I know I announced rather ominously that I had something I was afraid to talk about, and I had no idea I would open a bit of a storm with that. Unfortunately, because I was also at CozyCon last week, I didn’t have a chance to get the letter done. But now that I’ve had some space, I finally have time.
(Please forgive any typos. Writing this has exhausted me and I don’t have the energy to edit… so you’re getting raw Becca today.)
(And sweary Becca. Be ready. Thanks to Kate Pickford–I am not apologizing for that.)
And just so y’all know, I’m listening to the Avengers theme right now (thanks, Gaughran, for the nod to “what am I listening to” in every newsletter… now I’m conscious of what I’m listening to while I’m writing, haha!).
So here we go.
I’m going to ask two things of you, before we begin.
First: Don’t worry about anyone else, besides yourself. If you find yourself thinking, “yeah, those X people, who are so bad at this,” that’s a defense mechanism. Focus on yourself, for this newsletter.
And I mean every time. If you feel yourself starting to get judgmental of others, stop, walk away, and come back.
Second: I would appreciate it if you would read the entire newsletter. Even if it takes you a few sit-downs to do it (it’s going to be a long one). But if you’re going to get the full benefit out of my content, you need to read this entire letter. (Even if you skim some parts of it. I expect you not to read every word. lol. Who are we? 13th century clerics? No. You’re going to skim. You’re already skimming. Look at you.)
And now you’re back.
But seriously… please read the entire newsletter. At some point.
Okay, everyone… buckle up.
We’ve been talking about the transition from the Gold Rush to the Golden Age of Publishing on the Quitcast and around the Patreon Topical Calls for a while now, so hopefully you’ve already heard me talk about that. Because that discussion is going to inform this discussion.
There are a lot of things swirling around in publishing right now, and a lot of uncertainty, and I put up a Facebook post that I will link here (but I’m also putting it here on the site if you’d rather not go to Facebook). The point of the post was to address the fact that when we let other things steal our focus away (especially the fear of what might happen), we are ceding our ability to impact our own future.
Fear is meant to move you, not to stop you.
But the fear swirling around in the industry right now is at a fever pitch, and too many of us are being held captive by it (in a number of ways). Fear is becoming our companion. And frankly, it is the most dangerous place I’ve ever seen us be as a collective industry.
The problem is… most of us don’t know we are afraid.
We think we’re just “doing the right thing” or we think we are “just being smart” and sometimes, we think we’re being ambitious or we’re taking action, or we think we’re angry, but we are actually acting out of fear. It’s pretty frustrating to watch.
Because the solve for fear, and the solve for anger are not the same.
The solve for anger is sadness. When you get mad, you need to connect with the part of you that is also sad about something, so you can get out of the anger cycle and out of the emotions cycle, and take action. (I will do more on this emotion cycle on the Patreon later, but it’s similar to the positive emotion cycle in that emotions are dependent on each other in order to be productive.)
But the solve for fear is guilt. “What can I do about this?”
And too many of us are not able to get to the right action. The one that’s going to solve the fear. We are just caught in a never-ending fear spiral that’s torturing us and keeping us from taking action, all at the same time.
When there is no lion at the mouth of the cave (and I mean, there isn’t something that is physically going to kill you in this exact moment), fear is not as useful of an emotion for us because our brains don’t automatically know how to solve fear that isn’t actual life-and-death. Instead, we turn everything into life and death.
But we don’t know it.
When people are afraid, they act against their own self interests. They think they are being protective (especially self-protective), but they are not. Because the thing they’re afraid of isn’t actually going to kill them. (Unless it is physically going to kill you. But I don’t mean metaphorically. That fear of metaphoric death is… it’s killing us. It’s tearing us all apart from the inside.)
I know I’m going to get unsubscribes on this newsletter, and those of you who aren’t unsubscribing are thinking, “she’s crazy, no one is going to unsubscribe–this is innocuous,” but I’m telling you… a lot of people don’t want to hear this message. And even worse, a lot of people think they don’t need to hear it, when they actually do. But fear is the biggest problem in this world right now. And for sure, it’s the biggest problem in this industry.
PS. Don’t forget the first thing I asked of you. Don’t worry about other people. Worry about yourself.
Okay.
