9 Strategies to Beat Self-Doubt and Build Confidence in Your Book

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode. Today, I'm tackling a topic that really hits home for many aspiring authors and many business owners, and it's overcoming the self doubt and believing in your book's success. Now if you've ever wrestled with doubts about whether your book is going to make an impact, or if you're uncertain about the writing process and the journey, you are not the only person.

[00:00:21] In this episode, I'm going to explore strategies to help build your confidence in your book, share my personal experiences with self doubt as well, and offer some practical advice that's going to help you move forward with belief and determination. So let's get into it. Now let's first of all, understand what self doubt is and I want to position this in a way that you can visualize.

[00:00:43] When you first started your business, what doubts did you have? I guarantee you had so many self doubts when you started that you were wondering whether anyone would buy from you. You were wondering whether you would sell out any courses, sell out your coaching programs.

[00:00:56] Think of it now of this exact same situation. But you're now writing a book. You're going to wonder, will anyone even care about my book? Will I make money from my book? Will people buy my book? And this doubt, it stems from various sources. It's the fear of criticism. It's the imposter syndrome. It's past experiences where you didn't receive the feedback you hoped for.

[00:01:19] For me personally, self doubt really came to a head when I was working on the early drafts of The Six Pillars of Rewarding Life. It was one of the reasons why it took me three years to write that book. , I would question , my own experiences. I would question whether my ideas were original enough, or even if my writing was engaging enough.

[00:01:37] And it was a constant battle between the excitement of writing a book, but the fear of failing. And recognizing that self doubt, it's a natural part of the creative process. And once I was able to recognize it, that was a turning point.

[00:01:52] It's important to understand that these doubts, they don't define your capabilities. They're simply just part of the journey.

[00:01:58] So let's now look at the keys to overcoming self doubt. And the first one is to embrace your unique voice. When I first started writing, I would worry, I was worried that my style was too different or that I wasn't really following the conventional norms because ideally my writing was very simple.

[00:02:15] I wasn't using any fancy words like I tend to read a lot of the time in other books. But over time, I learned that what sets your book apart, it's your unique perspective and voice. You want to embrace your individuality and that's going to allow you to write with the authenticity that you want to convey.

[00:02:32] And your personal experiences, your insights, and style, that's what's going to make your book special. When you lean into your own voice, you not only stay true to yourself, but you also create something that resonates with others. So remember, your uniqueness, that is your strength. It's not your weakness.

[00:02:51] Now, another effective strategy to manage your self doubt is to set realistic goals and celebrate your milestones. Again, when I was working on Six Pillars, I found that breaking down that project into smaller, manageable tasks, that helped reduce my anxiety about getting the book written and made the process feel less overwhelming.

[00:03:10] It's something now I bring in to my business with every single client focus on hitting a certain word count because that is what's going to keep the momentum going and you want to make that word count target manageable and again, less stressful, less overwhelming because you're going to celebrate that small win and that's going to boost your confidence.

[00:03:29] That's going to give you a sense of progress. It's these incremental achievements that is going to build the foundation for your book's success. So setting little small target goals throughout the process, that is what's going to help.

[00:03:43] Now the third strategy to overcome self doubt is of course to seek feedback and support. Don't underestimate the power of feedback.

[00:03:52] Now, when I was developing my book ideas in particular, my titles and my cover design, I was asking anybody and everybody for their opinion and the good thing about, a lot of my friends is they tell me if it's shit and they'll tell me if it doesn't make sense. They'll tell me if they don't like it. And I not only ask my friends, but I'll also ask people who I don't know. And I got a lot of great feedback from that, which really helps enhance one, the title of my books to the cover design of my book and three. The actual content inside the book too. So you want to surround yourself with supportive people who are going to believe in your book and who believe that you can make a significant difference in writing and publishing your book, because that's going to help you overcome that self doubt.

[00:04:40] And the fourth strategy is to visualize success and focus on why you're writing in the process. Visualization, it is such a powerful tool, because when you envision the success of your book and the impact it's going to have, you're going to start believing. and when I finished writing The Six Pillars of Rewarding Life, I went on to write Evolve Your Skills, and then publish to Impact, but because I'd done The first book, the second and third book, it came a whole lot easier to me because I knew I visualized getting one book done and then I could visualize getting two, three, four, five, six books done.

