm commitment to doing it, “someday” gets pushed further and further into the distance.

Instead, commit to being a “today” writer. You are going to take action TODAY. Even if it’s just writing a hundred words. Every little step forward gets you closer to your dream. Don’t be one of those sad “someday” writers, who uses fear as an excuse for doing the work and putting yourself out there.

Even if things don’t work out like you hoped, you’ll know for sure and you will learn lessons you can apply to the next project. But more than likely, beautiful and wonderful things will happen that you could have never imagined. Why? Because that’s what happens when you look fear in the eye and start writing anyway.

Daily Question: Are you letting fear hold you back from writing? If so, what are you so afraid of?

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As a writer, you have to do things sometimes that make you uncomfortable. It might be networking, public speaking, learning self-publishing, joining a writing group, or a hundred other things that seem new and exciting, yet still make you feel anxious.

The business leader and author Michael Hyatt said, “The most interesting things happen just on the other side of your comfort zone.” I think we can all agree that’s true. But how do you step outside your comfort zone when it feels… well, uncomfortable? How do you embrace the fear?

When I was in high school, I was very involved in our school plays. When you are an actor, you embrace the idea that you are becoming another person. You put on a costume and magically take on their identity.

This can also work in trying to move past your fear. The next time you must do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, try this: play a character who is brave. It sounds crazy, but it works.

Think of yourself as an actor who is bravely facing their fear. The wonderful thing about stage drama is that you can become anyone. In the blink of an eye, you can play a version of yourself that is brave. Imagine you were on a TV show doing exactly what you’re doing now, except you are playing a fearless version of yourself.

How do you speak? What would you do? What obstacles would you overcome?

It sounds crazy, but it’s true. Pretending you are a brave version of yourself is a fun and effective way to demolish fear and get on the other side of your comfort zone.

Daily Question: Think of a scary situation you’re facing right now. What does the fearless version of yourself look like, sound like, and do?

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One of the most famous movies of all time, and what many consider to be the greatest movie of all time, is 1941’s Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles. While it is certainly a great movie, and one of my personal favorites, it tends to overshadow Welles’ other great movies.

One of them is The Third Man, released in 1949 and starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, among others. The Third Man is a British film noir set in postwar Vienna. The story centers around a writer named Holly Martins, played by Joseph Cotten, who has come to Vienna to work for his friend Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles.

However, when Harry Lime arrives in Vienna, he discovers that his friend Harry Lime has been killed in an auto accident. He is suspicious of the circumstances and decides to stay in Vienna and investigate.

Orson Welles doesn’t appear until halfway through the movie. Holly Martins is stumbling around the streets of Vienna. He sees a man standing in a doorway, mostly obscured by shadows. He thinks the man in the doorway has been tailing him, and he coaxes him to come out.

Suddenly a women turns on an apartment light above the street, and Martins sees that it’s his friend Harry Lime. After a few moments, the light goes out again, and Lime steps out of the shadows and goes running, with Martins chasing him. It’s one of the famous and enigmatic character entrances in this history of cinema.

Holly Martins was the writer character in The Third Man, but ironically, a lot of real-life writers mirror Harry Lime. He was a guy who loved to stay hidden in the shadows. He didn’t even make an appearance until halfway through.

I find that a lot of writers, especially those in mid-life or later, prefer to stay hidden in the shadows. They have a lot of fear. What if they put their work out there? What if they step out and show the world their talent? Will people like me or accept me? What happens if I succeed? What if, what if, what if?

Well, the truth is that you will never know until you decide to step out of the shadows and see for yourself. Most people stay hidden in the doorways of life, never stepping out into the brave, wonderful world that lies just beyond our comfort and safety.

But when you do, you will find yourself in for the ride of a lifetime.

Daily Question: Have you stepped out of the shadows as a writer, and are you willing to make yourself known so you can impact others with your creative work?

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