When you are afraid of not getting the success you want, that fear is often so subliminal, you don’t even see how it’s driving you. But fear is the thing that will make you act unethically, even when you’re an otherwise ethical person. It’s the thing that will make you sacrifice your family for your success. It’s the thing that will make you cheat a friend. It’s the thing that will make you judge other people as unrighteous and yourself as righteous, creating an artificial sense of personal justice where there shouldn’t be one.
When you are afraid something is going to be taken away from you, you self-protect and get angry and judgmental. You call other people names. You try to control other people. You lose your sense of self-worth.
This is not something you’re consciously aware you’re doing.
And it is all rooted in this feeling of fear.
Some of you who need to hear this message have already tuned out, so I’m just going to talk to the ones who remain. Let’s get real for a second.
Let’s talk about what happens if you don’t get what you want. What happens if your dream doesn’t come true?
First of all. No rhetorical questions.
When you ask yourself a question like this, THIS IS FEAR, Y’ALL.
This is literally what fear produces.
Fear. Is. Your. Enemy. It feels like a friend, but that friend is toxic.
Let me just skip to the end for a second.
If you don’t get what you want, you are not going to die.
I know that seems melodramatic, but that’s what your fear mechanism is doing to you. It’s telling you, “the enemy is coming, and they’re all going to kill us,” and that fear is creating an urgency in you to embrace more fear.
Hang on with me here for a second.
The reason this is so important…
There’s a big difference between the reasonable fear that you won’t get what you want, and the unreasonable/biologically driven fear that you won’t get what you want.
You can take action in the face of reasonable fear.
You CANNOT take action in the face of unreasonable fear.
If there’s a lion out there, and you don’t have a spear, it is reasonable to be so afraid, it would freeze you. (And of course, a nod to all the trauma-responses besides freeze… whatever response we have… it’s a survival mechanism, and in that moment, the fear feels real enough to produce life and death responses.)
But if you’re not going to die, then that extreme fear response is unhelpful.
I don’t want you to feel guilty about having the fear response. Many of us are conditioned from childhood to have BIG fear responses to things that are not life and death situations (even when we don’t have what we might consider to be “trauma” in our background… we still get conditioned).
Or rather, I don’t want you to feel ashamed. Shame is a shutdown.
Guilt is productive.
Here’s the difference.
Shame sounds like, “I am bad and wrong for being so afraid.”
Guilt sounds like, “Wow, that’s happening, and I’d like it not to happen anymore. Let’s do something about that.”
Guilt is “what can I do about this situation.”
And this is what I mean about the reasonable fear. Reasonable fear is supposed to lead us to produce action in the situation, because we can see what our part is and how we can change it.
So when you ask yourself, “what happens if I don’t get what I want?” and you keep spiraling into the fear responses and rhetorical questions, you’re letting biological fear rule where it doesn’t need to.
If you don’t get what you want, it’s not going to kill you.
And that is good news because if it doesn’t kill you, you have a chance to do something with it or about it. You have a chance to learn from it.
Think about this for a second.
If you really only get one shot… if “New York Rules” are really a real thing (which they are not, by the way, in the larger publishing game), then it would be such a big deal. It would be worth worrying about.
But this is the Golden Age of Publishing. (And even in the Gold Rush, this was true. It wasn’t true when New York ruled, but the openness of the industry means that you have so many more shots on goal now.)
Yes, the shots still matter. But again, you’re letting the biological fear back in.
Because I heard you say, “yeah, but I don’t want to take a lot of shots… I want this one shot to be the shot.”
Right. I get that. But if that’s not the way it’s going to work, no amount of worrying about the shot is going to help you.
I always think of it this way.
There’s a path to success for each one of us. And on that path are certain lessons we need to learn to get where we want to go. Each of those lessons, in my head, is represented by a physical thing. Like a pit or a jog in the road or a boulder or a person. And each of those lessons are things you have to learn or go past.
If you let fear stop you from moving through those lessons, it’s only going to keep you from your success. It’s not going to actually help you reach it faster. Because whatever lesson or jog or pit you need is part of what’s going to mold you into the person you need to be to get that success.
Success is not built on smart decisions.
It is built on failure.
Success is a collection of learning from your failures. Or mistakes, if you don’t like that word “failure.” Because however you think of it, those blips in the road are the things that are going to help you become the great author you could be.
The fear of them is only going to keep you from them.
The fear of what might happen if you don’t get what you want is only going to keep you from getting what you want.
Answer the rhetorical questions.
Make a plan.
