That place of despair..

When is it my turn?!

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A reader wrote to me yesterday, she had reached that place.

It’s a familiar place for so many of us, where all the trying, all the effort doesn’t seem to bare any fruit. Where you start to ask when will things start happening for me. Or what am I doing wrong.This message came in just after I had finished an amazing roundtable session with my peer group.

There are so many things that came from this jam packed session, where we talked about networking and self-promotion in a way that we normally don’t think about.

We call it; Making Friends.

So if you’re in that place, one of the first things I would recommend is watch/listen to that conversation.

And I would add 3 things

Keep Going

Sounds cliche, but I think there are two phases in this journey of getting an agent or getting your first book contract. The first is learning all the things, gaining the knowledge you need. The second is when you feel you’ve done all the things or get overwhelmed, and that’s when the only thing to do is keep going.

Control Your Feelings

Sounds harsh, but either you control your feelings or your feeling will control you. And so the recommendation here is to get your feelings under control. And that means to intentionally and strategically change the way you feel about things. You change that by changing what things mean to you

Here’s an example from the ‘Making Friends’ conversation. If you miss out on a gig it’s not a reflection of you, it’s about finding the right fit for the vision there IS a place for you, but it’s a long game.

Start Championing Others

The group rises together. Get in a group and start championing each other. You will see me almost daily championing peers, mentors, and just anyone who is putting in the work. You can be jealous of others, but it feels so much better to champion others and the benefits are immense.

One final thought

It only looks like overnight success from the outside.

More often it’s an accumulation of daily choices, skilled learned, people met, favours bartered that eventually accumulate to that success.

In sports, the competition is not won on game day.

It’s won in practice. Practice daily, by practice I mean do the work, but do it like it’s game day, and feel the victory each day. Then go again. Embrace the long road ahead and the place you are on the journey, fight hard to win each day.

I read a James Clear quote today:

“Those who aim to win once have goals. Those who aim to win often have systems.”

You could call it a practice. Every 10 minute win compounds into that big result. Even repeatable results.

TEN MINUTE ARTIST PROMPT

Practice Championing

I touched briefly on championing others today, that’s your assignment.

Leave an encouraging comment or share someone else’s work. There is enough opportunity for everyone, if you choose to believe otherwise, you are limiting your vision, the way to expand your vision is to champion others!

How did it feel? Leave a comment.