I came home from college after my freshman year and announced to my Mom that I’d decided to major in psychology. She mentioned that she’d made an A in her college psychology course.
I said, “Oh, I didn’t know that. You must have really enjoyed it and studied a lot.” She said, “No, I just answered everything on the test the opposite of what I thought was right.”
In honor of my Mom, who thought it was all opposite anyway, here’s a list of nine things that are the inverse of conventional wisdom for authors.
- Burn your bridges. Make it impossible to go back to an old habit or way of being. Create an uncomfortable scenario if you postpone completion of your book. Reward yourself for proceeding and not going back. (And even if you have writer’s block, you don’t get to go to the mall during your writing time.)
- Do the opposite of what you normally do when you’re afraid, worried, anxious, uncomfortable, or stuck. If you’re uncomfortable with public speaking, avoidance will increase the fear, so do more of it. Embrace it. Join Toastmasters.
- Obstacles reveal desires. Show me an obstacle, and I’ll show you a desire. Instead of figuring out a way to sidestep, overcome, or go around the obstacle, consider instead not creating it. When you’re ready to recognize that you create an obstacle, you’re ready to consider the possibility of not creating it.
- Discomfort can be a sign of progress. Moving beyond your comfort zone is necessary for progress. Comfortable is not a place you begin, it’s a place at which you can arrive.
- Lean into the unknown. If you wonder whether you can write and sell a book because you’ve never done it before, lean into the action of doing it. You can tiptoe through life very carefully and arrive safely at death.
- Don’t believe every thought you have. “I’ll never be able to write a book.” Thoughts lie a lot. Vincent van Gogh’s sage advice: “If you hear a voice say, ‘I am not a painter,’ by all means paint. Then that voice will be silenced.”
- You do not attract what you want; you create what you focus on. Cue your radar for early recognition. Keep an eye open for stories, illustrations for your book, opportunities to talk about what you’re writing about. A caveat: Talk about your subject, not the book you’re writing, to not dissipate the energy of its writing.
- You only see what you believe. Some things have to be believed in order to be seen. You’ll begin to see more of what you need to write about.
- Believe in someone, and he or she will show you why you do. Neuroscience has demonstrated that authentic belief in someone activates the brain to create a state of mind that transcends usual thinking and performance. That person could be you, the author.