Let me take one particular one that’s been coming up a lot in coaching lately. The fear about what might happen in the future of the industry.
Whatever disruption you’re afraid is coming, you’re focusing on it and letting it create a life-or-death feeling in you. Whether that disruption is your eventual failure, or if it’s something out of your control… the feeling is the same.
Everyone keeps trying to tackle these problems from a logical place. They’re trying to convince everyone how to believe about topics that scare us, and they’re forgetting the IMPORTANT PART… if something scares you, logic is out the window.
The best arguments are not going to solve fear.
But here’s that reminder again that you can’t worry about other people. You can’t judge other people. You can’t let yourself move the focus to other people.
This has to be about your personal fear.
You have to tackle your personal fear. Whatever that is. Some of you are reading Reclaim Your Author Career. by Claire Taylor, and while she might not claim this herself (because she’s a humble person), what I see as a result of people doing Enneagram work is that they’re much more in control of their fears.
And as someone who is bathing in author fear… I cannot thank her enough for the work she is doing.
Because I know this for sure.
Some of us are going to drown in this fear. We’re going to get so caught up in the fear that we might lose everything that it will make us lose everything.
We’re going to get so torn up about the future we want not happening that we’re going to manifest it happening. Or we’re going to become so stalled and so insecure in our actions that we’re going to make a choice by not acting.
This is the same thing that makes us miss out on relationships because we won’t take the chance and tell a person how we feel.
It’s the thing that makes us not finish the book because we are so scared it’s not going to do what we want it to do.
It’s the thing that makes us start getting angry at other people and judging other people because it’s safe for us to do that, and it’s not safe to face our fears.
But, dammit, people…
FEAR IS YOUR ENEMY.
And some of you are rolling your eyes because you don’t think you’re afraid. I want you to save this letter for when you finally let yourself feel the fear, and then I want you to re-read it. And if you unsubscribe because of this letter, then this platform is not the right place for you.
Because I am not going to shut up about this.
I mean… I’m not going to make any more content about it directly. This is the one and only time I’m going to be this direct about this topic. Because I am shedding my own fear.
I have to be brave, myself.
And I have been holding back on making this post because I knew all the people who were just here for success tips were going to tap out as soon as I started getting real because they don’t want to face the gnawing hole inside themselves.
But as I have been learning, myself, I’m not going to die if you unsubscribe.
So it’s not a reasonable fear. And it’s not a reason to hold back on what I feel I need to say, as the leader of the Better-Faster Academy, or as a person who deeply cares about this industry and who is watching it disintegrate under the weight of everyone’s unfaced fears.
This is what the #firestarting is all about for me. Building the base of my security to a place where I’m not able to be assuaged by any unreasonable fear anymore. I’ve been doing a lot of personal work and spiritual direction and coaching, and I’m telling you, I am putting the armor on.
We’re gonna save this fucking place before fear burns it to the ground.
And here’s what that looks like.
We have to collectively commit to doing the actual work. To getting control over our fear, and to producing more security / peace for ourselves.
Let me be clear. I’m not going to lead the therapeutic charge for you. If you need therapy, you need to go to a therapist.
Success coaching is all about alignment, and all about pushing you to the next level. But I can’t push someone who’s frozen in fear. And I am tiring out in my ability to soothe everyone’s fears.
So I’m issuing a challenge for us.
As I say below in the Facebook post, there are two factors that I see present in every single successful person I’ve ever coached. No matter what their personality.
Bravery and Perseverance.
Bravery is not a lack of fear (although some people manifest it that way). Bravery is the ability to act in the face of unreasonable fear. It’s the ability to say, “this manuscript isn’t going to kill me, and failure isn’t going to kill me,” and take action in the face of that fear.
Perseverance is the ability to take the hits and keep on moving. The ability to look for level-ups and for assets, but to not be derailed when things don’t go our way.
Some of us don’t need to think about our fears anymore.
We need to remind ourselves that this is Zion and we are not afraid.
(Sorry for the Matrix reference, but… I feel like Morpheus a lot these days. I mean, let’s be honest, #Connectedness, I feel like Morpheus every day.)
We need to shed our fear of the future, because they are unreasonable fears. If you don’t get what you want, you are not going to die, and therefore, you still have a chance to get what you want after that. You can respawn. You can conquer.