[00:05:15] sO take time to envision the success of your book and the impact it's going to have. And you want to connect that to your why, because that is an important thing, you know, I, the reason why I wrote the six pillars of rewarding life was one to write a book because it was a bucket list of mine, but I never had a business before writing that book, but I wrote it just to share my thoughts, my knowledge and things that I had experiences that I've gone through.

[00:05:39] And. That led to Evolve Your Skills, where I just wanted to keep writing books and become an actual author and make money off my books. But after that book, I then soon realized, well, that's not what I want to do.

[00:05:50] I want to start my own business and I want to help other people become best selling authors because I've done all that. I've experienced all that. I've gone through that and it's now my mission to make that happen. With the people I love to work with and those are business owners and people who have expertise in certain areas because they are fun, they're exciting and for me, they're the kind of people I want to hang around with.

[00:06:11] So the visualization of the success, , did I visualize having a publishing business from my very first book? No, I didn't. But I believed it after writing of all your skills and published to impact.

[00:06:21] So focus on the why and really connect the reason for writing your book because that's also going to help you stay motivated and get your book and the sense of purpose it provides. Wow, God, it's a strong foundation for really overcoming the doubts and staying committed to the publishing and writing process.

[00:06:38] The sixth strategy for overcoming self doubt. Is building resilience through challenges. I'm sure you've done this inside your business. You continue to build resilience throughout the doubts because writing a book, it's going to come with its challenges. It's going to come with its doubts and uncertainty is all part of the process.

[00:06:57] And now I've experienced my fair share of setbacks, but building resilience, it involves acknowledging those challenges and learning from them. You want to use your setbacks as opportunities for growth rather than reasons to give up because each obstacle you overcome, that's going to strengthen your result and it's going to really contribute to your overall success.

[00:07:18] And I want you to remember too, every successful author, they face challenges, but what matters is how you respond to those challenges and keep going.

[00:07:27] The 8th strategy is to focus on your audience. So shift your focus from self doubt to the impact your book is going to have on your audience. And that is really incredibly empowering.

[00:07:38] When I was writing Evolve Your Skills, I reminded myself that the ultimate goal Was to help my readers think about how they developed certain skills or how they develop skills in their life and perform at a high level. So think about the readers who's gonna, who are going to benefit from your book.

[00:07:51] What problems are you solving for? How is your book going to make a difference in their lives by focusing on your audience needs and the value you're providing? That's going to help you push through that self doubt and again, stay motivated.

[00:08:06] And finally, the 9th strategy for overcoming self doubt is by taking consistent action. You Because that is the key. It's a key inside your business. If you're not taking action inside your business, you are not growing. So , taking consistent action is the key to overcoming your self doubt.

[00:08:22] And when working on my books, I found that making steady progress,

[00:08:25] Even in small increments, that helped build my confidence over time, where I can now really confidently say, I can go and write and publish a book inside six months. So set aside regular time for writing and stick to it. And it doesn't have to be two hours. It can be half an hour, it can be 45 minutes, it can be 15 minutes, Because the action breeds confidence.

[00:08:47] So keep moving forward, trust in your process and each step you take, that's going to bring you closer to your goal. And it's going to reinforce your belief in your book's message and in your book's success. So to wrap up this episode, overcoming self doubt, it is super crucial in the journey to writing a successful book.

[00:09:04] You want to embrace your unique voice. You want to set realistic goals. You want to seek feedback. You want to be able to focus on your audience. And you want to build confidence needed to believe in your book success.

[00:09:16] So with determination and persistence, you can transform your self doubt into confidence and achieve the success you want your book to have.

[00:09:24] And if you're ready to take the next step and you want to explore how idea to impact can support you to become a published bestselling author in six months, please join the wait list and you will be first to know when there is another available spot.

[00:09:36] So thanks again for tuning in and here's to overcoming self doubt because you can't go through life without self doubt. There is always going to be some element of it. So here's to it and believing in your book's success.