Do not let your biological responses turn unreasonable fear into reasonable fear. Don’t let the brain lie to you that “oh no, this really is life and death.” Because life and death fear response should trigger fight/flight/freeze.
But anything less than that, we need to do the work to conquer that.
Some of us need therapy for that. Others of us are already doing the work, or we’re already on the path. But if we do not latch on to our bravery and our perseverance, we are absolutely going to languish, and it’s going to end our careers. It’s going to burn some of us out.
I don’t mean to sound flippant about this. Some of you are caught in financial issues that are terrifying you, and for that, I’ll say, this message is not for you. If there’s anything we can do to help you, please do reach out. We’ll do whatever we can. Even if it’s just to listen and to strategize.
But for those of us who are caught in the perpetual whirlwind of, “what happens if I don’t get what I want” and it’s not producing bravery or perseverance, can I please beg you to start talking back to that fear.
This-is-Zion-and-we-are-not-afraid style.
How do we do that?
For some of us, we need to make some joy pennies, because we need to get in touch with our internal security. And we need to remind ourselves that there are things in the world other than writing and publishing.
For some of us, we need therapy, because the fear is too big.
For some of us, we need coaching, because we know we have unreasonable fears stopping us with life-and-death-style freeze/fawn/flight and we need action plans to get us through that.
For some of us, we need comfort, because life is so hard right now, it feels like it’s drowning us. I feel you. I’m in the pit of one of the worst burnouts of my life right now (I’ll talk more about that on the Patreon in the next few weeks).
For some of us, we need community. We need to go to NINC or get an author retreat together, or come to the Minnesota-based BFA conference (and no, I’m not going to put a link in… it’s on the website… you’ll find it if it’s for you).
For some of us, we need a push. We need to read some of the action point posts on the Patreon and start developing our Strengths. Or we need to listen to our favorite manifesting coach talk about the future or our favorite productivity influencer talk about all the possibilities that are out there for us.
For most of us, we need hope. Hope that there’s something better waiting around the corner. Hope that things can change. Hope that there will be relief. I know where my hope comes from. Do you?
And if this is the place where you find hope, then stay connected here. I’m hoping to be able to start moving away from burnout/stuck content for a while, and start working on the Author4Life content. (That’s going to be our focus, moving forward.)
How can we be authors for our whole life. That’s the goal of the BFA. It always has been. And like a lot of “brands,” we had to let that message emerge from the gauntlet. And it has been a gauntlet. Transitions always are.
But I feel like I’ve emerged from a bit of that gauntlet into a lot more clarity.
My firestarting is going to look like #joypennies for a while, because I have been so consumed by the fear of doing something wrong for this industry, I have been killing myself with no support. I haven’t been asking for help, and I have been over-working.
So the #joypennies are my way of producing peace and security in myself for a while. I’m still going to be coaching and creating content and traveling, but I’m going to only do what I want to do.
I know that sounds like “not rocket science” to some of you. But fear has been ruling me. What happens if there’s someone I could help, but I don’t have that hour open on my calendar? What happens if I say the wrong thing, or if the wrong person dislikes me, or someone does something bad to me?
What happens if I lose my community.
That fear of disconnection has been absolutely ruling every decision. That’s why I haven’t been talking about this, ironically. Fear kept me from talking about fear.
But I know nothing that can happen in this platform is ever going to be as bad as I imagine it to be. My brain is trying really hard to be helpful, but it’s not. It’s conditioning. And I can recondition it.
I can do hard things.
We can do hard things together. Whatever happens in the future, and whatever comes at you, know that I am going to be here. I’m going to do my best to keep producing content for you that does all the things we need. Some pushing for success, some theoretical and philosophical, some emotional, and some practical.
We’re going to leave behind the burnout and stuck content for a while (thanks to the person who reached out to ask this question and confirmed for me what I had been not doing… I had been keeping myself in a safe space for myself, and not doing what the broader community needed).
I’m not going to send out a bunch of letters like this. This will be the only one. Then we’re back to the regular old Dear Becca newsletter content, like always. But this was my watershed.
I hit the bottom of the burnout pit on Monday, hard, and I need some self-care. Saying out loud makes it real.
But I’m ready to dig out. Perseverance and bravery, after all.
I love this community, and I want us all to be here for our entire lives together, still writing, still authoring. Dear Writer, you are important to me. I care if you make it. I want us all to make it together.
Okay.
Time to start the fire.